PeerGuardian IP Blocking for Mac OS X

April 28, 2008 by sharky

At long last, Phoenix Labs, the company behind the popular IP blocking software for Windows, has come out with a major revamped version for Mac OS X users. This is the first full (non-beta) release in nearly two years - long overdue for OS X users who value their privacy just as seriously as their WinXP and Linux counterparts. PeerGuardian integrates support for multiple lists, list editing, automatic updates, and blocking all of IPv4, (TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc.), making it the safest and easiest way to protect your privacy on the Internet.

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Private Tracker IRC Channel Index

April 27, 2008 by sharky

Here’s a massive list of IRC channels from most of the popular private BitTorrent sites. Similar posts have made their rounds throughout the BitTorrent scene — we’ve cleaned it up by updating the links and by adding new IRC channels; and we’ve also tested them to make sure they work. To make it even more handy, we’ve made the links "clickable" so you can launch IRC right from these links, without having to do all that cut/paste nonsense.

See anything not listed? Throw in a comment, and I’ll add it to the list.

Common IRC commands are listed at the bottom.

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The Private Tracker Dictionary & Terminology List

April 25, 2008 by sharky

This is a non-exhaustive list of terminology commonly used throughout the private BitTorrent community. Hardcore BitTorrent users need not bother reading any further, and will likely find most of this information rather useless.

Adopt (a torrent):

Some sites have an ‘adoption system’ for torrents. This ensures that a torrent will always have at least one seed, and adopters are often rewarded with credit.

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Private Tracker Invites, Giveaways and Torrent Swapping Forums

April 24, 2008 by sharky

TorrentInvite
TrackeReactor
Invite Nation v2
Invites-System
Torrent-Invites
T-Funkizone
P2P Talk
GetInvites
TPG Community
TorrentForums
TrackerInvites
Invite-Zone
PS3 Nation
FileSharingTalk
ThePirateSociety
Other Notables

Below you’ll find a list of sites & forums that are completely dedicated to torrent ‘invite’ swapping, private sites that are open to new signups, and free account ‘giveaways’. It should be assumed that these sites require registration and some form of user participation. Having said that, many will grant VIP / Donor status for members who donate to the site.

We highly recommend that you’re properly prepared before asking for invites or "giveaways". In short, this would include being an active member in the forums, and having "proofs" done beforehand. Proofs consist of two things: A current speedtest of your Internet speed (3 is best to have on hand), plus a ratio proof screenshot (or more than one) of a current private tracker that you have an account to. Both of these criteria are used by a ‘donator’ to decide who is deserving of the invite.

UPDATED Aug/08: Many of these sites come and go. Sites that are permanently down are now listed at the bottom (for reference).

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Miscellaneous BitTorrent Trackers

April 23, 2008 by sharky

There are literally thousands of private BitTorrent websites. Most of them fall into the "general" category and contain a hodgepodge of mixed content. Others cater specifically to a particular genre of torrent:

• eLearning / eBooks	• Pr0n Torrents
• Games & Consoles	• Software / Applications
• High Definition Movies / Video	• Sports Trackers
• Music & Audio	• TV Trackers

And others are completely specific. Here’s a list of private trackers that don’t fall into any of the above groups; many could be even considered fanatical, eclectic or downright strange.

• Miscellaneous

• Comics Trackers

• Magic Trackers

• Conspiracy

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Secret BitTorrent Websites - The Ones You Shouldn’t Know About

April 21, 2008 by sharky

Some private BitTorrent sites are so secretive that members need to click hidden links to login; others run covertly behind a false ‘frontpage’ under the pretense of offering a legitimate service. Many of these trackers would be considered ‘closed communities’ and don’t have an active ‘invite system’, so it’s a futile effort for most torrenters to gain access. This is anything but an exhaustive list - there’s bound to be others and likely more that very few people even know about.

Out of admiration and respect for these private trackers, we’ve omitted any URLs that can lead to unwanted exposure. Due to their secretive nature, data, screenshots & statistics are provided "as-is" and may not be current.

iFi

— Max. Members: 1,000.# of Torrents: ~300.About: As with most top level sites, any mentioning of the URL or full name is forbidden. They use a false login screen as the frontpage for the tracker, which (believe me) is enough to throw anyone off the scent. iFi is a new tracker primarily for music/movies/TV that doesn’t have use a ratio scheme, however you’ll need to seed back. With a minuscule max. user count of 1,000, it’s a tough cookie to get into.

