Together with open tracker initiatives like OpenBitTorrent, torrent storage services such as Torrage could provide the building blocks for many new torrent index sites. This week the idea became reality with the launch of Torrage, which is already in use by some of BitTorrent’s most reputable sources.

The site, which also allows individual users to store torrents online, is hosting hundreds of thousands of torrents already. It is currently in use by Suprnova and the new and improved EZTV site. To get started, Torrage has an API and some example code available for torrent sites owners.

Once the torrent files are uploaded they can be accessed through a url that is based on the info_hash value of the torrent. “You can not search or list torrent files that are stored here, you can only access them if you already know the info_hash value of the torrent you want to download,” the Torrage site explains.

TorrentFreak spoke to several torrent site owners who all agreed that it is a welcome addition to the range of tools they have available now, and we can expect to see more sites with Torrage powered download links in the near future.

Without having to operate a tracker and store the .torrent files, maintaining a torrent site will be less complicated and much cheaper. This aside, some might argue that this decentralized setup will reduce the legal liability for site owners since their part in the BitTorrent chain has been significantly reduced.

Whether the various copyright holders and anti-piracy watchdogs such as BREIN, IFPI and the MPAA will agree with this assessment remains to be seen. Regardless of what they think, Torrage is a service that has the potential to help out many torrent sites, old and new.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. Currently both DVDrips, DVD Screeners and R5 rips are counted.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. Currently both DVDrips, DVD Screeners and R5 rips are counted.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. Currently both DVDrips, DVD Screeners and R5 rips are counted.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Although the DVD Screener of Slumdog Millionaire has been available since December last year, it never made it into our weekly top 10 up until now. According to our estimates the film was downloaded close to a million times after it won the awards last Sunday.

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. Currently both DVDrips, DVD Screeners, BDrips and R5 rips are counted.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Compared to the next largest eD2k site ‘Filenexus’, ShareReactor was twice the size, with millions of pageviews pushed through its servers before The Pirate Bay and Suprnova had even registered their domains.

On March 10th 2004, the site was shut down by Swiss police, who seized the servers and detained the site owner, Christian Riesen, aka Simon Moon, for a day for questioning. Almost immediately the ShareReactor forum reappeared but without the popular eD2k links, and it took until September 2006 for the site to make a full return under new management. However, it wasn’t to last, and within a month the site was closed again.

Of course, there are few things that the file-sharing community love more than a big comeback, and today they aren’t going to be disappointed. ShareReactor, one of the original file-sharing giants, is to return, this time with completely new management team and some serious backing in the form of The Pirate Bay, who will assist with hosting and PR.

Episode 19, in a network far, far away a lone technician plugs in the final cable into an almost forgotten big machine complex, identified by a faded green label as ‘ShareReactor’. Everything hums and comes alive. The first input from the technician is ‘But what does it all mean?’, to which the machines in unison reply: 42!

For eDonkey fans – particularly those who used the site back in 2004 – the site will immediately provide some nostalgia. Although the site has been redesigned, the team has decided to keep the original spirit of 2004 alive with a familiar theme and graphics. Additionally, all of the eD2k links the site had in its database will return, making a truly impressive library, and these are being complemented with fresh links across the whole content spectrum.

Some will argue that BitTorrent is a crucial requirement for a successful P2P site in 2008, and this fact hasn’t eluded the new ShareReactor team. The site will now index both eD2k and .torrent links, offering the very best that the world’s major networks have to offer. Indeed, some 500 new releases have been added already, with some releases on the site offered in dual format – both BitTorrent and eD2k.

‘Utopat’, who leads the four man admin team consisting of ‘chaykin’, ‘DCJoeDog’ and ‘O-MEGA, told TorrentFreak that the site will be keeping up to date with the latest TV series, with links to these being posted promptly to the site. Furthermore, each release – no matter if it relates to a TV show, movie, software or game – will not have multiple versions.

“If it’s not a private torrent site, you see the same TV show episode 20 times, the same game 50 times and with applications you might see hundreds of copies of the same thing,” he told TorrentFreak. On ShareReactor there will be just one .torrent and eD2k link for each release and these will be moderated, ensuring an easy choice for the user and guaranteeing quality.

“There are so many viruses, fake torrents or simply not-working torrents, it’s hard for many users to find what they want. Sure, the seasoned users know how to spot the bad apples, but let’s face it, that’s not the majority,” Utopat told us. These problems won’t be appearing on ShareReactor.

The core of many file-sharing sites lies in the strength of its forum community, and ShareReactor will be no different. The site will have a dedicated standalone forum and for ex-members looking for immediate membership, all they have to do is enter their previous username and password, since they have all been retained. Anyone with a shorter memory or simply new to the site can create a new login with ease.

