Originally Posted by
KennyX
Summary
Privacy and security as arguments against trading are total bollocks.
Detail
There appear to be two main arguments put forward against trading by the anti-traders: privacy and security. Lets deal with these. There is no clear break between privacy and security in this context so I wont bother to try.
Privacy and security against who is the main question.
The argument about privacy/security against organisations like the MP** and RI** put forward by the anti-traders is total and absolute nonsense. Chances are that they are already a member of and are monitoring every site you are on. They probably joined in the trackers first week. At least if they wanted to do so.
Some trackers have conditions that anyone joining cant be connected to any anti-piracy organisation, effective? No, because even if these conditions are subject to real life legal processes (and that is a very big if), then there are plenty of ways to circumvent this. All it needs is for them to coerce an already existing member into providing them with all the information and access they need. Or they could pay a hacker if they wanted owner info. Even revenge as a motive is effective. How many people hate tracker X? Enough to harvest IP lists, user lists, and any other details they can find to send to their favourite anti-piracy organisation?
Are we to assume that these organisations do not have either the will or the resources to get access to the information they desire? I think not. Do they need to trade invites or accounts to get it? No. Is it advantageous for them to trade invites or accounts to get access? No.
Can they get an invite to a tracker if they want to without trading? Yes.
We know the formula for high level trackers without trading is be a good user, post a lot, be helpful, have good stats: imagine if you had the time and money to actually do this.
The advantage of not trading for organisations like the RI**/MP** is obvious. They will have better and more widespread access. A clean reputation, I would argue, will allow them to penetrate the private torrent scene much more effectively. If law enforcement spends years gaining trust to infiltrate and gather information on criminal gangs, who lets face it don't steal even a fraction of what torrent users do, then would they not apply the same tried and tested tactics to infiltrate the torrent world?
Privacy with torrents? Give me a break. Fairly easy to join a swarm in passive mode (without downloading anything so no breaking of the law) and see every single IP that is downloading that latest blockbuster. Have a seedbox to help with your privacy? It is easy to trace that seedbox down, if you are in the UK like me then the RIP act means that OVH have to pass over every detail they hold about you and they will know a lot about you!
I assume it is organisations that are against piracy that are the big concern of the anti-traders. This seems a safe assumption to me, but I might be wrong, so lets add in individual bad users and cheaters. Are these such a big problem? If a tracker cant spot bad users and cheaters then the coders and staff are not doing their job.
So your tracker has a few people who traded or even bought their way in. Hardly the end of the world is it? Most of them will turn out to be good users on your tracker, they wont cheat or draw attention to themselves and will just get on with the business of torrenting.
One final point on infiltration of sites. We all know about the rats on iTS, ScL and some other trackers who have infiltrated supposedly very private invite sites to catch traders and those doing invite giveways. It was easy for them to infiltrate these sites, do you think it would be different for a member of an anti-piracy organisation to do the same to a tracker?
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