Torrents	User Classes	Stats	Forums

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Specialized Private BitTorrent Websites - Software / Appz

April 21, 2008 by sharky

Just about any experienced BitTorrent user will tell you that public trackers are not a recommended resource for software (mininova, isohunt etc.). And because they’re public, (and allow access to anyone) they’re fair game for anyone wishing to create and upload any torrent containing just about anything. This carte blanche approach opens the door to purposefully harmful torrents & bad software releases. We’re seeing more and more of this all the time - torrents containing malware, viruses and trojans are quite commonplace and can be found on all public trackers. What’s worse is that public torrents are essentially unmoderated, and bad torrents are not only allowed to be uploaded and shared, but are allowed to proliferate and remain in the community.

Private BitTorrent sites alleviate (and even eliminate) the problems associated with bad torrents, and remain a trusted source amongst the ’software scene’:

1. Piracy Pyramid. — Private sites are closer to the top of the piracy pyramid, and many have direct access to the ’scene’ through FXP boards, topsites & IRC pre-channels that announce the release as it happens. Proper ’scene releases’ will not contain malicious files, so members can expect high quality torrents as a result.

2. Moderation. — Private sites not only restrict who is able to upload, but they also actively check and moderate the releases on their trackers. Most will boast that 99% of new torrents are completely ‘good’, and if any are found to be bad releases, they’re promptly deleted from the site. Above all else, good reputation is paramount to survival in the private torrent circuit.

Most private trackers have a category specifically designated to software releases; however here’s a few that specialize in appz:

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Specialized Private BitTorrent Websites - Games Trackers

April 19, 2008 by sharky

It goes without saying, most private trackers carry an impressive selection of games, but some BitTorrent sites are absolute game specialists. Whether it’s PC, Mac, console or emulator games you seek, there’s probably a private BitTorrent site for it. Here are just some of the trackers available out there, and what they have to offer:

GAMES / CONSOLE TRACKERS

http://www.underground-gamer.com

— OPEN? - NO.Members: 24,000.Ratio: varies.# of Torrents: +6,000.Features: UG is hands-down the best tracker for retro games. Genres include every imaginable emulator and ROM (Atari, Sega, NES…even cell phone games!). UG has a very sophisticated class system for its members - see ‘classes’ below.

Browse	Stats	Categories	Classes

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TrackerChecker WebService for Open Torrent Sites

April 18, 2008 by sharky

Recently-launched TrackerChecker.org is a new web service for finding private BitTorrent sites that are open to new signups. TrackerChecker currently boasts 185 private trackers on its list, with more being added all the time.

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Underground-Gamer Hacked…Again

April 17, 2008 by sharky

For the second time in four months, Underground-Gamer.com has fallen to hackers. It’s been almost four days since the popular gaming site had been hacked, and there’s still no sign of life at the site. No motives have yet to be established, and the torrent tracker immediately went offline, leaving everyone stranded.

The hackers even infiltrated and commandeered their IRC channel, according to members who were chatting at the time. They’ve since restored the channel, and the new IRC message reads, “Site was hacked and is being restored - be patient-like. Asking “what happen to site? = “plz kick me!”. Yes, we have backups! There are no services, don’t ask, and if you want an invite, you’re SOL”. Killergorilla, a member at UG who was on IRC at the time of the hack, stated: “It’s been hacked. I was on the IRC server earlier and the hackers were on there. Interesting chaps.”

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How To: Download Torrents Through a Proxy/Firewall

April 16, 2008 by sharky

You may find yourself in a situation where you’re unable to download *.torrent files onto the PC that you’re using. Perhaps you’re sitting in an Internet Café, public Library or other place that blocks the actual downloading (or opening) of torrent files to the computer. I know that some Universities do this, as do many non-commercial ISPs & corporate firewalls (proxies) at the workplace.

