Trading BitTorrent Tracker Invites – Commodity or Curse?
Written by Ben Jones on January 15, 2008In recent months, many private trackers have moved to an invite-based system in an attempt to try and weed out so-called ‘bad peers’. They do this through a chain of trust. Many users, though, are attempting to use invites for their own profit, putting themselves and others into the firing line.
When private torrent sites first started, they were little known, and small. To join, you had to know about the site, and if you were lucky enough to find a slot you could join (most sites were small, with 10,000 members max). Most private sites were (and are) perceived as exclusive communities. Members who do get in often share more, not only because it is required, but also because they want to be a good member of the community.
As time went on, torrents became more popular and the membership of private BitTorrent trackers increased. Part of it was speed – such sites tend to have better ratios of seeds to peers. Other factors are the absence of garbage and the fact that duplicates are kept to a minimum. However, such factors made them also prime targets for the anti-piracy groups. After the joint ICE and FBI raids against the US-based BitTorrent tracker, EliteTorrents, in 2005, even though it became clear that such investigators were members of such sites, invites became popular.
The theory behind invite-sharing is simple: Someone you know, who happens to be a member of a site invites you to join. You are known to them, and it should restrict the ability of people with bad intentions to join. “good members” invite their friends, who become good members, and are likely to be ’safe peers’. In time, these new members would get/earn invites of their own, and they invite people they trust.
The problem is, many of these sites have members that promote their favorite site as ‘the best’, ‘the fastest’, ‘the safest’, or some other praise. Best is subjective, fastest often depends on luck and timing as much as anything else, and I discussed safety almost a year ago. Regardless of the truth of these statements, many sites have a cult following, and demand for invites to private trackers skyrocketed. People started to beg and plead for invites, and to trade them, or even worse, sell them. This is where things get problematic.
The invite system was based on a chain of trust. Yet now, a lot of people trade invites with strangers. They often know nothing about the other except that they’re a member of one site wanting another’s invite, and their email address. The chain of trust is often broken on large trackers, and the entire system is circumvented. Some consider this to be a problem, others believe it doesn’t really matter in most cases, because most people who do get in have to obey the rules anyhow.
There are some negative side effects of the scarcity of invites. Some users have started selling invites on ebay (such as for what.cd or waffles.fm), and trading sites have also popped up, some of which are attempting to profit from invites.
Of course, the final word comes from the admins of the private torrent sites themselves. Every one TorrentFreak spoke to reiterated that if you are found to have sold invites, your account will be deleted, as will the invited account. Still, people will be greedy, and try to profit from their invites. The most important message seems to be, sharing invites is a good thing, but watch out who you’re sharing with.
What do you think?
Previously: MediaDefender Hacker Speaks Out
Next: Director “Won’t think less of you” for Downloading Hit Movie on BitTorrent
77 Responses
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the site i use asks its members not to mention the sites name on forums etc and is invite only , can only be a good thing i think as you dont end up with loads of idiots on there, demonid for example, good content but hundreds of dupes and w4nkers in the comments bit saying things dont work or films are out of sync when they were perfectly fine etc
[quote comment="264171"]What a lame article. You said nothing new.[/quote]
What a lame idiot. You said nothing new.
To those of you saying “Lurk in the IRC Channel”
Tell me what Waffles.fm’s channel is and where so I can lurk already. The website does not show the IRC Channel listing anywhere.
considering invites are not easy to get, some people are willing to pay for it cause nobody invites them. I’ve offered $$, but i guess someone generous notices how desperate I was, so i got an invite from them without asking for my $$.
Its called the free market.
Hell, we’d all like to see the RIAA abide by its dictates. We can’t very well get pissed off when the laws of the market effect the torrent community.
what kills me is that I had a great account, with a good ratio, on Demonoid. When that site went offline, a friend of mine (yeah, IRL friend no less) gave me an OiNK invite, which I kept a good ratio on. Then they went offline too.
Now, the only place that has decent Mac torrents is BrokenStones, and the only way to get an invite is to beg strangers. That kinda defeats the whole purpose of invites.
So, while I loved the private trackers for the checks and balances - I also hate them for keeping good filesharers, abandoned by C&D orders, from getting in.
It’s a win-lose situation, really.
i hate invites
why is sharing this much hassle???
its for fags
A problem with exclusive sites that require an invite is: I live in an isolated area. There are few people here, How do we get an invite to what may be a good site? I hate to say it, but the pirate bay and a few others have gotten to big and bloated with trash and duplicated torrents. Another problem with exclusive sites is: if the seeds excedes the peers, how do you ever get to or exceded a 1 to 1 ratio?
