TorrentFreak

• enigmax
• July 30, 2011
• 210
• IMAGiNE,
  XtremeSpeeds
• Print

The administrator of a growing private BitTorrent tracker is reporting that he has been raided by the authorities. The admin of XtremeSpeeds says that he was questioned on suspicion of being involved with leading P2P release group IMAGiNE. While the investigation is underway, XtremeSpeeds will remain offline.

XtremeSpeeds is a multi-focus private BitTorrent tracker now well into its third year of operation. According to information from its administrator, it may never see its fourth.

On July 28th, the admin of XtremeSpeeds had his house raided by the authorities.

He says he was questioned under suspicion of being part of IMAGiNE, one of the leading P2P release groups.

Although the allegation is denied, the admin notes that “I did rent a server to a guy who rented it out,” which seems to suggest that he now has suspicions about who might have been using the equipment in question.

“I’ve tempory [sic] closed the site till after the investigation. I’m expecting a court case in coming months,” he concludes.

A meeting with a lawyer is planned for August 1st and up until recently a PayPal link to donate money to a legal fund was displayed on the site. That has now been removed.

At this stage it is unclear where the admin is based, although the site took donations in British pounds.

Readers may have noticed that TorrentFreak does not regularly report on the world of private trackers. While some might thank us for keeping their communities low-key, our motivations are often quite different.

Aside from a limited interest in these communities in the wider world, the fact is that some private sites simply love to fight. In fact, if some of these disputes were in the flesh, people would be seriously injured. Sorting out who threw the first virtual punch and why is extremely difficult making even close to accurate reporting impossible.

However, what we can say with relative certainty is that P2P group IMAGiNE (who also have their own private tracker) had enemies, enemies like rival release group EP1C whose recent threats included revealing the personal identities of IMAGiNE members.

Equally, IMAGiNE made multiple allegations about EP1C having connections to the FBI. What the allegations all have in common is they have proven impossible to investigate through sources without a vested interest.

That said, a fairly lengthy notice posted on the FTP server of EP1C last month ended with the words “Get ready for a War”, hardly a sign that things had been patched up between the groups.

Whether or not this dispute between IMAGiNE and EP1C is directly or indirectly connected to the arrest of the XtremeSpeeds admin is yet another question which will disappear into the private tracker black hole of muddled information and rumor. The nature of these communities means that we may never know the truth.

XtremeSpeeds is a multi-focus private BitTorrent tracker now well into its third year of operation. According to information from its administrator, it may never see its fourth. On July 28th,...