For what it's worth, there is a concerted effort at r/DataHoarder to bring the site back from the dead.
Rarbg Is No More
601–610 of 679 posts
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#602I keep wondering all the time why torrent search is based on websites (centralized), which can be taken down, etc., while once you have a torrent file or a magnet/hash everything is distributed. Is there a main reason why there isn't (AFAIK, even though I haven't really researched) a distributed search that wouldn't have these problems? Is it a tech problem that literally can't be solved? Or it just hasn't been done?…
r/DataHoarder are sharing their backups of Magnet links and torrent files they backed up for years and are trying to bring the site back from the dead. For torrent sites, nothing stops you really from scraping the site for torrents. As long as the file itself is being seeded, it'll be impossible to take down. It IS decentralized.
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google seems to refuse removing because, according to them, "Whole-site removal is ineffective and can easily result in censorship of lawful material." Instead of removing, they just remove links by request. Sources: https://torrentfreak.com/google-opposes-whole-site-removal-o... and https://www.scribd.com/document/286275022/TorrentFreak-Googl... - However they did ban Pirate Bay in the Netherlands after a Dutch cour…
Isn't this the same loophole that MegaUpload used? Only removing a link to a file, not the file itself with the claim that other links belonged to potentially lawful owners of the file.
I mean, if the subpoena says "remove a link" you comply with that.
But there's also another fundamental difference: even if there's the expectation of removing all copies of the same exact file, it is "trivial" for MegaUpload to know, by using hashes. They do have access to all files, as it is in their servers.
For Google to delete all pirate links to movie X it would be much more complicated, and would put them on a position of being forced to be the internet police.
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
This makes sense but...I'm being fully serious and earnest here and revealing my own naïveté: Couldn't some form of blockchain work here? Like couldn't some form of distributed/democratized community curation and moderation happen by using the blockchain to manage the arbitration of new torrents (and their successors, like when the community decides New Random Anime X encoding to be a superior copy)? Plus you have pr…
Freenet works this way. I would replace all torrents with Freenet(s) but the technology seems to be too obscure to be comfortable for large audiences.
Not just the technology, if Freenet is still like it was when I tried it years ago (?), the "front page" is full of sites clearly being for pedophiles and fascists. Kind of tends to put you off, you know ?
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
> in western Europe it's quite common to get threatening letters as soon as you start torrenting without VPN What about the right of the privacy of communication? Oh, right, it's the state-owned postal services that have to respect that right, and only with regards to the paper letters, not the privately operated ISPs that can (and obliged to) wiretap at the slightest suspicion of crime.
It is not that clear cut for Western Europe. - Germany sends letters and fines - Czech Republic doesn’t send letters or fines - The Netherlands doesn’t send letters or fines (unless you share an absolutely ludicrous amount) - Belgium doesn’t send letters or fines - UK sends letters and fines - France sends letters (tiny chance of a fine) - Switzerland doesn’t send letters or fines
Spain doesn't send letters or fines
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s why magnet links were invented for torrents. They don’t link to any content, just give your client a unique ID to find peers for. Like saying a site mentioning that you should look for “cannabis” if you want to get high is illegal. Selling the substance is illegal, telling you how it’s called isn’t.
I didn’t know this but would like to know more. Can you expand on how they try to circumvent linking and do they circumvent it? It is surprising to hear because as a user they _seem_ like a link. Copy the link into something and get the (illegal) files.
A magnet URI is a little bit like a web link in the sense that it refers to a particular piece of data, but it doesn't point to any particular host or location. It is merely a hash of the files it describes. So in other words, the link doesn't tell you where the particular content can be found, it only tells you what the content is that it refers to.
To actually find the content in question you take the link, go on a peer to peer network, and basically ask machines if they have the content in question available or know where it is. There's various ways to do that, in some cases your torrent app might know the location of some centralized "tracker" servers, and ask those servers whether they know locations for those files. Some torrents are "trackerless" and use a DHT, a type of distributed database that keeps information about where to find files.
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#607I keep wondering all the time why torrent search is based on websites (centralized), which can be taken down, etc., while once you have a torrent file or a magnet/hash everything is distributed. Is there a main reason why there isn't (AFAIK, even though I haven't really researched) a distributed search that wouldn't have these problems? Is it a tech problem that literally can't be solved? Or it just hasn't been done?…
The problem is not search, it's curation. Any system that accepts everything will be overrun with things you do not want (fakes, *very* illegal things), and so there needs to be some authority that determines what is allowed. At that point, you are centralized, and hosting a website doesn't significantly hurt you. This is also the problem with all distributed social networks. In the end, your options are formal centr…
Some examples trying to deal with this involving Mastodon (years before the Twitter Musk debacle) :
Mastodon is big in Japan, and the reason why is uncomfortable ["child porn"]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15053064
Mastodon and the challenges of abuse in a federated system
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17894684
How the biggest decentralized social network is dealing with its ["]Nazi["] problem
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20429465
Trump’s new social media platform found using Mastodon code
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#608Probably the largest blow to the torrent sharing community since The Pirate Bay got shut down. The impact of content availability will be noticeable for years to come
I'm very out of the loop at this stage of life, but one thing I have wondered--has software as a service, and all the online gaming, killed off all those kinds of warez? Are most of these pirate sites nowadays just for movies/tv? (One of the reasons I have been wondering about this is that I so f'ing hate windows etc updating and phoning home all the time I would prefer a version cracked a la 2007 to prevent that, ov…
Online-only, heavily DRMed games are still a tiny minority of games.
And even if you look at popularity instead, Minecraft (so far as the more open Java version is still popular at least) single-handedly skews the results enough for them not being a clear win for the locked down games.
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't this the same loophole that MegaUpload used? Only removing a link to a file, not the file itself with the claim that other links belonged to potentially lawful owners of the file.
I mean, if the subpoena says "remove a link" you comply with that. But there's also another fundamental difference: even if there's the expectation of removing all copies of the same exact file, it is "trivial" for MegaUpload to know, by using hashes. They do have access to all files, as it is in their servers. For Google to delete all pirate links to movie X it would be much more complicated, and would put them on a…
> They do have access to all files, as it is in their servers.
not if they have the encrypted content only, and the decode key is only in the hash portion of a url, which never goes to a server.
But i guess crafting a technocal "solution" to a legal problem doesn't work, since the law works off intentions, and how much money you pay lawyers...
Re: Rarbg Is No More
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Better" is a matter of opinion, but it certainly isn't a "margin note". Rarbg was one of the most popular torrent sites in the world. Torrent Freak puts it as #4 most popular in the world, ahead of The Pirate Bay, though I am not sure of their methodology. https://torrentfreak.com/top-torrent-sites/ Of those most popular sites, I think it was by far the best. It offered consistently good encodes, with about the best…
> Compare to YIFY/YTS, which uploads bitrate-starved "HD" schlock that looks worse than rarbg's 480p. YES. I have always wondered why YTS is popular, as the quality is always overstated and always garbage. sorry but 1 MBPS is not "HD", no matter what codec you are using.
Because HD literally means 1280×720, and there are no guarantees of quality ?