Private BitTorrent Site Reviews - A Look Inside

March 28, 2008 by sharky

We offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into some of the best, most sought-after private BitTorrent trackers. If you’ve never seen the insides of some of these elite private sites, we recommend you take a look at what you’re missing.

TorrentLeech

TorrentLeech is quickly becoming one of the most coveted private BitTorrent accounts for any BT fan. With unrivaled speed and amazing pre-times, TL offers 0day/0sec torrents in all categories. While never open publicly to new signups, invites are handed out to qualifying members on a regular basis. TL is also one of the most used private trackers - there are a ton of seeders and leechers so uploading to other TL members isn’t all that difficult, either (a seedbox helps, but isn’t mandatory like some other trackers). New members have a 48-hour ‘wait time’ before the torrent becomes active - once a sharing ratio hits 0.4 this goes away.

Browse	SiteNews	Classes

Blackcats-Games.net

It goes without saying: Blackcats-Games is all about the games - be it console, Windows or Linux releases. Registered users hover in at around 50,000 (they stopped taking new signups back in November, 2007). With a 2,100% seed/leech ratio, downloads are assuredly zippy from their 6,000 offered torrents.

Browse	Stats	Categories	Rules

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Shareaza vs ShareazaPlus - Which One is Best?

March 27, 2008 by sharky

Everyone is familiar with Shareaza for P2P filesharing. But there’s a neat little spinoff called ShareazaPlus that’s recently been released. ShareazaPlus is a mod version of Shareaza, and includes enhancements to significantly speed up downloads, file searches and networking performance under WinXP.

New Features

ShareazaPlus has added a few features to its original predecessor, Shareaza. New features include:

Search by URI:

Unheard of in the original Shareaza, ShareazaPlus allows for searching from a variety of known URNs / URIs, including SHA1, Tiger Tree, MD5, BitTorrent (BTiT), and eD2k. This is particularly handy if you already know (or have) a magnet link, but can’t find any sources.

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How to Add eDonkey Servers & Serverlists to eMule

March 26, 2008 by sharky

Alongside with IP Filtering, selecting proper eDonkey servers is crucial to eMule security. Wherever possible, it is recommended to connect to Kademlia exclusively (see our article) without using servers. However, this is not possible for everyone, and in some cases a server must first be connected to in order to generate KAD client connections. Thus, eDonkey servers are still an integral part of eMule.

Using a good eD2k server (in addition to KAD) can add variety to the search results, especially when switching between them. While KAD generally brings about more search results (with more sources), requests are somewhat predictable and static. Specific eDonkey servers may help you find a particular rare item that otherwise wouldn’t be available through Kademlia.

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Using eMule Safely & Securely - IP Blocking

March 25, 2008 by sharky

Several experts have rated eDonkey as the second largest contributor to Internet-based piracy, behind BitTorrent. Currently, with over 4 million users worldwide at any given time sharing roughly 500 million files, few can question its success.

The eDonkey (eD2k) network has forever been an easy target and a brunt of punishment for anti-piracy organizations. Anti-P2P groups (MediaSentry and MediaDefender - to name just two) have flooded the network with bogus files, and filled the network with rogue users that share nothing but misery. They’ve even managed to shut down high-profile eDonkey servers from all corners of the globe, and set up their own ‘fake servers’ in an attempt to marginalize the filesharing.

As a counterattack, eMule users can incorporate two preventative measures - IP Blocking, and the use of known good eDonkey servers (serverlists). When combined, they provide a high level of protection against most threats.

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Connecting to Kademlia in eMule

March 23, 2008 by sharky

Kademlia (KAD or Kad) is a serverless network used primarily to index files shared by eMule clients. Clients can connect to the eDonkey network and use it to find sources for files, without the need for mediary intervention (in this case, “servers”) to track down and find files among connected peers.

The Kademlia Network & its Significance

Since KAD is a decentralized (DHT) network, eMule users don’t have to rely on the validity of eDonkey (eD2k) servers. Think of it as a ‘direct connection’ to other peers on the eDonkey network - without the (otherwise necessary) interaction of a centralized eDonkey server.

