A person using the nickname Zeiko is claiming responsibility for the DDoS action, which was initially intended to force What.cd staff into giving out an invite.

Zeiko joined IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to convince site staff that he already had an account, but when the admins couldn’t find any record of it in the database Zeiko turned his anger on the site.

“What.cd is now being under DDoS attack until I get my invite,” he wrote in What.cd’s IRC channel.

While these kinds of threats are not uncommon, this one proved to be serious when What.cd became unreachable.

Later the same user started a Twitter account using the handle “Zeiko Anonymous” announcing the “Piracy DDoSes” with What.cd as the first target.

But it didn’t stop there. After a few hours Zeiko was looking to inflict more damage, asking whether PassThePopcorn.me (PTP) or Broadcasthe.net (BTN) should be next.

The disgruntled user settled for the latter and announced BTN as Piracy DDoS Project #2. The TV-tracker has been in maintenance mode ever since.

During the day four more attacks were launched against IPTorrents, HDBits, The Vault and SceneAccess.

At the time of writing What.cd, BroadcastTheNet and SceneAccess remain inaccessible. The other sites can be reached but were offline earlier today.

From the looks of it Zeiko (who now hates torrents) is indeed responsible for the downtime at these popular private BitTorrent trackers, but thus far we haven’t been able to get this confirmed by any of the site staff.

One thing’s for certain though, torrent invites are serious business.

Update: The BTN site and tracker are back.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Neither tracker hosts torrent files, but they do coordinate the downloads of millions of BitTorrent users every day.

Considering the high volume of requests the two trackers have to deal with, one can presume that they have pretty significant bills to pay at the end of each month. Both OBT and PBT therefore abandoned TCP support last year and became UDP-only trackers.

However, since many users kept adding HTTP addresses to their torrents, and because many old torrents also still list these, both trackers became overloaded with resource intensive HTTP requests.

To address this issue, Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij submitted an official proposal to the developer forum which is operated by uTorrent’s parent company BitTorrent Inc. His solution was to create special DNS entries where tracker owners can specify what traffic they allow and what not.

The operators of OBT and PBT welcomed this request, but weeks went by without even a single comment on the proposal. In protest, the two largest BitTorrent trackers decided to strike and go offline.

TorrentFreak covered the news two weeks ago, and within days BitTorrent’s developers implemented a fix. The latest Beta release of uTorrent now checks whether a tracker has UDP support before it tries to connect to the HTTP address, easing the load on trackers.

Meanwhile, several prominent people in the BitTorrent community such as EZTV’s Novaking and FrostWire’s Gubatron joined the discussion. And not without result.

This week the proposal was turned into an official BitTorrent protocol enhancement draft, listing Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij and BitTorrent’s Arvid Norberg and Chris Brown as authors. In the upcoming 3.3 Alpha release of uTorrent the new functionality will be enabled by default.

The operators of OBT and PBT have been following the progress and confirmed to TorrentFreak that they will bring the trackers back online in the coming week.

OpenBitTorrent’s owner applauds the developers for coming up with a quick fix, despite the slow start.

“This is going to save us a considerable amount of money and will benefit the BitTorrent community in the long run. It’s a great step forward and guarantees the survival of open BitTorrent trackers,” he said.

The protocol improvement, which will be implemented in the upcoming uTorrent release, also gives web admins the ability to prevent their sites being hammered by BitTorrent traffic. Whether it’s from malicious attacks or people who mistakenly add the URL of a BitTorrent index in the tracker list of a torrent, both types of traffic can be quickly blocked.

One of the downsides of the protocol enhancement is that it also allows Internet providers to block BitTorrent trackers through DNS records. However, this is not really a “threat” as ISPs who want to block traffic to BitTorrent trackers already have plenty of means to do so.

Overall, the impact of the changes will be positive for the BitTorrent community at large, not least due to OBT and PBT becoming accessible to BitTorrent users again. This will reboot torrents that stopped working and speed up those that were running on DHT only.

Besides uTorrent/BitTorrent, Frostwire also confirmed that they will implement the new proposal and it will be no surprise if other clients follow suit.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The trackers are the two most-used BitTorrent trackers, and both are generally coordinating the downloads of tens of millions people at any given point in time. However, starting a few days ago the trackers stopped working entirely, and not without reason.

The admin of OpenBitTorrent informed TorrentFreak that both trackers are on strike. Both will remain offline until a solution is found for the massive waste of bandwidth that BitTorrent users generate as the result of incorrect tracker announces.

Both OBT and PBT abandoned TCP support to become UDP-only trackers last year. This was done to save resources. However, because many users keep adding HTTP addresses and since many old torrents also include these, both trackers are overloaded with bogus announces.

