View Full Version : I have stood at the gates of all those "elite" trackers.
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=15471
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=15470
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=15469
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=4932
And of course...
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=7687
Some of us are still staying there, m8...
Some of us are still staying there, m8...
Ever since ScT, UK-T, FTN, FTWR, ScL and Skittles died, there's so little to choose from :germm:
Other than FSC, HDBits, and... are CosaNostra and iTS still l33t? :unsure:
cosanostra: yea, please some rep tell the mod to censor it, they always tell a mod to censor it and FSC are overrated crap.
Waffles is average.
iTS is no longer l33t in fact it's raw crap.
HDBits is still king of HD, he deserves it's 1337ness.
Your forgot exigo,pedro,aom and recently PTP and BTN.(smug cunts)
cosanostra: yea, please some rep tell the mod to censor it, they always tell a mod to censor it and FSC are overrated crap.
http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?threadid=24593&page=2
Good stuff.
Why is FSC overrated?
Your forgot exigo,pedro,aom and recently PTP and BTN.(smug cunts)
I was around prior to PTP and BTN being created (getting on the former via open signups), so they basically don't count :snooty:
The rest are correct.
and i fcked every tracker..
btw whats the update on your date
btw whats the update on your date
Should be someday after the 21st.
KnowledgeMelon
14.08.16, 23:41
http://www.sb-innovation.de/showthread.php?threadid=24593&page=2
Good stuff.
Why is FSC overrated?
I was around prior to PTP and BTN being created (getting on the former via open signups), so they basically don't count :snooty:
The rest are correct.
Your in AOM or did you mean exigo on open sign-up.
Heard about AOM its crazy , magicians only,
If thats the one you got into , your too lucky
I meant PTP. Their previous name was SceneMovies, and they opened at various points between 2008 and 2009.
AOM opened signups once, but it was all a dream bug, and all accounts created in this manner were disabled.
AOM Open Sign-Ups (http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/263431-AOM-Open-Sign-Ups?pp=50)
Is there any way to join Art of Misdirection ?
I want to join AOM
Was sorting some old files, found these images.
This was the amazing tracker that people dreamed about because of its superb content, packs and community, folks.
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20150
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20151
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20152
I have been in HDBits with a traded account one time, after few minutes my account was disabled . :tongue:
Never heard of it :D
Well, it didn't happen a lot here, but people on invite forums were head over heels with FTN. "I want it for the community", "because it's ratio-free" and "it's my dream" were the most commonly given reasons for requesting it. Most of those who did manage to get invited went inactive past the initial rush, when they saw the amount of torrents, speeds and retention were exactly what could be expected from a tracker with ~4000 members. I don't blame anyone for being curious, but that's what tracker reviews exist for... anyway, the following video humorously portrays the whole ordeal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6-8zMSWKHI
Both FTN and Demonoid have ceased to exist now, but Demonoid was a much bigger loss in every aspect :gnoes:
I was on HDBits twice, banned both times, dont remember why, I think it's because I was in India and once it was cheating. This was before HDbits stopped giving invites to their users due to excessive selling. So I find it a little funny when it's called a leet tracker because it was normal to get into once upon a time just like bitme, what.cd etc.
Now let's look at the really leet trackers, the ones that have always been hard to get into unless you were somehow at the right place at the right time.
FTN, FSC, FTWR, UK-T, Exigo and AOM have always been hard to get into specially FTWR ,UK-T, Exigo and AOM. I only got into FTN cause someone I knew invited me.
AOM believe it or not had open signups(This was around 2006/07) and once that ended it was never open again so the users who got in, got in. It has always been the most difficult to get into and now it's impossible unless you're a magician and you know the admin(lenaud/jacqueline) or the few members who can send an invite. But it's a great site if you're a magician or want to become one. An old forum about the AOM vs AOMK fights, kindof retarded if you ask me - https://magictraders123.rpg-board.net/f1-how-to-get-an-invite-to-magictraders
FTN,FSC,FTWR,UK-T are/were general trackers at the end of the day so if you don't/didn't have them you're not missing anything. Their USP was that their request system was so great that you could get any content you wanted. Funny huh?
