10 ms·

Notes on Private Trackers

68 points by surprisetalk 21d ago

fdb 16d ago
Stupid question, but what are trackers?
- latexr 16d ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_tracker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_tracker
- nemomarx 16d ago
  Torrent trackers. Basically the index that let's your search for and find torrents, private ones are invite only. Common for rare music or better sources of films, and so on.
- neutronicus 16d ago
  A "private tracker" is basically a speakeasy for media piracy. It's BitTorrent, so it's peer-to-peer, but it's exclusive and secretive to avoid letting in surveillance bots that get everyone threatening letters from their ISPs.
- ChiperSoft 16d ago
  Not that stupid, considering the word Torrent doesn't appear above the fold. Took me a while to figure out as well.
roenxi 16d ago
> Friends in other private trackers, including RED, inform me that actually maintaining ratio isn't that hard! I'm not sure why this would be the case, so I don't really believe them. I don't know how public the data would be, but it sounds like it'd be interesting to check! Looking at myanonamouse they demand a global seed ratio of 1 [0]. Naively that seems like it'd be logically impossible to maintain. What if some altruist with a powerful connection decides to make a habit of maintaining a ratio of 2? They're going to crowd someone out to a ratio of lower than 1 by the pidgeonhole principle; the aggregate number of downloads should match the number of uploads. So either everyone has to hit a ratio of 1 which seems like it'd be hard to coordinate, or there have to be free riders. [0] https://www.myanonamouse.net/rules.php https://www.myanonamouse.net/rules.php
- haaz 16d ago
  I know from using myanonamouse that you only need to seed for about 3 weeks after downloading to satisfy their rules, I think they artificially grant you an upload amount of whatever you downloaded.
  - yownie 15d ago
    72 hours with one month.
- pferde 16d ago
  Some trackers solve this by having certain torrents not count towards your download, only towards upload. Usually older torrents, or those in need of being seeded. This, coupled with other rules, such as that you need to seed a torrent at least X amount of time after finishing it, helps to maintain a healthy site.
- davidmr 16d ago
  You can buy upload credit with seeding bonus on some trackers, and there are nearly always freeleech downloads that don’t count against your downloads, but do count for uploads. It’s usually quite easy to maintain a ratio.
- deleted 16d ago
  [deleted]
- flurie 16d ago
  In practice this is less of a concern for a few reasons: - They often designate items as "freeleech," which means that downloading does not cost you ratio, but uploading still credits you. - They often provide free credits at various times, especially for new members. - They tend to have a soft cap, so the automated warning systems don't even start until users dip below 0.9-0.95. - As much as these sites have, there is always something they don't have, and providing it will get you a relatively high share of the total upload. Bear in mind that the primary driver for the site is ensuring access to everything that is available.
- sdthjbvuiiijbb 16d ago
iluvcommunism 16d ago
Please don’t bring normie attention to our communities.
- HDBaseT 16d ago
  The private tracker elitism really needs to stop. The sheer amount of mod power trips and fake elitism is really quite annoying.
  - delabel 16d ago
    The site staff work for free. You can imagine the sheer number of ignorant entitled users and organized bad actors they have to deal with every day. Can't really blame them for not getting it right 100% of the time. I think a healthy dose of elitism is good to protect the community.
nvarsj 16d ago
bibliotek is an interesting one, and one of the most exclusive trackers around. They have very high requirements as their entire purpose is archival. You can't download anything without uploading new content first. It's probably the most complete archive of niche books in existence - it's a librarian's wet dream. No wonder LLM training used it, and probably paid a lot of money to someone for access.
- orsorna 16d ago
  A Faustian library, containing every book known but you aren't allowed to read them all without being evicted from the library.
- bronzeBus 15d ago
  I'll actually contradict you on this, while certainly bibliotek is one of those harder to get into and "survive" private tracker is nothing compared to "The* Network" with trackers like TheOccult, TheVault and so on... on these trackers you are actually required to take a interview with some of the staff members, if you ever manage to even get into one of them your activity will be heavily monitored by admins and moderators with god complex and they will decide if you are fit enough to be appart of that community... especially the admins of TheOccult they are extraordinarily strict and insane.. But again they actually host and share some very very rare books, but you need to contribute heavily to even access them...
LoganDark 16d ago
> Friends in other private trackers, including RED, inform me that actually maintaining ratio isn't that hard! I'm not sure why this would be the case, so I don't really believe them. If, say, you have tons of torrents seeding all the time, and you don't download very often, how is that hard to believe?
- dewey 16d ago
  The easiest way to get upload on trackers is to upload your own content, on Red that's not very complicated if you have access to a library or another more obscure source of CDs that might not exist on the site yet. The other way that requires more storage and longer term commitment is just to seed everything you download forever, including things that you grab on freeleech events or with tokens (A "bonus" given out on Red that you can redeem for a free download).
- zenoprax 16d ago
  Unlike public trackers, private trackers are largely filled with seeders with very few leechers. If 50 people have a file and one person goes to download you are only getting a tiny slice of that at best and for small files there may not even be enough chunks to get anything at all. It makes no sense to me since bandwidth is so cheap compared to 20+ years ago and I think the incentives should instead encourage variety and availability like a distributed, highly-available, P2P archive.
  - unshavedyak 16d ago