For those looking to make a few friends and maybe meet up with some faces from the past, ShareReactor has an IRC channel – #ShareReactor on EFNet.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

This is why Tape It Off The Internet seemed like such a good idea until you actually started trying to use it. There are just not enough good shows being made to justify something as complicated and involved as TIOTI. Enter all your favorites and share them with strangers ‘just like you’ and discover… what? That there are only seven good shows in the world at any one time, you were already watching six of them, and they’re all in the Pirate Bay’s Top 100 anyway. When you strip away the hours of dross and advertising, the truth is that the world’s mighty entertainment infrastructure is only capable of producing half a dozen hours of passable content a week. Maybe it’s because they spend the rest of their time on lawsuits.

One of these rare hours is The Wire. If by some small chance you’re not mainlining it already, think yourself lucky. You have four back seasons to enjoy, of what is quite possibly the last great show television will produce before it’s entirely superseded by — well, by whatever is coming around the way.

I’m not sure anyone has ever attempted to make a show of this scope: The Wire’s by-all-accounts-not-very-nice creator David Simon (Homicide, The Corner) has said his theme over the series’ five years has been ‘the decline of the American empire’ — which means decay of its cities through poverty, of traditional jobs, of the education system, of the police force and of the media. For those getting restless at the back, the show’s also got the slickest, nastiest drug slingers you’ll see on screen and is so realistic that the Baltimore Police have apparently complained it reveals too much about how crimes are — or are not — solved; apparently real thugs love it as well.

Find it and download it — though probably David Simon doesn’t want you to and neither does HBO, which has been actively poisoning Torrents of its other shows. Tell everyone you know about it. Maybe those of them still rocking TVs will raise the show’s increasingly dismal viewing figures.

Or maybe that’s no longer the point. While I sympathise with the plight of the David Simons, David Milchs (Deadwood, John from Cincinnati) and Joss Whedons (Firefly) of this world, and would like to help them in future endeavors, I specifically do not sympathise with the plights of the craven, dim-witted, played-out producers that surround them on all sides. And by ‘playing fair’ and buying the DVD or the cable package, besides the fact that most of our money is not going to the creators and their families, aren’t we really saying we accept the meshwork of shit in order to get the two or three gems that occasionally sift through it? Aren’t we signalling the industry that there’s something we still find acceptable about their way of doing business?

Now I suppose this could seem a bit extreme to some. But again and again in blogs and comments about shows like The Wire you hear ‘I’d pay for this if…’ — if it wasn’t DRM’ed all to hell like HBO’s own online offering, if it was freely shareable, good to be watched whenever, wherever, on whatever, without constant interruption by adverts. The kicker is that we’re not only unable legally to liberate and re-distribute shows from the broken, corrupt mechanisms of television and DVD distribution: we also have no way of supporting creators like David Simon and crew outside of it.

This means that right now, people still stupid or unfortunate enough to sit in front of TVs watching months-old shows or paying massive cash-or-attention premiums for the new ones are heavily subsidising us P2Pers. This is genuinely immoral, because we’re really exploiting people less fortunate than ourselves. Instead, we should be helping them out of the wasteland, and thinking of new ways to get the creators we like creating outside the prison of mass distribution. It cannot be that we are able to figure out how to make GNU-Linux – a world-class operating system — together, but not to make a dozen decent shows a year.

The irony is that TV series really feel like they’re coming into their own, just as the media that spawned them is dying. From the ‘high art’ of Deadwood and John From Cincinnati to the epic modern-day myth of Lost to the (dare I call it) Beckettian dark comedy of Trailer Park Boys, the drawn out tales of our series (often consumed a ’season’ at a time: I know at least three people waiting for The Wire to finish before downloading it) are an undeniable core of our emerging P2P culture.

We are the most passionate viewers ever, talking and writing profusely about the media we love, analysing, promoting, hosting free screenings… And they need us as much as we need them — all of these shows, without exception, enjoy their primary life on the networks, through our blogs, comments, reviews, remixes and fan fiction. Lost in particular has learned that incorporating online feedback can make a great (if utterly Shaggy Dog) story.

Can we find a way to get the shows we want made without buying the goddamn DVD? I remember this guy talking really sensibly a couple years ago about how Joss Whedon could get to make another season of Firefly, and we got this project back up his musings. Why didn’t Whedon try it? Because someone else owned his ideas? Perhaps it could have worked otherwise, and maybe it could work for the future. If you’ve got ideas, throw them in the comments box below. And if you have time in between catching up on The Wire, read this by the venerable guru of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly — I’m going to try to get him into the next installment of STEAL THIS FILM. See you around. I’ll be back in two weeks to pick up the pieces.