The leet trackers that were good contentwise is AOM and Exigo, the latter too is probably irrelevant if you're on a music torrent site. So,that's out too. That leaves AOM but how many are into magic? So who cares how leet it is?
iTS had invite giveaways from staff members in FST and if you didnt have any trading history you could've easily got in but who cares? They specialize in "AFR" rips. I don't even know why anyone would need these rips. They started this whole anti-trading facade/outrage on FST and other site admins caught on unfortunately.
There was also a forum that was leet and in high demand called Revolt http://revolt.org.uk/login.php. It was run by bitmetv admin and it was basically a dead forum with hardly any posts yet people were trading good torrent sites for it.
Reading all those acronyms initialisms made me feel like I was back on 2008 :soMuchWin: Thank you for making this post!
HDBits, never been a member. I didn't even care about HD until I got a laptop with an FWXGA-resolution screen five years ago, and wouldn't you know it, 720p series and movies were readily available elsewhere. Several friends who are in tell me they are really good at what they do, but it's not the end of the world if you don't have an account, because most stuff in there trickles down to other trackers and Usenet.
FTN is a superb example of the hype, rarity-seeking and general bullshit that used to surround the torrent community. They had the amount of torrents and members you would associate with a tracker created one or two months ago. But everyone wanted it because it was ratio-free, had amazing packs and a great community, of course... someone once shared their login details with me so that I could have a look, that's where the screenshots in post #11 come from. Later on I was offered an invite and said no, there was nothing there for me.
FSC, I've never been a member either, but here's the consensus given to me by 100% of the ones I have asked: it is a forum with a tracker duct-taped to it and not the other way around. The torrenting part of it always sucked: few torrents, slow speeds, bad retention. The community aspect is good, but in recent years many members have moved on with not enough newcomers to fill the void. Had the opportunity to join once, turned it down. A tracker where the torrent selection sucks and the oh so amazing community would happily behead me if they knew who I am... no thanks.
FTWR and UK-T, perfectly average and ordinary general trackers that few would have cared about if they hadn't been extremely hard to get invited to. UK-T (a.k.a. Wheelmods) was most iconic of the hysteria over rarity: it was "level 10", the "impossible" one which would make your e-penis huge. Interestingly both of them shut down, or were forced to shut down, around the same time. Apparently, spelling their names as F*** and U*-* wasn't enough to save them from hardware failure plus lack of backups and the threat of law enforcement, respectively :wfrown:
Exigo a.k.a. E****, ultra-rare lossless tracker with lots of jazz, blues, and the like. Never had the slightest interest, as I'm not into those music genres and I can't tell the difference between FLAC and V0 MP3 in any case. A more exclusive version of Pedro's BTMusic, which I am told doesn't exist anymore?
AoM, allegedly the only "level 10" tracker that remains. The open signups they once had were caused by a glitch, and they disabled all accounts created in this manner. Never bothered either; I'm not into magic, and if I were, other sources exist. I think even hardcore traders have realized they can't get in and stopped bothering, but hope dies last. Apparently, for those with genuine interest, there is an invite application process via e-mail where you're supposed to answer a long questionnaire and submit a video of you performing a trick they haven't seen before. AoMKiller/CHEEKYCHAP used to spawn drama threads semi-regularly on FST, but thankfully they stopped; none of that shit had any sense or relevance for those who weren't involved anyway.
iTS, had almost forgotten about that one. The first thing that springs to mind is their fake login page where you had to "search" the right details... or bypass it setting a cookie :wgrin: Someone once gave their account away to me, I logged in and saw they were nothing special, then when I eventually logged in again to keep it active it had been disabled because "[they] do not support account trading". Well, they did me a favor. Back in the day at least, 90% of their members were either traders or collectors. I once saw a request from someone who didn't even know what they specialized in (thinking AFR stood for "Alternative Frame Rates") and obviously wanted it because it was rare.
Revolt is another more extreme example of a forum with a tracker and not the other way around; as I recall they only had 2~3 torrents. They're largely remembered for the various dramas they've been involved in. Opened signups on '07, but their strict anti-spam and anti-trading policies wiped out 99% of those who joined. Surprised they still exist, but I guess it doesn't take a lot of donations to keep a server with a stock TB source and few active members running :wwink:
For those who want to know what the hell we're talking about, all of the above trackers have review threads here, even the dead ones.
There is another "elite" tracker that has received minimal mention in this thread, and it is...