For OpenBitTorrent this means that more bandwidth and resources are wasted on erroneous traffic than on legitimate announces.

The same problem also hurts many torrent sites that don’t even operate a tracker. Many novice users add URLs of BitTorrent indexes to the “trackers” field when they generate a torrent. This results in a flood of unwanted traffic to these sites.

The issue has been brought to the attention of BitTorrent developers in the past, and two months ago Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij submitted an official proposal to the developer forum which is operated by uTorrent’s parent company BitTorrent Inc.

Neij’s proposal is to add a functionality that allows website and tracker owners to inform BitTorrent clients whether connections are allowed or not.

The operators of PublicBitTorrent, OpenBitTorrent and many others have welcomed the proposal, but weeks passed by without a comment from BitTorrent Inc. This prompted the operators of BitTorrent’s largest tracker to go on strike.

“We can’t keep paying for a shitload of boxes because they won’t implement simple policy features,” OpenBitTorrent’s admin told TorrentFreak. “PBT and OBT are on strike until the issue is resolved, we can’t continue to pay bills that are much higher than what they should be.”

The bills are not the only problem either, as the admin points out that without a fix BitTorrent clients can be abused to DDoS any website.

“If you wanted to DDoS a website now with torrent clients, all you would have to do is hack a few torrent sites and add the URL of the site you want DDoSed to the torrents and magnet URLs they are displaying.”

For BitTorrent users, on the other hand, the strike of BitTorrent’s largest trackers is causing problems. Without central trackers it takes much longer to find peers, and users who don’t have DHT enabled will notice that their torrents stop working entirely if there is no backup tracker.

Luckily most torrent clients have DHT enabled by default, but there are hundreds of thousands of BitTorrent users out there who have it disabled.

TorrentFreak contacted BitTorrent Inc. before the weekend and asked them for a response to the proposal. We will add their statement to this article when it comes in, but for the time being BitTorrent users will have to do without the two largest trackers.

Update: BitTorrent told TorrentFreak that they are working on a short-term fix to resolve this issue. More on this later.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The levels of work and expertise required to run a large torrent site shouldn’t be underestimated of course, but there are also hundreds of hobbyists out there who have the desire to set up a small torrent site of their own. WP-Trader is aimed at the latter, and it has a wide range of features that support the needs of every self-aspiring torrent site admin.

WP-Trader developer Andrew Walker told TorrentFreak that he saw the need for an ultra-simple torrent script through his half-decade long involvement in the forums of the popular Torrent Trader script.

“All of the torrent tracker source codes out there are unique or good in their own ways, but I saw a lack in one click install and setup for torrent sites since only a couple of sources offer that function. On a daily basis I saw people coming into the forums having problems with install and setup of their sites,” Walker told TorrentFreak.

“I do have a strong belief that if you do not know how to install or mod your own torrent site then you should not be running a torrent site but something like WP-Trader can benefit artists who have little to no knowledge about how to set up a site,” Walker adds.

So the idea for WP-Trader was born, and little over a month ago the first version was released via the WordPress plugin repository. Since then, Walker and his co-developer Lee Howarth have added new updates every week, and they’re dedicated to improving it further during the coming months.

“At the moment the plugin is still in beta and does lack a lot of features but new things are being added weekly. The plugin was built around Torrent Trader V2.07 and some things you see in Torrent Trader will stay, we were are trying to use a lot of the built-in functions of WordPress,” Walker adds.

The current release already comes with a wide range of options and a fully functioning tracker. Users can choose to make all uploads public and allow external trackers for example, but it’s also possible to run a completely private tracker with ratio requirements and wait times for lower user classes.

In addition, WP-Trader comes with several widgets, to show off the latest uploads and most active torrents for example. The full list of features is too long to list here, but you can get a glimpse of the options below.

While WP-Trader already has all the features a basic torrent site needs, there is still a lot of work to be done. Aside from ironing out the bugs and implementing new features such as support for anonymous uploads, the developers will also work on a more seamless integration with WordPress.

“We plan on fully integrating it as closely as possible with WordPress because WordPress has plenty of features or plugins to handle certain things which we feel that should not be added to the plugin,” Walker says.

The WP-Trader team hopes that a lot of people will take the plugin for a spin, and provide feedback where needed. WP-Trader is available for download in the official WordPress repository, which also hosts a FAQ section and some pointers on how to get a torrent site up and running in no time.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

That said, there are also thousands of smaller trackers that are used for only a handful of torrents. Some people have their own tracker to share ‘private’ files and others just run one as a hobby project. With Bitstorm, everyone can now run their very own BitTorrent tracker with relative ease, and with a minimum of technical knowledge.

