Why not?
Recently at BCG they instituted a guest account so that potential members could see if they liked the content on the tracker and actually would want to use it, to eliminate possible unused accounts. However, soon after it was removed due to public postings of the guest account user/pw over a bunch of public forums.
I disagree with that decision, I think that every tracker should have a guest account, and that the benefits of having one far outweigh the losses.
First off, it would greatly reduce collecting and trading. The majority of collectors and traders are breeded simply from the fact that they want to join these "l33t" and "rare" trackers because they are a magical cesspool of rare, exclusive, fast, and amazing content that can't be found on any other trackers, failing to realize what the trackers are really for (community, security, or some other random niche). Ridiculously hyped, but almost impossible to get into, people turn to trading to find a way in. If they actually realized the content/peers may not be as good as their everyday 0day tracker, they could potentially not bother seeking it out anymore.
A point made against having guest accounts is obviously security. I call BS. The RIAA/MPAA aren't retarded. It's incredibly easy for any of them to find the tracker url, secret login mechanisms, or even get into the tracker itself through months of asskissing. Heck, even a simple google search, even with a little bit of effort, can easily tell you what any tracker URL is and what any initials stand for. Honestly, could it really be any more obvious what ScT stands for? If the feds couldn't even piece that together, they wouldn't be feds. A guest account wouldn't compromise the security of the users either. A guest account can't post, DL, or do anything else of significance. They can't snatch a torrent and log the IPs of the peers when they can't download anything. So why not? And guest accounts are the most benificial to the small, random, niche sites that value community, security, yadda yadda. With these small userbases, I really doubt the feds would have busting obscure torrent sites on their top priority. Limewire/public sites/LARGE private sites/FTPs are a far more vulnerable and useful target for feds to go after, and I don't think sites should be concerned either way.
Thoughts?
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