What kind of tracker should ConCen be?

[yeti]

(12-20-2011 03:51 AM)Dunamis Wrote:  I also know that a public tracker will publicise the place more, but not always to the "right" people, being those that aren't actually people, but fictional persons acting as such (aka Corporations). It would be a pity to see, as Genteel has suggested, material have to be taken down due to such things.

Although 6969 is open for all to use, it would not be possible for anyone to upload a torrent that doesn't fit ConCen. We would only be tracking torrents that people should have. There would be no influx of undesirables posting crap comments or torrents.

(12-20-2011 03:51 AM)Dunamis Wrote:  Also, for many of us, such as myself, we don't have the option of a high speed connection, and I already have troubles uploading content due to so many leech only peers in the initial-seeding stage, at times I have had to upload almost 200% of large files before they are initially seeded. A public system will ensure that issue only gets worse.

Actually I've found that the situation here is as bad as it gets. My experience on public trackers is that the swarm is so much bigger that I get the download a lot faster.

[yeti]

(12-20-2011 04:57 AM)Dunamis Wrote:  @Yeti, if we were to allow public trackers to be added, in addition to the private tracker (option 3 you presented), could we have it so that our tracker, when put in with no passkey, displays something like "Visit Concen.org - The Worlds Treasure Chest of Alternative News and Media" like in Aprils ace pic:

It could be done with TT, but TT is being binned. No dice with opentracker. It's as lean as it gets. Even getting stats out of it is a bitch.

[Dunamis]

(12-20-2011 05:05 AM)yeti Wrote:  It could be done with TT, but TT is being binned. No dice with opentracker. It's as lean as it gets. Even getting stats out of it is a bitch.

Would that mean more"privacy" for the paranoid minded? That could be a plus if so! Especially if we ensure a good "privacy page" is written up that includes that info (and yes, if I am given a list of all the bases to cover, that's me volunteering writing one up, I actually want to get started on a good indexing description for search engines and maybe the front page).

[yeti]

(12-20-2011 05:09 AM)Dunamis Wrote:  Would that mean more"privacy" for the paranoid minded? That could be a plus if so!

Opentracker stores no information about torrents or users. It would be impossible for anybody to seize logs where none exist.

[Genteel]

Yeti Wrote:Opentracker stores no information about torrents or users. It would be impossible for anybody to seize logs where none exist.

Whoa! Really cool. Talk about privacy!

Yeti: You have also not voiced your opinion yet on the matter? Yours does count, as well. What do you think we should do?

[yeti]

(12-20-2011 12:30 PM)Genteel Wrote:  

Yeti Wrote:Opentracker stores no information about torrents or users. It would be impossible for anybody to seize logs where none exist.

Whoa! Really cool. Talk about privacy!

It's still easy to find out people's IPs though - just join the swarm.

(12-20-2011 12:30 PM)Genteel Wrote:  Yeti: You have also not voiced your opinion yet on the matter? Yours does count, as well. What do you think we should do?

I am a mere servant, bound to the whims of my masters...

[SiLVa]

(12-19-2011 10:42 PM)yeti Wrote:  

(12-19-2011 06:28 PM)SiLVa Wrote:  I was a member on another website that didnt have a bit torrent tracker but there was a section that members could access to download files that others had uploaded onto the website using direct download links and such. The catch was that no one had access to those pages of the site unless they were members registered to the site and had at least 10-15 posts- so not sure if that is something worth doing, maybe a variation of it or not

Was it a big site?

Yeah. It used to be just an underground hip hop site, eventually grew to a much bigger mainstream site with news, fashion, sports, music, politics, etc.
Now its just a mainstream site that covers almost everything.
http://www.Boxden.com
Even going there now without being a member, you can only see certain sections of the site. Once youre a member you get access to other areas. And once you post a certain amount, then you get access to other areas of the site.

[h3rm35]

as long as there´s absolutely no loss to privacy and security, whatever´s easiest and cheapest for the site and the sysop... but privacy and security trump all else in my book, particularly with this type of information. this is almost the only site that I ever create torrents for and initially seed to and uploaders tend to be targeted more (I seem to remember) in lawsuits that those who dl, cut and run.

[FastTadpole]

Something of note that yeti has brought to my attention is that torrents can and will be whitelisted (via torrent hash) so uploads will still need to be registered in the ConCen database by the uploaders. This will allow us to keep the upload rules intact and keep piggybackers from using our open tracker to relay their content.