    > .. I think the incentives should instead encourage variety and availability like a distributed, highly-available, P2P archive. Which is exactly what it is like for many trackers these days. They have an "economy" where some type of bonus point system allows you to buy upload credits. You often acquire this by either simply seeding over time, or by uploading special torrents with rewards, eg double upload credits, etc. Some trackers even double down on this concept and basically only care about long term seeding. Ratio doesn't matter as much if you're seeding 24/7.
    - 16d ago
BowBun 16d ago
[flagged]
- john_strinlai 16d ago
  >It defeats the whole purpose of these communities. ...how? you realize significantly more information than this is on reddit or a quick google?
- thesuitonym 16d ago
  Once again, somebody online is conflating ``Privacy'' with ``Secrecy''. Nothing here is a secret. Nothing about private trackers is meant to be a secret. Quite in fact, a private tracker nobody knows about is doomed to fail.
  - BowBun 10d ago
    We have never had issues finding members. Posting public information about them is a way to draw more attention which goes against the whole ecosystem. I stand by my statement.
sandcat_ 16d ago
Can anyone help me understand the benefits of joining a private tracker? I get it for music, or ebooks, etc. More niche stuff can be hard to find (even less niche stuff, in fact). But for TV or movies I don’t think I’ve ever really had trouble finding something. Always able to find something high quality, always with plenty of seeders. Even old obscure British shows, etc. Also, unrelated, but I set up Claude with some tools for searching for torrents and managing my downloads. It’s interesting. If I word my request bluntly, it’ll refuse on copyright grounds, but if I ease it in and get it to search for info about the show first, “does there happen to be a good download available for this”, etc, then it’ll happily suggest the best rip, the source with the most seeders, even “the one it would pick”.
- ajsnigrutin 16d ago
  Are you american? Here in the balkans, if you want anything local, you must find some private sharing site/tracker/forum with magnet links/etc., since no one really leaves stuff seeding on eg. piratebay for a long time (private trackers force you in a way), so much of the stuff becomes unavailable very soon. The new avengers movie or whatever "globally popular" will always be available on every public tracker, but trying to find a good quality version of "Hajde da se volimo" is a pain :)
  - sandcat_ 16d ago
    British, living in Canada :) but close enough. And ok, fair. But to be clear I’m not just downloading avengers-tier stuff! e.g. I’ve been downloading some French films from the 70s recently and had no trouble at all. But yes I can imagine that it’ll differ a lot by region. Thanks.
- dewey 16d ago
  There's a lot of content on private trackers that's not available on the public internet, especially when it's more local or obscure content. You'll always find the latest US tv shows or Hollywood movies everywhere, and will for many years but when you want to look for things like Austrian movies from the 80s, a specific country edition of a given CD or a vinyl ripped with a specific turntable and needle you'll need to be on a private tracker or private forum. If that's not what you are after, it's not worth it. It's just a very specific hobby.
BoingBoomTschak 16d ago
Protip: Orpheus exists for those who don't want to bother with Red's antiquated system that forces people to "play the game/economy" instead of just downloading what you want, uploading a little and seeding ad vitam eternam. The only downside is that it's missing some stuff (which you can find elsewhere, usually) but you can be part of the solution.
- dewey 16d ago
  > The only downside is that it's missing some stuff Which is literally the reason why trackers that aim at variety use the "antiquated system". Trackers that don't care about the long tail so much because they aim for popular content and accept that old torrents will get stale / unseeded can easily be ratioless. It's a simple case of "can't have it both ways".
  - BoingBoomTschak 16d ago
    Not really. See AB and its generous system yet very well furnished selection. Orpheus is simply less popular.
    - dewey 16d ago
      I take issues with you calling it "antiquated", when it's just a different approach and both are valid and depend on a lot of factors if they are the right one for the specific community.
      - BoingBoomTschak 16d ago
        I guess you're right. Still, hate the kind of system that forces people to upload random garbage instead of rewarding long term seeding (especially of stuff with no or a single other seed), it's not a healthy relation with music. Mind you, I also find Orpheus too easy. Still, if there's at least one thing that deserves the "antiquated" qualifier on both Orpheus and (I think?) Red, it's the FLAC-doesn't-trump-MP3 garbage rule that make people litter the sites with crap just to gain ratio.
mjr00 16d ago
It's funny that private trackers are now more about ensuring uploads are high quality and properly labeled, and that people actually seed, than they are about dodging copyright enforcement. Reflective of the times. Most people on the internet don't know how to install a torrent client, or even download a file. (Because most people on the internet are on a phone. I don't even know if it's possible to torrent on a phone.) And the stuff people download is mostly "free" anyway via Netflix, Spotify and other content streaming services. A download no longer represents a lost $50 Blu-ray or $20 CD sale to the bean counters, it represents a lost $0.01 streaming royalty. It seems like the only time copyright enforcement bares its teeth these days is for live sports matches.
- rascul 16d ago
  > I don't even know if it's possible to torrent on a phone. Very possible for over a decade.
- Cyph0n 16d ago
  > that private trackers are now This has always been the case for, or at least has been for as far back as I remember. Maybe you’re mixing up public and private trackers?
MrDrMcCoy 16d ago
I wish there was a good way for uncool people like me to score an invite to such things...
- dktbs 16d ago
  As mentioned in the article, myanonamouse has been the easy entry point into these trackers for a while now. They have an invite window opening up in a couple of days: https://www.myanonamouse.net/inviteapp.php https://www.myanonamouse.net/inviteapp.php
unixhero 16d ago
Rest in peace What . C D

