Is invite trading really that bad?

[1000possibleclaws]

Quoted from backie's blog (but not written by backie afaik)
Felt this needed to by copy pasta'd onto FST, because there wasn't enough intelligent discussion going on at the source.

"
Lets say you have five monkeys in a cage. You put a banana in the cage, and everytime a monkey tries to get it you spray them all with a hose. Eventually these 5 monkeys understand what’s up and don’t try to get the banana. Now lets say you replace one of the five monkeys with a new monkey. The new monkey goes to get the banana and the other four monkeys attack it. The monkey tries again with the same result, and eventually the new monkey gives up. Now lets say you replace a second monkey. The new monkey tries to get the banana, and all the other monkeys attack it, including the monkey that was aded previously. Lets say that you do this 3 more times, so none of the original monkeys are there. All these monkeys don’t go for the banana because they were attacked when they tried. But do they know why they were attacked? No. They have never seen the hose that the original monkeys were sprayed with, and yet they will attack any monkey that tries to get the banana. This is the
situation with trading tracker invites today. Most people have long forgotten the original reason trading was forbidden, which was in fact to protect the tracker from security threats. But trading is one of the more secure ways to let someone into a tracker, because both the invites being given need to be on the same “level”. With giving away invites, this is not the case. All you need to do to get into a higher level tracker is give away five or 6 invites to FTS or some other shitty tracker and BOOM; you have access to SCC, GFT and more. Giving away invites is based on the exact same principal as trading, except that is much easier to move up to more elite trackers. When you trade invites, there is also a certain level of trust involved. You don’t go around trading invites with a complete stranger for fear of being jipped. You usually know the person you are trading invites with, whether it be in real life or on a forum. With giving away invites, you give the invite to
whoever has the most “reps”. But the thing is these reps could have been given because the person gave away a bitshock invite. You just don’t know. I think the bittorrent world needs to ask itself, “Is trading really that bad?”.

"

__________________________________________________


Starting of TSOL's opinion:

I can sort of relate with some of the concepts in this person's thoughts, but I do believe he is glorifying and oversimplifying trading. I've traded/scammed just for kicks wayyy back before really knowing anything about this scene (Mudd revoked my invite privs at A-L once upon a time, but let me stay on board, good man ) and from what I understand there isn't really much trust among traders. Some are decent folk with lives, some have interesting persona's, some want buffered accounts because their pipes are shite, but for the most part they are just moronic people caught up in chasing illusions. In other words, they are the same kind of people who today are 'anti-trade' invite givers.

I have about as much faith in those past traders as I do in today's non-traders; the traders who were interesting and personable to today's non-trader equivalents; sketchy traders to today's anonymous anti-traders, or users who throw invites around like spare change. As far as tracker security, I wouldn't let my web of trust stretch further than people I know first-hand. I would not put complete trust in invitees, and therefore no tracker is truly secure in my eyes. Chances are your site will go down when some shitty ex-staff member decides to stab you in the back for personal differences, or when your database will fuck itself over the one time you were too lazy to make backups. Aka your site will die well before the feds decide to come in and seize your servers.

Despite all this, I feel trading has fallen apart so much since back in '07 when it was a norm, at least from what I have been witnessing here on FST, that it is not realistic to ever expect any sort of resurgence in trading. This is mostly because you'd have to be a complete idiot to even contemplate trading unless you are oblivious to the current state of bt politics. In my opinion invite giveaways aren't much of an improvement from past trading norms, but they are not a step backwards either as the original quote seems to allude. Trader's have successfully become a scapegoat for private tracker woes, for better or for worse.



afterthought: Would be nice to get a couple tracker staffer opinions in here, especially those that have been around for some good amount of time. I lack that sort of perspective, and my vantage point is probably missing elements theirs would have had.

[Quarterquack]

This is mostly because you'd have to be a complete idiot to even contemplate trading unless you are oblivious to the current state of bt politics.

False. I believe every single person that says they traded with the impression that it was the right thing to do (oblivious to the truth, as you would say). The problem is the BT world is huge, and someone fresh off the bench from public trackers googling "FTN invite" will probably end up on a trading board and see hundreds of people carrying out the deed in broad daylight (in retrospect). It would be naive to assume that everyone who trades knows it's wrong, just as it would be naive to assume that people trade for as few reasons as people list often. I'm sure exclusivity and sharing aren't the only reasons; but more sinister ones like it becoming a hobby, or their will to aggravate some staffer somewhere also play a part.