Many firewalls and security measures will block P2P traffic, filesharing programs (and any new installations of such), or disallow new ports from being added to the “allow” list. These are somewhat difficult to override, depending on the situation (not to mention risky to attempt at work). But if you are able to install, use and launch a BitTorrent client, but not download *.torrent files for it, then this tip may work well. (You may still be able to run µTorrent through a USB stick in situations where new software installations/P2P programs are not allowed).

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Specialized Private BitTorrent Websites - Music Trackers

April 15, 2008 by sharky

BT Music
DeepBassNine
DimeADozen
DnB Tracker
Elektronik
Exigo
FunkyTorrents
HHBase
IndieTorrents
iPWN Music
KrayTracker
Libble
Metal iPlay
My Bloody Twee
SatClubbing
SoundArea
ST Music
The Mixing Bowl
Traders Den
TranceBits
TranceBooster
TranceRoute
TranceTraffic
ViPv2
Waffles.fm
What.cd
ZombTracker
— Others —

Currently listing 65 music trackers.

If you’re still using Limewire to download music - the question is: WHY? BitTorrent was absolutely made for music. Releases are arranged by album - not by song title - and are always of superior bitrates and sound quality to those of their P2P counterparts. P2P networks such as Limewire’s Gnutella are easy targets of flooding and spoofing by anti-piracy groups, resulting in crippled search results and / or ‘fake’ files once downloaded. Not to mention those ‘botched home-job’ mp3 rips that quickly spread throughout users’ shared folders.

Public BitTorrent is not exempt from its share of problems, either. Anyone can arbitrarily upload a torrent that consists of badly done mp3’s, although most issues usually pertain to inferior sound quality due to ‘low bitrates’ (i.e. 128 kbit/s) commonly found in amateurish CD-rips.

Enter the private BitTorrent music tracker — the solution to ‘all things wrong with music and filesharing’! Fellow Audiophiles - here are some of the advantages of using a music-dedicated private tracker:

— FULL ALBUMS:With a private tracker, music is arranged by album, compilation and even by ‘discography’ that span across an artist’s entire musical career - all in one torrent. Music is very well-organized in easy-to-browse categories by musical genre, type,

— PRE-RELEASES:In the case of popular music, you’ll more than likely find an album far before its official store release-date. These "advance" and "promo" pirate releases come straight from the top of the music piracy pyramid.

— HQ AUDIO / LOSSLESS:Private sites offer a great selection of high-quality music; some of them only offer HQ audio and lossless music. You won’t find any 128 bitrates here!

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How To: Seed Private Torrents You’ve Already Downloaded

April 14, 2008 by sharky

This is a great tip to increase your ratio on private trackers. It allows you to seed a torrent through your private BitTorrent account that’s already been downloaded from a public site (or another private one). Thus, only the upload stats will be counted towards your ratio, without incurring any downloading against it.

I’ve seen this tutorial posted elsewhere, but I’ve cleaned it up and redone it as a complete, easy-to-follow walkthrough. Credits go out to all who’ve done it before.

NOTE: This hack is not considered a dirty trick, and it likely won’t lead to you being warned or banned by your private site.

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IRC Pre-channels For The Latest Torrents Fast!

April 12, 2008 by sharky

Most people assume that RSS feeds are the best method to stay up-to-date with the latest torrents on a private tracker. This is a fallacy. With RSS, your computer/browser must request an update from the feed - typically this is set to every 15 minutes (with the shortest pull-time being 5 minutes). And that’s even if the site supports RSS - not all do.

Now, you can try running through all of the site’s torrent categories to try to keep up with the latest content, or sit in one category and constantly hit the browser’s ‘Refresh’ button like an idiot. Both of these methods work to beat out the RSS feed.

Or, you can join the private tracker’s IRC (pre) channel and watch the latest torrents being announced on-the-fly, and simply click the links as they appear. Most modern private sites use an IRC “pre-chan” to announce the torrents before (as) they get published on the site. This is beneficial in two ways:

— You’ll get instant access to the most recent torrents, typically in advance of most other site members who aren’t in the IRC channel. Unless, of course, they’re forever reloading the pages…

— This is also a great tactic for getting into the uploading swarm as early as possible. If you get in a torrent very early, everyone else jumping on it after you will use your completed parts, thus your upload rate will be higher for longer.