TorrentFreak welcomes Jamie King as our new bi-weekly columnist. Jamie is the Director of STEAL THIS FILM I & II and a member of the League of Noble Peers. He is currently working on a cinema release of STEAL THIS FILM and prototyping an experimental, post-P2P remuneration system for creators.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

We do not link to actual torrent files because linking to files that link to files that may be copyrighted is something that might get us in trouble.

The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of November 26, 2007…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of November 14, 2007…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Media Defender, a notorious anti piracy gang working for the MPAA, RIAA and several independent media production companies, just launched their very own video upload service called “miivi.com”. The sole purpose of the site is to trap people into uploading copyrighted material, and bust them for doing so.

However, in comments made to Ars technica, Media Defender’s Randy Saaf chose to rubbish our claims, calling it an ‘accidentally un-secured internal project’.

From the emails we cannot be sure that it’s an entrapment site or that it is related to the MPAA (perhaps it’s a legit a P2P video client?), but it does look suspicious.

Unfortunately for Media Defender – a company dedicated to mitigating the effects of internet leaks – they can do nothing about being the subject of the biggest BitTorrent leak of all time. Over 700mb of their own internal emails, dating back over 6 months have been leaked to the internet in what will be a devastating blow to the company. Many are very recent, having September 2007 dates and the majority involve the most senior people in the company. Apparently this is not the first time that a MediaDefender email leaked onto the Internet.

According to the .nfo file posted with the Mbox file the emails were obtained by a group called “MediaDefender-Defenders”. It states: “By releasing these emails we hope to secure the privacy and personal integrity of all peer-to-peer users. The emails contains information about the various tactics and technical solutions for tracking p2p users, and disrupt p2p services,” and “A special thanks to Jay Maris, for circumventing there entire email-security by forwarding all your emails to your gmail account”

Note: The mbox formatted file is circulating publicly on BitTorrent, completely unedited. However, for publication here we have removed the username and password logins for Media Defender’s servers, and replaced them with asterisks and avoided publishing emails of a personal nature, e.g pay negotiations etc. We believe that the emails are the real deal and all the info posted here serves the public interest.

At first we couldn’t believe that it was real, but after we scanned through the e-mails it became clear that it was indeed the real deal. Hundreds of IPs and logins to their servers, lists of their decoy/entrapment trackers, decoy strategies, the effectiveness of their fake torrents (in many cases with a breakdown of success, title specific), high and low priority sites, .torrent watchlists, information on their monitoring of competitors, pictures of their weekend trips and even the anti-piracy strategy for dealing with The Simpsons Movie leak:

# REMINDER: “The Simpson’s Movie” premieres this Friday (to Torrents).

* Decoy files are available in torrents MDfile server.
* Use Public Trackers for pre-Leak releases.
* Create two new trackers for this project.
o Ebert to inform Torrents of these new machines.
* Send a list of 5 release names from each torrent team member to Ebert.
* REMEMBER to input torrent file into interdiction if a real Leak is available this weekend.

It’s impossible to sum up all the juicy details in one post as the amount of information is staggering, so as much as we’d like to tell you about the custom Media Defender software (called ProxyMaster) included in the leak, we’ll focus mainly on the MiiVi case.

Let’s start off with their response to our story about MiiVi.com.

From: Ben Grodsky
Sent: Tue 03-Jul-07 20:19
To: MIIVI; Randy Saaf; Octavio Herrera; Steve Lyons
Subject: MiiVi got Dugg

Looks like the domain transfer has screwed us over:
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-gang-launches-their-own
-video-download-site-to-trap-people/
http://digg.com/users/AcePup/news/dugg

-Ben

And the response from Randy Saaf himself.

This is really fucked.
Let’s pull miivi offline.

Apparently our reports about MiiVi made them really paranoid. They are worried that reporters will apply for jobs just to find out more about their secret project.

From Ben Grodsky, Media Defender

Subject: care in interviewing

Given all the recent Digg, SlashDot and derivative online articles about MD, be careful what you say in job interviews. Specifically, I’m concerned about giving any information BEYOND what’s already on the mediadefender.com website. I’m worried about someone interviewing for a position just for the purpose of getting more info to post online. For example, if anyone asks anything about MiiVi, just reiterate what Randy has said online (it was an internal video project that we probably should have password protected; we were in no way directed to, or working with, the MPAA on that project; NO part of the project was a honeypot designed to trap downloaders).

