Real Friends: How Many Of Us?

[Xemaniac]

I actually shouldn't have included that in my comment, because I'm not a member there and I'm only as informed by the screenshots of the rules and I added it mainly to group together with MTV due to the fact that it is ratioless. Poor judgement on my part for including it in the first place, and uninformed opinion. Sorry for the lapse in judgement, and thanks for pointing this out.

Maybe my post came out harsh, was not my intention. Sorry if it came out that way. Did not criticise you, it was just a thought.

 

[SHA-1]

I just invited someone to PTP about a week ago. He inboxed me and asked if it would be ok to invite him there.

Making friends is easy!

 

[Xemaniac]

Making friends is easy!

Well, that is not really making friends, rather asking for invites. Not the same.

 

[SHA-1]

Xemaniac Yeah it was not really a serious comment from me as well... TBH that whole post still has me baffled, inviting some unknown beggar to a site that's very much sought after... and that I (wrongly?) thought had closed invites currently?

But this is the question of the thread: As more trackers scrutinize friendship how many of you think it's worth the risk to invite despite it? Do you at all?

More [trackers scrutinize friendship] than previously? Haven't really noticed TBH. I assume there's some red flag gone off somewhere to have your & your invitees account being looked at.

For the few folks I invited it's basically this:
IRL friends: The will probably will let their account die within months, but there's no real risk of inviting cheaters, sellers, traders.
Online friendsies: If I'm ready to invite them they'll probably be as good or a better user than me... Might ask for some profilelinks to check their accounts on some sites. But I'm always aware I'm risking my account for this person. This goes the other way as well, take invites from just anybody and you might end up in some invite tree ban. Basically if I feel like there's any risk, I won't do it. So when I do it, yeah it's worth the risk.

 

[Xemaniac]

Xemaniac Yeah it was not really a serious comment from me as well... TBH that whole post still has me baffled, inviting some unknown beggar to a site that's very much sought after... and that I (wrongly?) thought had closed invites currently?


More [trackers scrutinize friendship] than previously? Haven't really noticed TBH. I assume there's some red flag gone off somewhere to have your & your invitees account being looked at.

For the few folks I invited it's basically this:
IRL friends: The will probably will let their account die within months, but there's no real risk of inviting cheaters, sellers, traders.
Online friendsies: If I'm ready to invite them they'll probably be as good or a better user than me... Might ask for some profilelinks to check their accounts on some sites. But I'm always aware I'm risking my account for this person. This goes the other way as well, take invites from just anybody and you might end up in some invite tree ban. Basically if I feel like there's any risk, I won't do it. So when I do it, yeah it's worth the risk.

I'm totally with you on this. The ones I've invited have been people I've "known" a longer time, mostly from here.

And with one tracker as an exception, because they scrutinize invitees too much, I'm very sure that none of my trackers would question me if I invite someone, since I behave very well ok them all. And when I have any contact with staff about support issues I'm always very cordial, so I'm in good standing with them all.

But I do not have to worry about inviting at that one specific tracker, since my invite privileges there are taken away from the get-go. But one less thing to worry about, hehe.

What baffles me most though, is that some people seem to think that, just because someone is in here, they're automatically good, and invite them to high-end trackers fast. I would NEVER risk my accounts for anyone like that.

And also that people just come in when they need an invite and leave again. When people keep helping them out we'll never get them to be more active in here.

 

[largos7]

One of the things I like to do is check in with my inviters and invitees once a while. Share tips and useful info.

You have established mutual trust and it grows over time with a view into their stats and rank.

 

[QW1620]

I've been picky about invites and never had a problem yet as for real life I keep my mouth shut.

 

[spacely]

What would you envisage such a "central hub" to look like?

It sounds like it could range from class restricted forums on one end through to T-I at the other

It looked like & was What before it died, but that's what my last blog post was about. Don't really want to merge the two threads.

More [trackers scrutinize friendship] than previously? Haven't really noticed TBH. I assume there's some red flag gone off somewhere to have your & your invitees account being looked at.

Without naming names 3 of my trackers have gotten more strict in the past few months & 2 of them were like this prior to my entry so I'm not sure how far back that goes.

 

[largos7]

So the trend is that trackers are getting tougher on inviters and asking questions. Is this a good direction?

I absolutely think it is. Sellers and traders need to be weeded out. If a copyright firm wanted to penetrate trackers, they would save a lot of time and effort (money) by purchasing their way inside.

What do you think?

 

[jammyone]

It looked like & was What before it died, but that's what my last blog post was about. Don't really want to merge the two threads.

Do you think that was part of What's intent though? Or was it more coincidental that it became viewed as an 'invite hub' because it had interviews and became well respected so it had a large number of official recruitment threads?

 

[Ethenred.]

What do you think?