IRC is also a great way to gain credits or other site ‘currency’ just for being in the channel.

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Specialized Private BitTorrent Websites - TV Trackers

April 11, 2008 by sharky

Television torrents are unquestionably the most popular genre of torrent — just take a look at the Top Ten Most Downloaded Torrents listed by mininova.org; 9 of them are TV episodes. TV torrents bring in big traffic, and remain the largest staple of new material for public BitTorrent trackers.

This notoriety has not gone unrecognized by private BitTorrent websites - all ‘general’ sites offer a robust selection of fresh TV torrents to round out their content. Private trackers are advantageous for TV releases for a variety of reasons:

— UNPARALLELED SPEED:With a private tracker, you’ll be able to download an episode of ‘Lost’ or ‘Heroes’ in less time than it takes to watch it.

— PRE-TIMES:Often a torrent is available in a matter of minutes after the original airing. Many sites offer a daily TV timetable, and members can expect these torrents to arrive on the site moments after the show ends.

— SELECTION:Private sites offer a superior selection to public trackers. Content is well-organized, and torrenters often have greater choices in formats (HDTV, x264, XviD). Full seasons are commonplace.

— NO DUPLICATE TORRENTS:When searching for specific popular TV episode on a public BT site, for example: “Heroes Season 1 Episode 19 (S01E19)”, unfortunately there’s a huge selection of results to choose from, and that makes it near impossible to pin down a good release. Private sites solve this problem quite handily - they offer just one torrent for each episode. This way you’ll be assured to get the best quality torrent each and every time, with little guesswork.

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Specialized Private BitTorrent Websites - eLearning / eBooks

April 08, 2008 by sharky

If you’ve never poked your cursor inside a private eBook or e-Learning BitTorrent website before, you’d probably be awestruck by the sheer magnitude of content that these trackers contain. Anything and everything that has ever been written, typed, documented, taught, published, drawn, painted, penned, or even photographed can be found. Categories are numerous and plentiful; content is staggeringly vast; media exists in every known digitized format available. A good eBook / e-Learning tracker makes Wikipedia look like a comic book.

There’s little speculation as to why students, professionals, writers, designers, tradespeople (and anyone else) are clambering to get into these private sites. Hey, we all know books aren’t cheap - especially medical / science journals, University textbooks and trades/ technical/ law literature. Courtesy of textbooktorrents, here’s an example of what one can expect to find on the inside of a specialized e-Learning tracker:

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Bit Che - Software for Torrent Searching

April 07, 2008 by sharky

Rarely does a piece of Torrent Search software make our headlines and qualify as newsworthy, let alone worth writing about. However, Bit Che is not your run-of-the-mill torrent search software.

So what separates Bit Che from the rest of the pack? For starters, it allows for private BitTorrent site searching (provided you have accounts to them). This is a monumental step forward in torrent searching development. Bit Che is also a great tool for:

Searching for hard-to-find torrents - In contrast to torrent meta search websites (that usually limit the querying to the top 10 public sites), Bit Che software implements many more sites in the search, with the ability to add others, and even add your own (for unlimited torrent searching).

Filtering of popular torrents - Torrent data is shown in the results, giving users the ability to quickly gauge what torrents are likely the best sources for a popular release.

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BitTorrent Client Error Messages (Tracker Errors)

April 06, 2008 by sharky

When attempting to troubleshoot BitTorrent problems, there are a zillion factors that need to be considered. Many issues involve the BT client configuration, ports and connectivity. Other errors are rooted in the BT tracker, bad ISP, faulty torrents, or software incompatibility issues. Put all this together and you’ve got endless possibilities for errors, dropped connections and hair-pulling frustration.

Here’s a list of some of the most common BitTorrent error messages, what they mean, and how to fix them.

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Using ‘C4C Firefox Extension’ to find Open Torrent Sites

April 04, 2008 by sharky

The ‘Check4Change’ (aka…C4C) Firefox Extension is yet another method to find private BitTorrent sites that are open to new signups.

Advantages: C4C can work with text on signup pages that are manually loaded into the browser that ‘Open Registrations Checker’ can’t access.