Seemingly every last detail of the MiiVi preparations are laid bare for all to see, such as these attempts to deal with some unexpected content. Interestingly, if MiiVi was only an internal operation, where on earth did this content come from?:

From Ben Grodsky, Media Defender

Dylan,

I wouldn’t normally e-mail you directly about MiiVi stuff, because a lot of what I say about this is total crap (so keep that in mind) and Jay filters the crap from the important stuff for you. Is there a way to add this hash/title to the porn filter explicitly?

hash=30755326A4E4B28E678BFF8CB2AF5FC4A4FBF710&i=3 (the title is Celebrity deathmatch: Korn vs slipknot and the exact URL is http://129.47.9.160/zonie/media.php?hash=30755326A)

I just flagged it as Other Terms of Use violation. It’s a warthog (or maybe it’s a big bushy dog, I can’t tell) having sex with a woman and NOT a Korn vs. Slipknot mash-up video.

If this is a big deal, don’t worry about it for now.

And, If MiiVi was an internal project only, how does that sit with these attempts to generate lots of traffic?

Dylan,

Another thing we can do to increase Google and other search engine traffic is to get more link-ins. At the next MiiVi meeting, I’m going to ask Randy for permission to incentivize people to link-in a MiiVi video on their MySpace. Colin is already doing this and it helps the word-of-mouth spread, even if the link-ins are nominal. I’m not sure what we could do in the link-in regard early on, but getting the cumulative ~1000+ MySpace friends of MediaDefender employees to see MiiVi link-ins can’t hurt….

Colin — start coming up with a list the list of keywords and descriptors for hidden metadata entries, per Dylan’s e-mail below.

Thanks,
Ben

One can only speculate what the MiiVi client might’ve been capable of, should it have gotten off the ground:

From: Ben Grodsky
To: Jay Mairs
Cc: Randy Saaf
Sent: Wed Jun 20 23:36:54 2007
Subject: miivi emule spoof

Jay,

Do you think it would break a lot and take more time than its worth for the MiiVi application/installer also to act like Serge’s Proxy client and spoof on eMule?

-Ben

Just about every aspect of the company’s operations on every file sharing network is revealed in the emails, including their fake eDonkey server and Soulseek activities, not to mention payroll issues and discussions about what to eat for lunch.

Of course, Mr Saaf was always very keen to distance MediaDefender from MiiVi, as this email shows:

From: Randy Saaf
Sent: Wed 6/13/2007 12:54 AM
To: Colin Keller
Cc: Ben Grodsky; Steve Lyons; Jay Mairs
Subject: miivi emails

Colin:

Set up your email so that you always reply with a ckeller@miivi.com, dmca@miivi.com, or an info@miivi.com address respectively. I don’t want MediaDefender anywhere in your email replies to people contacting Miivi. Steve and Ben can help you set up your email for this. Make sure MediaDefender can not be seen in any of the hidden email data crap that smart people can look in.

I am setting up ckeller@miivi.com to forward to ckeller@mediadefender.com.

R

They made up fake company (MiiVi Inc.), edited their own Wikipedia entries and hosted Miivi on IPs that couldn’t be traced back to MediaDefender.

Ben E:

Can you please do what you can to eliminate this entry? Let me know if you have any success.

R

From: Jay Mairs
Sent: Tue 7/3/2007 9:59 PM
To: Steve Lyons; Randy Saaf; Octavio Herrera
Cc: Ty Heath; Dylan Douglas; Ben Grodsky; Ivan Kwok (gmail)
Subject: Re: MiiVi got Dugg

Steve, please redirect miivi.com to point to an ip that’s not one of ours (random ip or whatever).

Dylan, if there’s nothing critical running on the miivi server, please shut the computer down. If there is something critical on there, please let us know ASAP.

MediaDefender took down MiiVi.com but it seems they aren’t ditching the project but instead looking for a new name because domain names are really important for internal projects:

From: Randy Saaf
Sent: Friday, July 13, 2007 4:44 PM
To: Jay Mairs; Colin Keller
Subject: FW: New miivi name.

Do you like vidber.com or bivvid.com or vidorama.com?
——————————————————-
Reply from: Colin Keller

Vidorama would be my first choice (though it is a bit 70’s, kind of like a bad video rental store). Vidber doesn’t spark much interest (kind of ends too abruptly), and bivvid I’m not really feeling.

Or maybe they’ll just change the domain name to something similar, and move things round a little?

