TorrentFreak

Private torrent sites have a much lower profile than say, The Pirate Bay, but there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of them online, going about their business behind closed, invite-only walls. However, when it comes to providing access to content, private trackers are quite different from their public counterparts. Instead of a Pirate Bay-style free-for-all, access to pirate content is held back by site admins and only unlocked when members contribute to the health of the community.

The much-discussed U.S. six strikes anti-piracy scheme should consider targeting private BitTorrent trackers according to a report by Stroz Friedberg. The suggestion is published in the evidence review which was made public after bias accusations arose two weeks ago. In addition to eyeing private trackers the report also recommends a more secure way to send incriminating data to Internet providers.

TorrentIt is far from a newcomer in the BitTorrent community. The tracker has been around since 2004, but since it ran into the Duch anti-piracy lobbyists from BREIN, it has been offline. This weekend, however, the site officially relaunched, with help from their friends over at DigitalHive.

Norbits, the largest Norwegian BitTorrent tracker is going through some rough times. For several days now, the site has been offline due to a DDoS attack. The site has allegedly been hacked by a group called MORRADi, which is threatening to publish all IPs and more information on the users, unless the tracker is closed.

Thousands of private BitTorrent trackers using the popular TBDev code are vulnerable to hostile takeover. According to a security researcher, a successful execution of the exploit could result in the attacker gaining admin rights to the tracker. However, knowledge and a little care can mitigate the effects.

The first thing to notice when you join a private BitTorrent site is the eye-popping quality of the torrents. Each one is carefully culled, hand-picked through a strict moderation process. However, before you start hammering away on that download link – here are a few things you need to know.

Since the birth of restrictions, there’s always been someone ready to set-free. BitTorrent set media free and then for a multitude of reasons, private torrent trackers restricted it. It appears that a group of people have published a method to allow non-members to leech private trackers for free. But at what cost?