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Modern BitTorrent Hydra

Most people are aware of GGF’s acquisition of The Pirate Bay and the plan to turn it into a legal pay-site. The Pirate Bay, as many know, has served the BitTorrent community as a large public tracker/indexer as well as something of a project team known for relaunching Suprnova, ShareReactor, as well as original sites such as bayimg. Proving to be an old favorite, the acquisition of TPB marks a sad day in BitTorrent history. Despite this, the hydra theory comes in to play: when one head is cut off, two grow in its place. Though as of right now the TPB website remains active in something of a weakened state (the trackers are down) there are already a slew of alternatives available to the BitTorrent community.

Besides TPB, many other tracker/indexer sites have been around for a long amount of time. For example, H33T and SUMMOTorrent (and Demonoid to an extent) offer both in-house trackers and indexes. Other indexing sites, such as Mininova or TorrentBox offer free use with 3rd-party public trackers such as  OpenTracker. Next to these public trackers are private torrent sites that usually require a user to be invited to it by another. These private trackers offer a level of safety due to their exclusivity, but are by no means completely safe from anti-piracy outfits.

Since the acquisition of TPB was announced, many new sites have popped up to offer new outlets to BitTorrent users.

Starting off, there have been a few public trackers popping up that look promising. The first being OpenBitTorrent, which from research proves to be the trackers from TPB using a new name (so the offline time for them is questionable). A similar project using the same software, but this time spearheaded by the administrator of BTJunkie, is known as PublicBT. These two trackers are virtually identical in use and message. They are simply for the tracking of torrents with no needed registration or limitations.

Besides these two trackers, a third entitled TheHiddenTracker should be noted for an interesting execution. TheHiddenTracker hides itself and its connections using TOR. Many torrent users know not to transfer files over TOR as it is slow and degrades service, but in this case, only the tracker is reached through TOR and file sharing happens normally. To use this tracker, one would have to either install TOR, or use a handy web service entitled tor2web that allows an internet user to access TOR addresses without downloading any additional software.

Now that there are new trackers, there are also some practical and interesting ways to share them amongst others. First off, if one possessed any torrents utilizing the old TPB trackers, these torrents could easily be edited to reflect new trackers using TorrentEditor, which helps edit torrent files online.

One interesting way to share torrent files is through the use of a service called Hid.im which will turn a torrent file into an image. This way, torrent files can easily be shared in places like forums or social networking sites. Anywhere an image can be hosted can now host a torrent.

Another service entitled Torrage (combinging the words Torrent and Storage) attempts to hold torrents without providing a search function. The only way torrents can be found through this website is if a user knows the info hash that the site generates for every torrent upload. Some torrent indexing sites are already utilitzing this as a way to store torrents more effectively, in a more decentralized manner.

Last but not least, isoHunt recently launched a “social networking torrent site” by the name of Hexagon.cc. Hexagon is made up of a bunch of different, smaller groups within the whole of the website. So say thay you are a fan of Creative Commons content. You can then join the group, download torrents associated with the group, and engage in discussions. Besides the public groups, there are also private groups that can only be accessed and seen through invites. They are also apparently SSL encrypted for added protection. Even though the site is less than a week old, it already houses over 45,000 torrents and is growing every day. The site is currently only joinable through the use of invites, but expect it to open up more as it expands.

So although TPB appears to be burning down (though some argue that the acquisition is doomed) loyal torrenters can rest assured that new services will rise from the ashes. Things such as The Hydra Project and (the now defunct) Securep2p project could come to light and revolutionize how people think about file sharing. The end of an era may be upon us, but a new chapter of BitTorrent history is being written as we speak.

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Wizzywig Volume Two

Ever since January of this year, I have been waiting for the second book in the Wizzywig series to be ready for distribution. The first volume, subtitled “Phreak” follows a young kid named Kevin Phenicle who goes by the handle Boingthump. Let me say, this isn’t some drab piece of writing you would find in the discount bin at your local book outlet. These are graphic novels, containing anything but a boring story about some kiddie hacker acting out a stereotype. This first book I read about Boingthump was a definite, and somewhat unexpected, treat. The bulk of the story was composed of little snippets of this character’s doings. From his first experience with blueboxing to social engineering pizza, the story is rife with creative scenarios that paint a vivid picture of an anykid in the golden age of phreaking. Suffice it to say I was impressed by just how much fact went into the story, and was curious to see where it would go… or where it would take me.

Fast forward to November. I stumbled across Ed Piskor’s website after forgetting about it for a little while. I found out that the second book had been completed and was ready for purchase, so I quickly snagged myself a copy, which arrived in the mail quickly after my purchase. Upon reading the book, I was happy to see much of the same structure as was present in the first. The story bounced back and forth between present day (Kevin has been incarcerated) and his younger days when he started experimenting with computers, and became immersed in a new, exciting, and scary world found through his phone lines.

The story found in these books is not your cookie cutter hacker epic. Take your Hackers, your Die Hard 4, your Swordfish, and throw them out the window. Ed takes careful attention to detail, nothing here is a stretch of the imagination and you can see he has done his homework in the creation of these novels. Reading along, you’ll be able to see all he has done simply by what is alluded to. No Hollywood garbage trying to make hacking seem glamorous or news stories spewing out tales that this underground world is full of all kinds of dangerous people who can make a computer explode. Ed gives the honest, gritty perspective the genre has hardly ever been represented by.

Summing things up, I don’t know anyone who is showing the world of phreak/hack culture in this fashion. Ed has truely honed his craft, and the fact that he himself is only an admirer of this culture, and not a participant only ampliphies his qualities. If you liked the first one, you probably already have the second, and are waiting patiently for the third and fourth. For those of you who haven’t jumped on the wagon yet, you can purchase both books directly from Ed at his website. There are also previews of both of the books, so you can read a few panels before deciding.

Also, I happen to be “in” the second installment as an angry fellow on page 10.

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