Everyone who has access to a PHP-enabled hosting account can setup a tracker in less time than it takes to read this post. The GPL licensed software literally consists of just a single PHP file with just a few lines of code. Upload the file to your server, and a new tracker is born.

Developer Peter Caprioli explains that he coded Bitstorm when his search for a simple, no-nonsense BitTorrent tracker failed.

“I found myself in the need of sharing a couple of big files a while back with about 20 people. BitTorrent was the preferred protocol because it is fast and I do not have to upload the same content 20 times over. I started searching for a tracker that I could install on my server.”

“After some research, none of the trackers I tried worked the way I wanted them to work. They came with all types of bloat that I didn’t need, I just needed a basic tracker that does nothing else but keep track of peers. After reading this awesome article, Bitstorm was born,” Caprioli adds.

As far as installation goes Bitstorm can’t get much easier. On most Linux-powered web servers it works out of the box, no configuration needed. For other operating systems one has to open the PHP file with a text editor and change the path to the peer database, all other parameters are optional.

Bitstorm is by far the simplest, most dummy-proof standalone BitTorrent tracker we’ve ever seen. It’s certainly not as efficient or feature rich as the excellent Opentracker software, but for hobbyists it’s certainly good enough.

For those getting excited, the Bitstorm source code is available here and more info can be found at the project page. Feel free to mention your own public tracker below in the comments, Bitstorm or not.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

A few months ago, however, the tracker suddenly went offline for no apparent reason. The official blog went silent and calls from the public to the once popular tracker remained unanswered.

Even today the old denis.stalker.h3q.com is still unresponsive, but the people behind the project did revive it under a new name a few days ago. The denis.stalker tracker has moved to a new home at tracker.ccc.de.

One of the reasons for the change in domain name is the recent rounds of seizures where several file-sharing related domains were pulled offline. Although the standalone tracker is not the first target that would come to mind, a non-US controlled domain is simply the safest option nowadays.

The tracker is now hosted on the main domain of the influential hacker organization Chaos Computer Club (CCC), which is one of the best spots to be in. The German based CCC has more than 4000 members and hosts Europe’s largest hacker congress December each year.

One of the main motives of CCC is to strive for “freedom of information,” with fits well with the operation of one of the largest BitTorrent trackers on the Internet.

The new tracker address responds on port 6969, just like the old one. This means that people who know how to edit their hosts file can update it to allow torrents with the old domain-name to work.

http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce => http://tracker.ccc.de/announce
udp://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce => udp://tracker.ccc.de:80/announce

To help the adoption of the new tracker address The Pirate Bay is adding it to all new torrents that are uploaded to the site. At the time of writing, the new domain has been in use for just a few days, but it is already tracking 58,787 torrents and over 500,000 peers.

So, although the denis.stalker.h3q.com name is not coming back, the service it provided has been reinstated. That, plus an army of hackers to defend it in case outside forces try to silence it. Not a bad change at all.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Yes, all those nay-sayers and early fans that have populated the comment sections of our previous stories on Gazelle can finally prove the exploits and bad coding that they’ve been claiming, as the first public release candidate of the script is now available for download.

Reactions from those that have given the site a try, have been mostly positive. The main negative comments stem from the fact it’s not an intuitive install. Part of that comes from the memory caching software , memcached , which gives the project its ‘blazing speed’. Also, right now the system uses XBTT as a tracker, but we’re told that it will have its own (multithreaded) tracker ready for later versions, codenamed ‘Ocelot’.

Also, as things stand, while they hoped for around a doubling of capacity over the older TBsource script, in practice it’s become more like double that, meaning a 10,000 user site under TBSource can probably handle 40,000 without any major difference in site response or system load. Project head WhatMan told TorrentFreak: “We out-shot our initial projections by a very wide margin.”

Interest in Project Gazelle has been fairly strong, and at least half a dozen sites are now running the new script. Perhaps more interestingly, though, is that Gazelle isn’t JUST a torrent site. Due to its modular nature, it can be used for regular sites as well. It’s a bit like a content management system in that respect, and perhaps our earlier comparison to Diferior wasn’t all that far from the mark.

If you’re interested in getting your hands on the Gazelle code, then just head over to the project site and follow the instructions. The whole kit-and-caboodle is released under a modified version of the GPL, so have fun.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Speed, however, has been greatly improved over older codes, as well as hardware impact. Its developers estimate that a site running Gazelle can handle approximately twice the number of users that an existing TBsource based site can, on the same machinery, meaning sites can either add more users, or reduce server costs. Contrary to earlier beliefs, a tracker will be offered with the project when it goes public, meaning that everything needed to create a site will be included in one easy package.