Disadvantages: The browser (or tab) cannot be closed, or else the service stops running on it.

How It Works:

C4C checks a loaded Firefox webpage (or tab) for any information that may have changed on the page. It works like this: Highlighted text is monitored by Check4Change, and any changes to it are then reported back to you. Pages/tabs are reloaded at chosen time intervals - if C4C notices any changes to the selected text, a notification message will appear in the taskbar.

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The REAL way to get Private Tracker Invites

April 03, 2008 by sharky

Nevermind anything I’ve ever said before about getting private torrent invites. This takes the cake.

Looking for good private tracker invites, with no strings attached? Follow this. I received two in the same night - FTS and BitMe.

www.trackereactor.com is constantly giving away free invites to some of the best private BitTorrent sites - all for just hanging around. Follow these tips and I personally guarantee that you will get a good invite in the same day.

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Open Letter to Rogers.ca: Come Pick up Your Equipment

April 02, 2008 by sharky

By nature, I’m not a whiner about the little things in life. And even if I was, I most certainly wouldn’t take it out on my helpless website. But I’m pissed - and what better way get a message across than to post it on my own site. However, much to the dismay of my blog, I’ll make an exception.

Rogers Canada - Changes to their TOS

Rogers’ customers were in for a shock this week when letters arrived across the country in reference to changes in their Terms of Service.

Not only have they jacked up the price of my Internet service by $2 a month starting in March, but now they’ve put a cap on monthly bandwidth, as well. The new limit is 95 GB per month, with an additional $1.50 per GB. This is not good news to P2P file sharers on Rogers. Not into the P2P scene? No matter, this is gonna hurt you, too! You’ll have to start being careful about how much YouTube you watch and streaming audio you listen to. All those things add up fast!

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Tips to Optimize uTorrent Download Speeds

April 02, 2008 by sharky

Many torrenters aren’t aware of this, but by default µTorrent functions on some very uncharitable out-of-the-box settings. This is to accommodate users who have a slow Internet connection (dialup) or have a small TCP limit. Or perhaps they’re just an evil crew that wants to download faster than you! Whatever the motives, here’s how to get µTorrent running in tip-top shape.

Before we begin, you’ll need the latest stable version of µTorrent. Most private trackers are moving away from allowing any version that is not 1.7.7 or 1.8.x (but be sure to check their FAQ for more info), and most likely beta versions are also banned. Got it? Great!

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IP Blocking for uTorrent in Windows XP & Vista

April 01, 2008 by sharky

For years now, Anti-P2P organizations have been polluting BitTorrent with fake peers and bogus torrent files, which send out fake or corrupt data in order to slow down file transfers and/or log the IP addresses of users who ’share’ the torrent. This is typically rampant on a communal BitTorrent level through publicly-accessible torrents from popular sites such as ThePirateBay, mininova, Isohunt, et al. Consequences range from those laughable (but sometimes scary) DMCA notices sent from your ISP; cease-and-desist letters; and even worse, pre-litigation letters from any company under the RIAA / MPAA / IFPI “umbrella”.

To significantly reduce your chances of connecting with malicious peers, the integration of IP Blocking is crucial to P2P safety. This can be approached through third-party software, including PeerGuardian2 or Blocklist Manager - but it can also be handled client-side through IP blocklists. µTorrent supports IP blocking at the BitTorrent protocol level - and it’s a great solution for Vista users who don’t yet have the option of using an external program such as PeerGuardian2.

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PeerGuardian - IP Blocking for Windows Vista

April 01, 2008 by sharky

The first thing that PeerGuardian users notice when upgrading to Windows Vista is that the old PG2 doesn’t work. That being said, the PhoenixLabs team has been hard-at-work on a Vista solution, and thus far have come up with a working beta-release of PeerGuardian3 (called RC1-Test2).

Installation - Vista users

Download the latest version from http://phrosty.phoenixlabs.org/pg2-rc1/. The current release is “pg2-rc1-test2.exe“. NOTE: This beta release has been tested with all versions of MS Windows, although it is not recommended for anything other than Vista at this point in development. Non-Vista users should ideally opt for a “stable” release from the http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/ page.

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