With both the Pirate Bay and OpenBitTorrent trackers down at the moment, many people are unable to download torrents unless they enable DHT. Luckily there are a few backup trackers that people can use, and thanks to Google’s free App Engine, everyone can setup a tracker of their own in a few minutes.
The Internet can prove complex to some, especially copyright holders. Recently, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) notified the webhosting company of a BitTorrent tracker dedicated to Open Source Software, that it was infringing copyright of one of their clients. Without any notice, the webhosting company pulled the tracker offline, not realizing that the tracker had done nothing wrong.
Last month, the prominent Malaysian ISP “Shinjiru” had shut down several torrent sites, following pressure from the government. Strangely enough, after a few days of downtime some of the sites started to reappear, like nothing had happened. However, those sites who did not leave, are now being tapped.