Privacy has been addressed but many steps can be taken on your own end including, but not limited to, blocklists*, proxies, IP spoofing, wireless network piggybacking.. to help prevent swarm scans for your IP.

Not sure how much good it will do but you can enable SSL on ConCen by logging in via https://concen.org/tracker/ (PKCS #1 SHA-1 With RSA Encryption Certificate). That could help prevent packet sniffers.

*Blocklists can give false information (friends and even my IP has been blocked before because I was in a bad range on a bluetack blacklist) and scanners can easily circumvent them by using a non-blacklisted IP.

[yeti]

(12-20-2011 09:14 PM)FastTadpole Wrote:  Something of note that yeti has brought to my attention is that torrents can and will be whitelisted (via torrent hash) so uploads will still need to be registered in the ConCen database by the uploaders. This will allow us to keep the upload rules intact and keep piggybackers from using our open tracker to relay their content.

It took me a lot longer than I thought (8 hours FFS), but I managed to build some opentracker integration to the TT software.

Opentracker is now set up with a whitelist so that any torrents tracked must be added to the TT software via http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-upload.php.

Now when you create an external torrent, it automatically adds it to the whitelist. The torrent will not become authorized for a maximum of 5 minutes after uploading.

If the torrent is banned or deleted, the info_hash is then blacklisted automatically.

So I guess you could call the opentracker semi-private, not public.

[zapoper]

Twelve votes on 197 views.

@ yeti, your link gets a 404 because of the period at the end. This one works better: http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-upload.php

[FastTadpole]

yeti Wrote:Opentracker is now set up with a whitelist so that any torrents tracked must be added to the TT software via http://concen.org/tracker/torrents-upload.php.

Any plans to whitelist existing torrents I've got my dedicated seeds (prematurely) loaded up with the new tracker URLs

http://concen.org:6969/announce
Error Message When not Whitelisted: Failure: Requested Download Not Authorized for use with this tracker

udp://concen.org:6969/announce
Error Message When not Whitelisted: Tracker Timeout

B the W Bravo Yeti!

[yeti]

(12-21-2011 03:42 AM)FastTadpole Wrote:  Any plans to whitelist existing torrents I've got my dedicated seeds (prematurely) loaded up with the new tracker URLs

Yes, if you uploaded the torrents. If not, then is it ethical to make public torrents that were uploaded by people who want them to remain private? Interesting dilemma...

[FastTadpole]

yeti Wrote:is it ethical to make public torrents that were uploaded by people who want them to remain private? Interesting dilemma...

Most bittorrent clients allow for PEX and DHT to be not allowed, otherwise known as creating a private torrent. However this practice does allow other tracker URLs to be added, no way around this. Also other sites index ConCen torrents and append their tracker URL cybersage.net being a prime example (although they would probably honour takedown requests).

If there is a way to detect "private" torrents and filter them out of the hash whitelist then would that imply consent to allow it to be allowed to be indexed on the public ConCen tracker, or is that assuming too much? What if it was accompanied by an email/announcement?

and/or

An individual user could send a formatted list of hashes and/or torrent IDs to be added to the public whitelist or maybe have an "allow all to be public" toggle that would automate the process and be executed to include their old uploads. Retroactively adding all of their uploaded torrent hashes to the whitelist.

and/or

Have a "make torrent public" option on a member's edit torrent page.

This could also work the other way in making a torrent "private" adding it to a blacklist.

[yeti]

OK against my better judgment (I don't want to write TorrentTrader code any more!) I made some changes to the torrent edit and details page.
Anyone can edit or delete their own torrents. Admins can edit any torrent.

Torrent details (external torrents only):
- added "Announce URLs" <- these are built into the torrent file
- added "Scrape URL" <- this is stored in the database and is the URL TT will use to gather seeder/leech/completed info

Edit Torrents:
- added ability to edit the scrape URL
- added the ability to convert the torrent to internal

If the "Update Stats" button keeps timing out, you can now change the scrape URL to a tracker that isn't timing out.

These new tools give us the ability to add any fully external torrent to ConCen without having to create our own. We can post a torrent with a known info_hash that is widely circulated. That way we can get the best download speeds.

I believe you will all agree this is going to be good for ConCen...