Pirate Bay Shuts Down Tracker, Switches To Distributed Hash Table

think_nix writes "The Pirate Bay has shut down their BitTorrent tracker. Instead TPB is now using Distributed Hash Table to distribute the torrents. The Pirate Bay Blog states that DHT along with PEX (Peer Exchange) Technology is just as effective if not better for finding peers than a centralized service. The Local reports that shutting down the tracker and implementing DHT & PEX could be due to the latest court rulings in Sweden against 2 of TPB's owners, and may decide the outcome of the case."

Comments

Distributed Post!

[Lissajous]

F......

Re:Distributed Post!

[russlar]

i........

Re:Distributed Post!

[Rik Sweeney]

Seriously guys, can you PLEASE SEED!!!!

Re:Distributed Post!

[clambake]

Crap, stuck at 99%!

Re:Distributed Post!

[clambake]

R.......

Re:Distributed Post!

[Rigrig]

...s.

Re:Distributed Post!

[sopssa]

....t.....

Re:Distributed Post!

[sopssa]

piece 443 failed hash check

Re:Distributed Post!

[Kryptonian Jor-El]

I"VE BEEN STUCK ON 98% FOR 3 DAYS!!!!!!1111!!!1!! SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED.

Does this mean TPB will still be working?

[Kirin Fenrir]

Proving that technology is always one step ahead of copyright law.

Those guys are playing it dangerous! Hashtable?

[NoYob]

First "Pirate Bay" and torrents and now Hash?!? What next, cocaine?!

Still guilty

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

So they go from hosting a tracker to hosting a bootstrap node that gives clients access to the DHT swarm? In short, in the eyes of the law (and probably of the general public), they're still facilitating the illegal distribution of copyrighted material. At the very least, they look guilty as hell, because they seem to do try their hardest to stick it up to da man.

Re:Still guilty

[purpledinoz]

Then aren't ALL ISPs also facilitating copyright infringement? Isn't Cisco providing the network technology for copyright infringement? Isn't Intel providing the ability for consumers to download illegal material from the Internet? Isn't AMAT, a semiconductor tool manufacturer, guilty of providing Intel with the tools to make microchips for copyright infringement?

Re:Still guilty

[Xest]

The real problem is that under standard interpretation of Swedish law they weren't in breach of the law in the first place. The only reason they have been found guilty is because of a corrupt judge who made up a false interpretation of the law to suit his goals and to find them guilty.

So on one hand this view that they're in breach of the law is incorrect as it falsely assues judges are infallible, which of course we know full well they are not, but similarly I don't think this will be much help because as the creative industries got away with installing their own judge once and ensuring his position and stance was upheld (even though he did not follow Swedish law as it is written) and so realistically they'll just be able to do it again.

Effectively, for the TPB guys the law doesn't matter, because whether they stay within it or not a corrupt court system is allowing them to be found guilty regardless. If anything I'd say that they have done this because it's possibly harder to shut down and perhaps easier to move around than a full blown tracker. I don't really blame them for just playing a game of cat and mouse instead, if their own country has failed them in initially allowing an unwarranted police raid due to foreign pressure, then not giving them a fair trial by allowing a judge with a blatant conflict of interest to preside of their trial, and then protect the judge when they follow the proper process for handling such conflict of interest- again, all because of pressure from foreign corporate interests, then I think it's perfectly justified for them to shun the law.

I'm sure they're also perfectly aware of the consequences, some call this stupid, but then, that's the difference between people willing to risk their freedom for something they believe in and people who just whinge about things on sites like Slashdot I suppose.

Peer ants

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirates are like ants and always find a way around obstacles and tend to attract more pirates to use the same path.
Removing a single tracker, no matter how widely used it was won't deal much harm. This may lead to the removal of other trackers in the future, but peer exhange and DHT are pretty much a good subsitute in my opinion.

Re:Peer ants

[dkleinsc]

In other words, the Internet is seeing copyright enforcement as damage and automatically routing around it.

If DHT and PEX are

[mehrotra.akash]

" just as effective if not better for finding peers", then why did they wait for the ruling to change over?
why not just switch over a long time back??
especially if they are better..

Napster et al court cases...

[nweaver]

One of the reasons why BitTorrent didn't suffer the legal fate of Napster, Kazaa, etc is that BitTorrent only handles data transfer, not search, and has significant noninfringing uses.

Having trackerless torrents however doesn't help the noninfringing uses, only infringing uses. (If its non-infringing, just host a tracker damnit!), thus trackerless client features start to get very dangerous from a legal perspective for the developers.

Re:In a related question

[Galactic Dominator]

Of course this is in response to the legal situation, but DHT is a better method provided users get their clients configured correctly and ports forwarded. Your comment implies they are switching to an inferior technology which is certainly not the case. It's far more fault tolerant and less prone to bottlenecks, it simply requires more from the user. As more sites switch to this method, swarms will increase in size and throughput with less liability for all. I'm glad this finally happened.

Congrats, you've successively cut off a head from the hydra.