68 points by surprisetalk 21d ago

fdb 16d ago

Stupid question, but what are trackers?

latexr 16d ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_tracker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_tracker
nemomarx 16d ago
Torrent trackers. Basically the index that let's your search for and find torrents, private ones are invite only. Common for rare music or better sources of films, and so on.
neutronicus 16d ago
A "private tracker" is basically a speakeasy for media piracy. It's BitTorrent, so it's peer-to-peer, but it's exclusive and secretive to avoid letting in surveillance bots that get everyone threatening letters from their ISPs.
ChiperSoft 16d ago
Not that stupid, considering the word Torrent doesn't appear above the fold. Took me a while to figure out as well.

roenxi 16d ago

> Friends in other private trackers, including RED, inform me that actually maintaining ratio isn't that hard! I'm not sure why this would be the case, so I don't really believe them. I don't know how public the data would be, but it sounds like it'd be interesting to check! Looking at myanonamouse they demand a global seed ratio of 1 [0]. Naively that seems like it'd be logically impossible to maintain. What if some altruist with a powerful connection decides to make a habit of maintaining a ratio of 2? They're going to crowd someone out to a ratio of lower than 1 by the pidgeonhole principle; the aggregate number of downloads should match the number of uploads. So either everyone has to hit a ratio of 1 which seems like it'd be hard to coordinate, or there have to be free riders. [0] https://www.myanonamouse.net/rules.php https://www.myanonamouse.net/rules.php