Trading is bad because most of the time it's done for the wrong reasons, and will probably end with the wrong people (people banned twice or thrice before) getting back on the tracker and ruining the experience for a different torrenter, yet again. Fact is, according to all the reading I've done, and all I've had to hear from different people, that seems to be the most dominant logical reasoning; people consider trading acceptable but the people associated with it usually have their hands in even more dirt, which can never be a good thing (invite selling/cheating etc.). That's what I reason with, instead of deluded illusions of helping an undercover FBI agent get on my favorite tracker on the other side of the internet pipes.

That's just my opinion, though, and I don't have the "experience" you might be looking for.

[ca_aok]

The author of that grossly oversimplifies things and it's clear that he's trying to bolster his own view by making silly statements. LOL@ traders being "trusted", I can't imagine a system where there's less trust in place. As a general rule you won't know each other, you should both be paranoid that the other guy is actually a staffer baiting you, etc.

The problem isn't so much the whole RIAA/MPAA thing, that's just what people spew out when they have no clue what the real issues are. The problem is that most traders are generally, for lack of a better word, scum. I see trading as the "gateway drug" of the torrenting world. It starts with a simple one time deal for a site you want. Maybe you treasure that account and use it well. Whatever, it was a means to an end. However, it often doesn't stop there. You start realizing that you can't be assed to do things the normal way, I mean, why bother asking for invites when you can just trade yours away. So you start trading more and more. Eventually you've made so many trades and lost so many of your accounts that it's no longer about just getting into that one unobtainable site, it's about spitting in the face of tracker staff, trading for a "buffered account" and then hit and running a place bone dry, etc. Soon enough, if you're cutting corners here, why not throw the rest of the rules out the window? Might as well start selling invites since the torrent sites themselves aren't doing much for you. This is especially great when they donate for invites, sell them, then claim the cash back from paypal and get your account frozen. Hell, might as well start cheating too, you probably have multiple accounts and you need a way to buffer them fast so they're worth more. Eventually it all becomes a game, and you probably don't even torrent much anymore.

Soon you degrade from a simple one-time trader into a scumbag that's a collector, trader, seller, cheater, all rolled into one. And you've forgotten why you even started trading in the first place.

And say what you will, the WTAW/WTO is a huge part of the problem. The reason many people trade is because of the "rarity levels", since they're under some delusion that the high level trackers are the best (and for trade value, they are). Without that stupid shit, it wouldn't be that big of an issue. If there was some other 0-day site like FTN with a comparable number of members, but wasn't on that list, it really wouldn't have many problems from traders.

Public giveaways are just as bad, especially when it's for rep points to bolster your trading power here or try and get an invite to a "high level site" here.

Rules are in place at private trackers for the betterment of the site, swarms, and the community. If you don't want to follow them, just fuck off to public trackers or newsgroups or something, where it's irrelevant and you can leech to your heart's content. Traders love to talk about how difficult invites are to acquire, and yet the entire reason it's difficult for them to get invites is because no one knows who they are. As a trader, you spend your time living in the shadows. You hide behind proxies, have to use different browsers for different sites, have a million emails to keep track of, you have to avoid the forums/IRC because anything that might draw staff eyes to your profile is a danger, and you constantly change your nick. The end result of this is no one has any basis on which to get to know you or trust you. Additionally, they come here and get "Trader Rep" and then expect people to bend over backwards in a giveaway for them, so that they can then trade that account down the road when something "rarer" comes along? Well fuck them.

If I might echo the response of one of the last commentators, join What, through the interview if necessary, hit power user, you now have invites to all the sites you reasonably need. You don't need to worry about all this bullshit, and you'll be happier for it. Unless you're looking for unlimited invites to those "high level trackers", you'll be able to find whatever you need.