Subject: MiiVi (currently on www.viide.com)
From: grodsky@mediadefender.com
Date: 23/07/2007 18:05
To: michael.potts@artistdirect.com

Michael,

When you get a chance, we would love you to start taking a look at www.viide.com. That is the current home of our MiiVi site. We have totally locked-down the site, while we improve the look and feel from the blogosphere saw. Accordingly, to access the site you will need to login using the following login/password *****/**** (we have also made a login/password for Bobby, in case you think we could use some help with our graphics :) — *****/*****).

Once you log on the site, surf over to www.viide.com/download.php to get our application. The website currently acts a GUI for the application. When we go live with the site for the general public, there will also be a java applet that also minimal/one-off type use of MiiVi (but this feature is inaccessible with the current locked-down version of the site).

From: tabish@mediadefender.com
Date: 27/07/2007 23:56
To: MIIVI@mediadefender.com

I’m not sure if you guys are planning on going live with the Viide domain name….but in case you are….you might want to remove all references of Miivi on the homepage of viide.com before it gets Googled or someone public comes across it. For example, at the bottom under terms of service and on the HTML Title where it says “MiiVi, Inc”, and probably the default image of the skyscrapers (which are the same as Miivi).

Also, the WHOIS information is still linked to MediaDefender, Inc.

-TH

Yes, they need to get on top of the WHOIS situation before someone sees it.

After the MiiVi incident, we later reported that Media Defender owned the p2p.net domain name. A little later, our claims were proven correct when they made the p2p.net domain link back to our own article, which it still does to this day. We took this as a compliment and this is what the guys had to say about it:

From: Ben Grodsky
To: Jay Mairs; Ben Ebert; Octavio Herrera
Sent: Fri Jul 13 12:18:02 2007
Subject: FW: p2p.net on digg and torrentfreak

this is too funny. torrentfreak accused us of buying p2p.net on ebay earlier this year. Randy found out and redirected it to that vary article on torrentfreak. now there’s an article about the redirected p2p.net!

We admit it, it was quite funny at the time and proved that even anti-piracy guys have a sense of humor but sadly, it’s doubtful that the comedy will extend through this latest episode, as it’s expected that thousands of file-sharers will dissect and disseminate their commercially sensitive data into every corner of internet.

For a business model that gets its life-blood from piracy, in a twisted way this leak is likely to help generate even more business and develop the market. Funny old world.

Update: MediaDefender Phone Call and Gnutella Tracking Database Leaked

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of February 25, 2007…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of February 17, 2007…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

One of the btjunkie admins has found a unique way to identify trackers that host these fake files, which makes it easy to efficiently remove them.

Virtually all the servers that spread these fake files are located in Southern California and Las Vegas. The administrators of these servers follow patterns that make it easy to identify them. The content of the trackers and seed amounts make them stand out. There are more unique characteristics, but we wont reveal all the tricks because they could take counter measures. Here are some examples of servers that host and track fake torrents:

Tracker 1, Tracker 2, Tracker 3 & Tracker 4. (Screenshots: One & Two)

All the information was provided to me by one of the admins of btjunkie, who works together on this with other torrent site admins. He says that the MPAA and friends use a variety of tactics. The tracker will either stall everyone at around 90% or the content will just be a blank monochrome screen.

“I really think this is being done by professionals with a budget, that’s a lot of servers to setup and it takes some expertise to setup in the manner that they did it,” says the btjunkie admin. “I don’t think I really need to say who would spend money on something like this.”

Here are some good examples of how these fake torrents clutter up the search results. Virtually all of those X marked torrents are coming from the ip-ranges we mentioned, and are fake files. The good thing is that Torrentportal’s report system is well used by their users.

The server boxes that host these torrents fall in serveral ip-ranges. Here are a few of the ranges that were discovered recently. You can easily add these to the blocklist of your torrent client (if it supports one), filewall, or blocklist manager.

The anti-piracy servers use hostnames like 101tracker.dhcp.biz, aplustorrents.qhigh.com, bitnova.squirly.info, bittorment.ocry.com, and pirate-trakkrz.leet.la. All these hostnames can be traced back to the same IP Ranges, these ranges contain possibly hundreds of fake trackers, so feel free to block them:

A list of infohashes of fake torrents can be found over here.

Note that it’s not only MPAA material that is hosted on these fake trackers. It is more likely that the servers are owned and operated by an organization that logs IP addresses for several copyright owners and or anti-piracy organizations.

Update: according to one of out readers these ip-ranges belong to “Media Defender“, a company that is hired by copyright owners, to log IP-addresses. This reader, who worked for Media Defender until recently, confirmed that some of the torrents that were mentioned, are indeed on the MPAA’s list.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.