haaz 16d ago
I know from using myanonamouse that you only need to seed for about 3 weeks after downloading to satisfy their rules, I think they artificially grant you an upload amount of whatever you downloaded.
- yownie 15d ago
  72 hours with one month.
pferde 16d ago
Some trackers solve this by having certain torrents not count towards your download, only towards upload. Usually older torrents, or those in need of being seeded. This, coupled with other rules, such as that you need to seed a torrent at least X amount of time after finishing it, helps to maintain a healthy site.
davidmr 16d ago
You can buy upload credit with seeding bonus on some trackers, and there are nearly always freeleech downloads that don’t count against your downloads, but do count for uploads. It’s usually quite easy to maintain a ratio.
deleted 16d ago
[deleted]
flurie 16d ago
In practice this is less of a concern for a few reasons: - They often designate items as "freeleech," which means that downloading does not cost you ratio, but uploading still credits you. - They often provide free credits at various times, especially for new members. - They tend to have a soft cap, so the automated warning systems don't even start until users dip below 0.9-0.95. - As much as these sites have, there is always something they don't have, and providing it will get you a relatively high share of the total upload. Bear in mind that the primary driver for the site is ensuring access to everything that is available.
sdthjbvuiiijbb 16d ago

iluvcommunism 16d ago

Please don’t bring normie attention to our communities.

HDBaseT 16d ago
The private tracker elitism really needs to stop. The sheer amount of mod power trips and fake elitism is really quite annoying.
- delabel 16d ago
  The site staff work for free. You can imagine the sheer number of ignorant entitled users and organized bad actors they have to deal with every day. Can't really blame them for not getting it right 100% of the time. I think a healthy dose of elitism is good to protect the community.

nvarsj 16d ago

bibliotek is an interesting one, and one of the most exclusive trackers around. They have very high requirements as their entire purpose is archival. You can't download anything without uploading new content first. It's probably the most complete archive of niche books in existence - it's a librarian's wet dream. No wonder LLM training used it, and probably paid a lot of money to someone for access.

orsorna 16d ago
A Faustian library, containing every book known but you aren't allowed to read them all without being evicted from the library.
bronzeBus 15d ago
I'll actually contradict you on this, while certainly bibliotek is one of those harder to get into and "survive" private tracker is nothing compared to "The* Network" with trackers like TheOccult, TheVault and so on... on these trackers you are actually required to take a interview with some of the staff members, if you ever manage to even get into one of them your activity will be heavily monitored by admins and moderators with god complex and they will decide if you are fit enough to be appart of that community... especially the admins of TheOccult they are extraordinarily strict and insane.. But again they actually host and share some very very rare books, but you need to contribute heavily to even access them...

LoganDark 16d ago

dewey 16d ago
The easiest way to get upload on trackers is to upload your own content, on Red that's not very complicated if you have access to a library or another more obscure source of CDs that might not exist on the site yet. The other way that requires more storage and longer term commitment is just to seed everything you download forever, including things that you grab on freeleech events or with tokens (A "bonus" given out on Red that you can redeem for a free download).
zenoprax 16d ago
Unlike public trackers, private trackers are largely filled with seeders with very few leechers. If 50 people have a file and one person goes to download you are only getting a tiny slice of that at best and for small files there may not even be enough chunks to get anything at all. It makes no sense to me since bandwidth is so cheap compared to 20+ years ago and I think the incentives should instead encourage variety and availability like a distributed, highly-available, P2P archive.
- unshavedyak 16d ago
  > .. I think the incentives should instead encourage variety and availability like a distributed, highly-available, P2P archive. Which is exactly what it is like for many trackers these days. They have an "economy" where some type of bonus point system allows you to buy upload credits. You often acquire this by either simply seeding over time, or by uploading special torrents with rewards, eg double upload credits, etc. Some trackers even double down on this concept and basically only care about long term seeding. Ratio doesn't matter as much if you're seeding 24/7.
  - 16d ago

BowBun 16d ago

[flagged]

john_strinlai 16d ago
>It defeats the whole purpose of these communities. ...how? you realize significantly more information than this is on reddit or a quick google?
thesuitonym 16d ago
Once again, somebody online is conflating ``Privacy'' with ``Secrecy''. Nothing here is a secret. Nothing about private trackers is meant to be a secret. Quite in fact, a private tracker nobody knows about is doomed to fail.
- BowBun 10d ago
  We have never had issues finding members. Posting public information about them is a way to draw more attention which goes against the whole ecosystem. I stand by my statement.