How easy is that package to use, though? For the user, it’s very easy. Many people have got used to uploading a torrent file, then having to re-download it before they can start seeding. It’s annoying, and often confuses first time uploaders. Now, if the private flag is applied when the torrent is made, no re-download is needed. It may be a little touch, but it’s one that helps.

Other small touches include tagging, by genre, or style, or whatever the site wants to allow. For films, it means the likes of ‘Rush Hour’ can be tagged ‘comedy’ and ‘action’, allowing easier navigation, and avoiding those questioning niggles of ‘is it more comedy, or more action’ that existing genre-based category systems cause. Having found the title you want, other versions of the same item, in differing formats can be found there too. Again, all this is customizable by the site admin.

Admin tools also seem easy to use, and manage, with less frustrations. Modifying the code to fit the particular needs of a site will also be relatively easy. That’s not to say it’s going to be for everyone. If you’re looking for a small site, then something along the lines of Diferior may be better.

As for downsides, well, it’s an alpha product at the moment, so there are still a lot of bugs to be worked out. Existing TBsource themes will not work with Gazelle, but i’m told they should be fairly easy to create for anyone with experience in making themes. However, it is a positive step moving tracker software forward. The torrent world has needed an easy to use replacement for the aging TBsource, and Gazelle seems like it will fit the bill. How it actually behaves in practice, and the experiences of those starting to deploy it from scratch, are something we will have to wait and see about. Yet, for only 4 months work, it is showing phenomenal potential.

Screenshots

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

It is of course not clear what this all means, but without an official message from the Demonoid team, speculation has started. Could it be that the site has found a new host, and preparing a return? Many former Demonoid members are secretly hoping that this is indeed the case.

Last December, Deimos, the founder and main admin of what used to be one of the most popular BitTorrent trackers, posted a message on the Subdemon forums on the possibility of a return. At the time he wrote: “Money is an issue, but the real problem at the moment is finding a suitable place to host the website. There has been no luck there. And there’s some personal stuff I need to take care of that takes most of my time at the moment, and that does not help.”

For those who forgot, here is a recap of what has happened so far. The trouble for Demonoid started back in June, when the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN started to put pressure on Demonoid and their ISP, Leaseweb. Deimos decided that the Netherlands wasn’t the safe haven it used to be and he to moved the site to Canada, which resulted in a few days of downtime.

Deimos never really told the administrators or members of the site exactly what was happening. Initially, most members assumed that there was some hardware failure, but after a few days it became clear that Demonoid was more or less forced to move. Maybe there could have been hardware failures too, who knows, but the outcome was the same – Canada here we come.

Relocating the servers to Canada initially solved the problems, but, by the end of September Deimos took Demonoid offline for the second time. Again, nobody knew what was going on until we found out that the CRIA was responsible for the downtime, which was later confirmed by Deimos. It turned out that Canada wasn’t the best choice after all.

After 5 days of downtime the site returned, now blocking all traffic from Canadian users in an attempt to calm down the CRIA. At first it looked like the storm was finally over, but on November 9th Demonoid’s users were welcomed by a disappointing message on the frontpage explaining that the CRIA was indeed responsible for the downtime.

So will Demonoid ever return? The fact that the tracker is back online, in a different location seems to suggest that there is something happening.

Update: February 20, tracker offline again after 3 days uptime.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

December 2006

576.080 torrents,
4.274.698 peers

December 2007

914.717 torrents
8.390.682 peers

To keep up with the growing demand from its users, The Pirate Bay has added more and more hardware to their server park. Another significant change this year is the migration from Anakata’s Hypercube to the open source Opentracker software. The new software is more stable, uses less resources and supports UDP tracking.

The Pirate Bay’s Brokep told TorrentFreak that they should be able to double the amount of peers on the trackers without any hardware upgrades. “Since the last performance tweaking and router-tweaking we’ve removed all bottlenecks.” Brokep said, and he expects the tracker to hit 10 million peers during the next big holiday.

There is also a downside to this positive news of course. The growth of The Pirate Bay is in part due to the problems at Demonoid had this year and the fact that Isohunt (TorrentBox) disabled access for US users to their trackers because of the issues they have with the MPAA.

Demonoid and TorrentBox were the second and the fourth most used public BitTorrent tracker respectively, so this was a great loss. It is estimated that approximately 50% of all public .torrent files are now tracked by The Pirate Bay, it is scary to imagine what will happen if their servers will stop working.

Luckily there’s also good news, as new trackers such as sumotracker.org and denis.stalker.h3q.com became pretty popular in just a few months. Both newcomers track more than a million peers now. Besides this, The Pirate Bay have already announced that they’re not going anywhere. They told us that they will simply move to another country if they are outlawed in Sweden, without downtime!

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.