You people are idiots. Sharing copyrighted material is against the law and is wrong. Please shut the fuck up and be quiet before you all get caught. Why do you think demonoid was shut down? there were countless blogs and posts by stupid people like you praising the site and telling the world what was in them. If you all would do your part and STFU about these sites and just do your thing the chances of you being caught and the site being taken down would drop exponentially.
this is simple guys and gals, bit torrent is like fight club. You DO NOT talk about bit torrent. The site is private for a reason, if you cant find your way in then stick with TPB or BTJ or something public that has shitty speeds and no one shares. If you want a chance to get in, get an irc client and connect to some servers, a quick search with google should point you in the right direction. Good luck. Maybe I’ll see you there ;)
Im not going to say exactly where to go since I had to find my own way there and into these private trackers.
I dream of the day the entire BT community grows so much that there can be some sort of “partnership” or collaboration between private trackers. Think about it, a lot of great seeders from TL, Demonoid, oink, etc… might want to join other sites. Wouldn’t it be cool if the admins of 2 different trackers would let, even if in smaller quantities and limited time, join each other communities?
It’s a win-win because chances are that if you are a good member on [bit torrent tracker x] you are going to be a good seeder on [bt tracker z].
I mean, there could be ways for some users to abuse this system… but it would be nice…
Either that or I have just run out of ideas to try and join bitmetv.org
:-)
[quote comment="266703"]You people are idiots. Sharing copyrighted material is against the law and is wrong. Please shut the fuck up and be quiet before you all get caught. Why do you think demonoid was shut down? there were countless blogs and posts by stupid people like you praising the site and telling the world what was in them. If you all would do your part and STFU about these sites and just do your thing the chances of you being caught and the site being taken down would drop exponentially.[/quote]
YOU STFU “Sharing copyright material is against the law”
I think we all know that you little cockweasel, now go back to your media-locker d0uchebag and stay in there.
The site that I’m part of the staff, people get caught trading, they get banned and also all those who that person invited.
Let me tell you a story of mine :
Last year a work colleague of mine invited me to OINK. By the time OINK was closed I had a ratio of over 2.0 and I had contributed something like 400GB to the community.
Oink is dead and I’m homeless. This elitist invite only attitude is a complete crock of shit. I’m surely in the top 5% based on contribution’s alone yet here I am, not downloaded a single song in 3 months.
Of course should you have an invite i wouldn’t turn it down…. telehouse@googlemail.com ? please do…
People deal with it. You are either 1. stupid
2. annoying
3. simply not trying.
Also Blogs like this are bad for the torrent community. Any kind of advertisement is. Please be quiet people.
Torrent Bully invite (excellent site!)
for your IP Torrent invite.
blown_prix@yahoo.com
thanks
anyone out there who can spare an invite to what.cd would be an awesome gift and i will not disappointment you.
wilkesdidit@gmail.com
I´ve an invite for torrentleech and vipv2… I need an invitation for waffles.
Thanks
If you want invites, or have something to giveaway, visit http://darkinvites.org
We are a newish community with 250 members, and we will help you out, if you help us out
http://darkinvites.org/index.php?referredby=1
Now with lots of users, join people, great to be all your invite needs.
I don’t think an invite based system is a bad thing,although it may be a little flawed.I run an invite trading and giveaways site ( no selling ) and it makes sense to have an invite system because even if people are not giving the invite to someone they know, at least its going to someone they most likely checked out to make sure they would be a good member of that site.The invite system is in effect for that very reason, so they get good bittorrent members who will seed back what they take.Sure you have d-bags selling the invites, but thats why people who trade need to start giving them away more,if they’re more easily available then people will stop paying.So I say its half commodity half curse.
my site where you can get
free invites http://invitenation.org
I think its upto the site owners to decide whether they want to be exclusive or not. I feel some users just collect trackers for the heck of it, while some actually devote time to the community and use it.
Rocky
Webmaster @ http://www.pokermoviefanatic.com
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forum with tracker invites: http://www.trackers.myforum.ro/
it is hard as hell to seed to a 1:1 ratio on private sights. there arent as many people on them as public trackers, and the only private tracker I know of that gives you credit towards upload ratio just for seeding the torrent regardless if anyone is downloading it or not is iptorrents.
hell I JUST got banned from bitmetv for having a low ratio- but I seeded that shit like I was a whore, but I still got no gain towards ratio-and how the hell are you supposed to keep all those gigs on your pc while you wait for someone to download that shit-me I got a laptop so there is noooo way
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