False. I believe every single person that says they traded with the impression that it was the right thing to do (oblivious to the truth, as you would say). The problem is the BT world is huge, and someone fresh off the bench from public trackers googling "FTN invite" will probably end up on a trading board and see hundreds of people carrying out the deed in broad daylight (in retrospect). It would be naive to assume that everyone who trades knows it's wrong, just as it would be naive to assume that people trade for as few reasons as people list often. I'm sure exclusivity and sharing aren't the only reasons; but more sinister ones like it becoming a hobby, or their will to aggravate some staffer somewhere also play a part.

Read the Rules on any site (you did agree to do so before joining didn't you?), and you'll see the problem. It's clearly wrong. You might start out oblivious, but when the first ban rolls around, you'd figure it out pretty quick.

[A]

Trading brings more negativity to the system than the small positive sides it has.Even if positive sides are embraced,it opens a series of loopholes for exploitation.The system is better without it.

[Tv Controls you]

The relationship between rule abiding members of trackers and conformist monkeys is truly insulting...
And the quoted post was obviously written by a deranged invite trader, that most likely just got banned off a high level tracker he traded for.

There were already many valid points given here, so I'm not going to rehash them all back for you again.
But I think you would have to agree... That to maintain a level of quality on trackers that their must be rules put in place.
These rules aren't made to bash you down and take power over anyone (shame on any site that does), they are made to craft a clean and efficient community...

If I truly felt suppressed by any of these rules or ideals of these trackers, I would be the first to speak out about them.. As I have in the past on multiple occasions.

[1000possibleclaws]

Read the Rules on any site (you did agree to do so before joining didn't you?), and you'll see the problem. It's clearly wrong. You might start out oblivious, but when the first ban rolls around, you'd figure it out pretty quick.

One of the most common rules:

"You must have legal rights to the file you are downloading."


Other than that bs rules part at the end your post makes a good deal of sense. While trackers network to some extent, I'd still think users would behave better if all their accounts had the same nick attached to them. Trading accounts just makes them more disposable which can't be great. Oink was the best tracker of its time, despite allowing trading. TTi has always been on par with any other 0day site that has not allowed trading. Would these sites have been even better had they disallowed trading? There is for sure a negative impact of trading, but judging from Oink I am somewhat doubtful about how many people actually degrade into collectors and scumbags, or whether that number is even relevant. If trading has infact died off everywhere and not just here, I wonder what positive effects it would have had over the past few years. I guess its doubtful anywhere could pinpoint anything with all the other factors involved.

[ca_aok]

One of the most common rules:

"You must have legal rights to the file you are downloading."

This is a common argument from rulebreakers, and a silly one at that. It's more of a disclaimer than a rule, and everyone is aware that it's only put there for the fimsy pretense in case of legal action against the site. It's sort of like drug users to experiment with Research Chemicals (aka Designer Drugs). These are legal drugs made by slightly altering current illegal drugs in order to bend the rules. You can buy them from large online vendors and in the case of incense (the JWH family usually) you can even buy them in smoke shops. However, they all have the disclaimer "Not sold for human consumption", because as soon as something is sold for human consumption the rules become insanely strict.

No one is buying these chemicals to "study their effects", they're buying them because they're legal chemicals that get you high, despite being "Not for human consumption". It's just a flimsy pretense to protect the vendors.

Regarding OiNK, etc. The BT landscape was different then compared to what it is now. It's not really fair to say their success was helped or hindered by trading, especially since they're no longer around. What.cd has far surpassed OiNK in everything but the size of its memberbase, and it takes a hard line against the undesirables.

[tippertime]

I think the reason that people new to the torrent game think trading is the norm and is ok can pretty much can be attributed to what you have been told your whole life, there is no such thing as a free lunch...but I guess in the case of torrents the best things in life are free...until they hound you to donate and threaten to shut the place down :-P

[Tv Controls you]

Trading will never die down completley.... Just type in your favorite tracker.... and then type "invite" afterward.

What do you get?

1-2 people trying to get an invite legitimately (with a bad request usually), and then 6 results of people trading invites. And succeeding.
The 2 legit requests are usually on yahoo answers, which you find is worthless, and the 6 are on trading/selling websites....
This is how I originally got myself tied up with Torrent invites, as it was the first dedicated torrent forum I found.

The problem is private trackers that only allow people to join via invites leave people searching for a way to get in.
Their is no guidance on how to get an invite when you type in your dream tracker, only a username and password box....

[TraLaLa]

Again this drama.