I have the same stance on it as I have on modern copyright-protection mechanisms that come with videogames. Ubisoft is a prime candidate, but other publishers have done it too. The mechanisms are so complicated that legitimate buyers have troubles playing their rightfully acquired game (I think it was a part of Assassins Creed where the scene was the source of a fix that actually made that thing playable for non-pirates. Which is fucking ridiculous!), and pirates will crack the protection anyway, even if it takes a few weeks.

The content industry has penetrated the private tracker scene, and I think it's not even full-tinfoil-mode to say that they probably own some staff positions too. Asking questions doesn't make their lives any harder. But it makes people even more hesitant to invite other people, which, in turn, eventually hurts the tracker community.

 

[largos7]

The content industry has penetrated the private tracker scene, and I think it's not even full-tinfoil-mode to say that they probably own some staff positions too. Asking questions doesn't make their lives any harder. But it makes people even more hesitant to invite other people, which, in turn, eventually hurts the tracker community.

I think the private tracker community is booming as a whole. So many trackers and choices out there. I think it's good that members are being increasingly conditioned to be more careful about invites, especially the higher you go in tier. The higher tier trackers have no shortage of other trackers to recruit from via invite threads whenever they so choose. Seeing more combination of thoughtful application processes with invite forums would be good to see in IMO.

A larger problem perhaps is that too much of the private tracker member base is satisfied with general trackers. The risk being that harder core users end up being spread very thin over the many other trackers out there.

 

[spacely]

So the trend is that trackers are getting tougher on inviters and asking questions. Is this a good direction?

I absolutely think it is. Sellers and traders need to be weeded out. If a copyright firm wanted to penetrate trackers, they would save a lot of time and effort (money) by purchasing their way inside.

What do you think?

It's a double-edged sword. On one hand it's less stress for the staff & they could focus on more features with the newly found free time. On the other, we'll eventually get to a point of stagnation if we keep squeezing the arteries tighter. When that day comes we'll be sustainable for a while, but as the members start to leave for a myriad of reasons then what? Open the system back up? Because by then it'll be too late. As someone still relatively new to this it's a pretty daunting task to get where everybody recommends you to join (PTP, BTN, & ____ music tracker). The harder this gets the less likely people are willing to play along. We have to strike a balance somehow. Going far left or far right will end up with us nowhere.

I also think it's a tad naive to think that payment is the easiest route to "penetrate" private trackers. All I needed to do was wait for a site I wanted to open registration. With PTH they could just wait for an interview & they'll have access to a ton of places. It's not hard.

 

[largos7]

I also think it's a tad naive to think that payment is the easiest route to "penetrate" private trackers. All I needed to do was wait for a site I wanted to open registration. With PTH they could just wait for an interview & they'll have access to a ton of places. It's not hard.

Strongly disagree. Buying invites from a seller would be the fastest way and no piracy would be required. Getting into PTH via interview requires time and knowledge. From that point you'd still need to commit piracy, spend a lot of time and upload torrents for PU/Invite forum access. Again, buying invites bypasses all of this and is part of why sellers need to be identified and removed quickly.

It's easy for you from your perspective, but a copyright org or their vendor would seek to avoid breaking laws and have limited time and knowledge to commit to investigations.

 

[spacely]

Strongly disagree. Buying invites from a seller would be the fastest way and no piracy would be required. Getting into PTH via interview requires time and knowledge. From that point you'd still need to commit piracy, spend a lot of time and upload torrents for PU/Invite forum access. Again, buying invites bypasses all of this and is part of why sellers need to be identified and removed quickly.

It's easy for you from your perspective, but a copyright org or their vendor would seek to avoid breaking laws and have limited time and knowledge to commit to investigations.

I don't follow your reasoning at all. You're saying they'd rather buy their way in to avoid breaking the law (they go undercover & do this all the time, why it'd be different here especially with it being a victimless crime doesn't add up) than to invest an hour for an interview for a site they're trying to take down? If they've been given the task of taking a tracker down I highly doubt they'd half ass it. They'd take however long it took to succeed. Seriously, I don't get this. Why try in the first place if they don't have time?

 

[largos7]

I don't follow your reasoning at all. You're saying they'd rather buy their way in to avoid breaking the law (they go undercover & do this all the time, why it'd be different here especially with it being a victimless crime doesn't add up) than to invest an hour for an interview for a site they're trying to take down? If they've been given the task of taking a tracker down I highly doubt they'd half ass it. They'd take however long it took to succeed. Seriously, I don't get this. Why try in the first place if they don't have time?

I'm talking about copyright industry and their vendors. Not law enforcement. The copyright industry doesn't go around breaking the law then passing along tainted evidence to the cops.

 

[jammyone]

With permissions from the rights holders the anti piracy groups probably aren't breaking any laws. It would make more sense for them to join trackers via recruitment or interviews rather than buy invites.