KAD is a viable implementation, for the reason that it nullifies the dependency upon eDonkey servers:

1.If a server is temporarily offline, closed or even shut down (purposely or forcibly), users can still search, find and download files from other KAD-connected peers (nodes). Not only does this increase search results from nodes spanning across all of the servers, but it also significantly heightens the number of sources for files. Residual benefits include higher download speeds and access to otherwise unfindable “rare” material.

2.“Bad” eDonkey / eD2k servers have no ill-effect to the KAD network (directly), thus there are fewer decoy and spoof files. It’s safe to say that anti-P2P agencies have a much more difficult time polluting the network as a whole.

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Omemo - P2P’s Next Big Thing?

March 22, 2008 by sharky

Store your files online, share your stuff and browse what other users store in the world’s largest multimedia library: The Omemo peer-to-peer virtual hard-drive.

Could Omemo be the next big thing that file sharers are looking for? Perhaps. We took it for a spin to see for ourselves.

What is it?

Omemo is a peer-to-peer file-sharing service that stores files on a virtual hard drive online. The service requires that users donate a small portion of the space on their hard drives, which are combined to form a collective virtual network. Shared files are not saved on the users’ hard drives; rather, the space is donated to the Omemo P2P network in a virtual online environment.

Features:

— Omemo is billed as a filesharing protocol that is as anonymous as (technically) possible (for both uploading and downloading).

— Content on Omemo is always accessible. No one can erase or alter the content of the Omemo “O” drive.

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Sites that offer Open Private Trackers and ‘Invite Swapping’

March 15, 2008 by sharky

We all know the difficulties associated with joining exclusive private BitTorrent sites. With some of them, it’d probably be easier to get into MENSA. We’ve recently released some tips for joining private trackers through software such as Open Registrations Checker; or simply outright buying your account through Torrent Auction.

If these tips don’t do the trick, and you’re feeling brazen enough to wade through pages upon pages of gobbledegook - try out some of these links. Here you’ll find ‘invite swapping’ forums & links, as well as other sites that post private trackers that are open to new accounts.

‘Invite Swapping’ Sites

We all know what this is about: You send some schmuck a working “invite” in the hopes that he’ll reciprocate in an honest manner. If you’re gonna do it, start out with an account that you don’t care about. If you can find someone who is genuine about their motives, you may be able to develop a good trading relationship and possibly start swapping good sites.

Here are a few links that are specific to private BitTorrent “invite swapping”:

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Find Open Private Trackers with ‘Open Registrations Checker’

March 14, 2008 by sharky

Unless you were born last night, we probably don’t have to tell you that elite private BitTorrent websites occasionally offer new unannounced signups, usually to replace or “trim” inactive accounts or kicked users. Aside from a few lucky ones that happen to be there at the right time, there’s no sure way of knowing when new accounts are going to be announced. That is, until now.

Torrent Open Registrations Checker from TeamRoots is a brand-new tool to find private BitTorrent sites that are accepting new signups. It’s like Tracker Checker 2 on steroids and speed at the same time. Requires Microsoft .NET framework 2.0 or higher.

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Can’t get into a Private BitTorrent site? Buy your way in!

March 13, 2008 by sharky

OK, we know what we said - never pay for P2P. We’re not getting soft on you - we stand firmly by that credence. But if there was ever just one exception to the rule - it’s this. Looking to get into that oh-so-coveted private BitTorrent site, but you don’t have an invite? Ever tried ‘trading’ private BitTorrent invites only to get ripped off? You’re not alone.

We know the hassles of trying to get into a great BitTorrent website. TrackerChecker never green flags them, btracs.com doesn’t post them, and P2P forums everywhere are loaded with messages from people who want in but don’t post any working invite codes.

Why not skip all the crap and just buy your way in?

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Speed Tests - Azureus ‘Magnet Links’ vs Torrents

March 13, 2008 by sharky

To confirm our belief that bonafide torrents would be faster than decentrally-hosted Azureus magnet links, we decided to put them head-to-head in a speed test.

To achieve this, we downloaded four different torrents and the four corresponding ‘magnet links’. Since we couldn’t open both the torrent and magnet link in the same BitTorrent client (Azureus v2.5), we opened the torrents in µtorrent (v1.6.1).

The results really aren’t all that surprising. Nor should they be - Azureus magnet links are not designed to be the Porsches of BitTorrent. Their purpose is to potentially squeeze out those last few packets that otherwise wouldn’t be available from a seedless or dead torrent.

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