sandcat_ 16d ago

Can anyone help me understand the benefits of joining a private tracker? I get it for music, or ebooks, etc. More niche stuff can be hard to find (even less niche stuff, in fact). But for TV or movies I don’t think I’ve ever really had trouble finding something. Always able to find something high quality, always with plenty of seeders. Even old obscure British shows, etc. Also, unrelated, but I set up Claude with some tools for searching for torrents and managing my downloads. It’s interesting. If I word my request bluntly, it’ll refuse on copyright grounds, but if I ease it in and get it to search for info about the show first, “does there happen to be a good download available for this”, etc, then it’ll happily suggest the best rip, the source with the most seeders, even “the one it would pick”.

ajsnigrutin 16d ago
Are you american? Here in the balkans, if you want anything local, you must find some private sharing site/tracker/forum with magnet links/etc., since no one really leaves stuff seeding on eg. piratebay for a long time (private trackers force you in a way), so much of the stuff becomes unavailable very soon. The new avengers movie or whatever "globally popular" will always be available on every public tracker, but trying to find a good quality version of "Hajde da se volimo" is a pain :)
- sandcat_ 16d ago
  British, living in Canada :) but close enough. And ok, fair. But to be clear I’m not just downloading avengers-tier stuff! e.g. I’ve been downloading some French films from the 70s recently and had no trouble at all. But yes I can imagine that it’ll differ a lot by region. Thanks.
dewey 16d ago
There's a lot of content on private trackers that's not available on the public internet, especially when it's more local or obscure content. You'll always find the latest US tv shows or Hollywood movies everywhere, and will for many years but when you want to look for things like Austrian movies from the 80s, a specific country edition of a given CD or a vinyl ripped with a specific turntable and needle you'll need to be on a private tracker or private forum. If that's not what you are after, it's not worth it. It's just a very specific hobby.

BoingBoomTschak 16d ago

Protip: Orpheus exists for those who don't want to bother with Red's antiquated system that forces people to "play the game/economy" instead of just downloading what you want, uploading a little and seeding ad vitam eternam. The only downside is that it's missing some stuff (which you can find elsewhere, usually) but you can be part of the solution.

dewey 16d ago
> The only downside is that it's missing some stuff Which is literally the reason why trackers that aim at variety use the "antiquated system". Trackers that don't care about the long tail so much because they aim for popular content and accept that old torrents will get stale / unseeded can easily be ratioless. It's a simple case of "can't have it both ways".
- BoingBoomTschak 16d ago
  Not really. See AB and its generous system yet very well furnished selection. Orpheus is simply less popular.
  - dewey 16d ago
    I take issues with you calling it "antiquated", when it's just a different approach and both are valid and depend on a lot of factors if they are the right one for the specific community.
    - BoingBoomTschak 16d ago
      I guess you're right. Still, hate the kind of system that forces people to upload random garbage instead of rewarding long term seeding (especially of stuff with no or a single other seed), it's not a healthy relation with music. Mind you, I also find Orpheus too easy. Still, if there's at least one thing that deserves the "antiquated" qualifier on both Orpheus and (I think?) Red, it's the FLAC-doesn't-trump-MP3 garbage rule that make people litter the sites with crap just to gain ratio.

mjr00 16d ago

It's funny that private trackers are now more about ensuring uploads are high quality and properly labeled, and that people actually seed, than they are about dodging copyright enforcement. Reflective of the times. Most people on the internet don't know how to install a torrent client, or even download a file. (Because most people on the internet are on a phone. I don't even know if it's possible to torrent on a phone.) And the stuff people download is mostly "free" anyway via Netflix, Spotify and other content streaming services. A download no longer represents a lost $50 Blu-ray or $20 CD sale to the bean counters, it represents a lost $0.01 streaming royalty. It seems like the only time copyright enforcement bares its teeth these days is for live sports matches.

rascul 16d ago
> I don't even know if it's possible to torrent on a phone. Very possible for over a decade.
Cyph0n 16d ago
> that private trackers are now This has always been the case for, or at least has been for as far back as I remember. Maybe you’re mixing up public and private trackers?

MrDrMcCoy 16d ago

I wish there was a good way for uncool people like me to score an invite to such things...

dktbs 16d ago
As mentioned in the article, myanonamouse has been the easy entry point into these trackers for a while now. They have an invite window opening up in a couple of days: https://www.myanonamouse.net/inviteapp.php https://www.myanonamouse.net/inviteapp.php

unixhero 16d ago

Rest in peace What . C D