They can play the long game too. The same groups that issue hundreds of DCMA claims against usenet companies each day might take 2 years or more to build trust on a tracker in order to find the attack vector they need.

 

[largos7]

With permissions from the rights holders the anti piracy groups probably aren't breaking any laws. It would make more sense for them to join trackers via recruitment or interviews rather than buy invites.

They can play the long game too. The same groups that issue hundreds of DCMA claims against usenet companies each day might take 2 years or more to build trust on a tracker in order to find the attack vector they need.

Good point. Accounts can also be purchased with rank (recruitment forum access) and invites on the acct.

It was interesting reading the IPT thread posted on other thread here about how staff routinely (at least at IPT) have multiple accounts for the purpose of baiting and identifying account sellers and traders.

 

[thedeh]

Buying invites from a seller would be the fastest way and no piracy would be required. Getting into PTH via interview requires time and knowledge. From that point you'd still need to commit piracy, spend a lot of time and upload torrents for PU/Invite forum access. Again, buying invites bypasses all of this and is part of why sellers need to be identified and removed quickly. It's easy for you from your perspective, but a copyright org or their vendor would seek to avoid breaking laws and have limited time and knowledge to commit to investigations.

Agreed. Purchasing invites (or accounts) is the simplest method for your basic swarm monitoring activities, the means by which they locate and target specific ISP subscribers. These people are then dispatched C&C and settlement demand notices VIA the ISP. This isn't the smart choice for the long-term industrial espionage type roles we know are currently in operation against probably the majority of the private tracker community (and have been for many years).

These are not paid trolls, these are investigative operations conducted by LEA, they're not going to risk months of work developing a name and reputation, beginning the process of infiltrating staff on various trackers, with an invite tree they know is corrupted and could be used to help detect their presence, or that could be snuffed out with one wrong move. Logic dictates they take the time to learn and participate in the community, and as a recent police report stated regarding the W.CD investigation, there were agents inside the tracker, monitoring activity and searching for weaknesses for several years .

The former type of compromise is minor and relatively easy to defend against. The claims are mostly baseless but they take a few cases to trial when everything lines up well for a win. They do this to scare enough people into believing that such instances with large judgements against the consumer are the norm, are possible (or even probable). The goal is to either stop them from pirating, or to scare them into paying the settlement demand (depending on your current situation).

If you're in the U.S. ignoring the letters from your ISP is not an intelligent plan of action (in Australia you can ignore them all-day-long and nothing will happen). To clarify: you should ignore all instructions contained within the letters. However, you should take immediate steps to prevent a re-occurrence of this problem, or you run the risk of your internet eventually being disconnected. This means acting proactively:

1. Report the occurrence to tracker staff.
2. Report the torrent listed in the legal complaint.
3. Disable PXT/DHT technologies in your client.
   
4. Purchase a seedbox (or a VPN for your home connection).
5. Document new hardware with your trackers.

Additionally, those claiming that the copyright trolls or LEA are legally prevented from uploading/seeding/etc., are profoundly naive.

1. Copyright trolls are contracted by the industries themselves, assume they have permission.
2. LEA likely has a similar understanding with rights holders. (I'll be surprised if they even bothered formalizing it.)
3. The Police don't charge themselves. Nor do rights holders pursue civil claims against their own employees or LEA UC's.
4. I would say the CR trolls are limited to sharing content from the industry they represent (if they have any restrictions at all).
5. LEA are likely already provided statutory immunity when using these sorts of techniques.

These long-term operations conducted by law enforcement are extremely difficult to detect (if possible at all), and even if you could detect them, there's no real way to defend against them. For all intents and purposes, the activity of the agent is that of a regular tracker operator, they're near impossible to distinguish. This is obviously the pernicious kind of compromise that people either forget, or let their guard down to it, and sometimes that's all it takes.

The first type is a minor inconvenience for a few people. The second type is a significant threat to the community with possible jail time. That's the freedom you'll most miss, beginning with at least a few dozen staffers/uploaders at all the top trackers. You're on notice. There is a difference between assuming these operations are being conducted and with confirming these operations are being conducted. Action should be taken more aggressively.

 

[spacely]

Ah, you guys have beaten me to the punch. Permission was going to be my second point. Continuing on this:

With permissions from the rights holders the anti piracy groups probably aren't breaking any laws. It would make more sense for them to join trackers via recruitment or interviews rather than buy invites.

It doesn't make much sense for them to compromise the whole thing by buying in. Their account is always at risk & all time invested would be wasted when they are eventually caught. Is it easier? Yes, not disputing that. But it's not the move for the same reason we don't do it.

//edit: Apparently earlier I did dispute it, but that was a bad choice of words. I should've said logical not easier. My bad.