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=8593
Its very small user base, rule disallowing the upload of material newer than two months, and draconian inactivity policies made short work of it. Oh, and the design looked like someone had barfed the titular candies over a black background.
there's one advantage such trackers have: safety. depending on your country copyright laws can be nasty. the risk of getting a letter from a law firm because of a torrent you got from let's say FTN is much lower compared to something like TL or even public trackers.
i can tell because for me such a letter was the reason why i started looking into private trackers. and under such circumstances the more private the better.
Damn funny topic. I'm thinking to make my own leet tracker. :biggrin:
honestly though, I regret wasting time on such so called leet trackers. No matter what's in there. Because every damn jump into one was damn for nothing. Such wast of time, was so stupid. This includes all btw.
there's one advantage such trackers have: safety. depending on your country copyright laws can be nasty. the risk of getting a letter from a law firm because of a torrent you got from let's say FTN is much lower compared to something like TL or even public trackers.
i can tell because for me such a letter was the reason why i started looking into private trackers. and under such circumstances the more private the better.
Fair point, assuming you can't or don't want to pay for a VPN or seedbox. I would say that if a "normal" torrenter is (theoretically) able to join these, then so can a paid and motivated fed, but in practice they go for the lowest-hanging fruit, and that's always going to be 1. public trackers, 2. private ones with six and seven-digit member counts. Even this logic couldn't save UK-T, however, but as I recall they chose to pull the plug rather than take a risk, however minimal.
You always wanted to join FTWR, right? =]
Damn funny topic. I'm thinking to make my own leet tracker. :biggrin:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100810221622/http://onasoapbox.co.uk/2010/06/09/should-you-start-a-tracker/
:wthink:
Fair point, assuming you can't or don't want to pay for a VPN or seedbox. I would say that if a "normal" torrenter is (theoretically) able to join these, then so can a paid and motivated fed, but in practice they go for the lowest-hanging fruit, and that's always going to be 1. public trackers, 2. private ones with six and seven-digit member counts
and in addition it's a budget matter. spending months or even a year to get into one of such trackers with their low member counts just doesn't pay off. neither for the feds nor the law firms.
You always wanted to join FTWR, right? =]
damn you have a good memory :P
damn you have a good memory :P
16854
How could I forget this? Nothing like having a spare account on a level 9 tracker, indeed :ninja:
Another great thread: 14950
Reading all those acronyms initialisms made me feel like I was back on 2008 :soMuchWin: Thank you for making this post!
HDBits, never been a member. I didn't even care about HD until I got a laptop with an FWXGA-resolution screen five years ago, and wouldn't you know it, 720p series and movies were readily available elsewhere. Several friends who are in tell me they are really good at what they do, but it's not the end of the world if you don't have an account, because most stuff in there trickles down to other trackers and Usenet.
FTN is a superb example of the hype, rarity-seeking and general bullshit that used to surround the torrent community. They had the amount of torrents and members you would associate with a tracker created one or two months ago. But everyone wanted it because it was ratio-free, had amazing packs and a great community, of course... someone once shared their login details with me so that I could have a look, that's where the screenshots in post #11 come from. Later on I was offered an invite and said no, there was nothing there for me.
FSC, I've never been a member either, but here's the consensus given to me by 100% of the ones I have asked: it is a forum with a tracker duct-taped to it and not the other way around. The torrenting part of it always sucked: few torrents, slow speeds, bad retention. The community aspect is good, but in recent years many members have moved on with not enough newcomers to fill the void. Had the opportunity to join once, turned it down. A tracker where the torrent selection sucks and the oh so amazing community would happily behead me if they knew who I am... no thanks.
FTWR and UK-T, perfectly average and ordinary general trackers that few would have cared about if they hadn't been extremely hard to get invited to. UK-T (a.k.a. Wheelmods) was most iconic of the hysteria over rarity: it was "level 10", the "impossible" one which would make your e-penis huge. Interestingly both of them shut down, or were forced to shut down, around the same time. Apparently, spelling their names as F*** and U*-* wasn't enough to save them from hardware failure plus lack of backups and the threat of law enforcement, respectively :wfrown:
Exigo a.k.a. E****, ultra-rare lossless tracker with lots of jazz, blues, and the like. Never had the slightest interest, as I'm not into those music genres and I can't tell the difference between FLAC and V0 MP3 in any case. A more exclusive version of Pedro's BTMusic, which I am told doesn't exist anymore?
AoM, allegedly the only "level 10" tracker that remains. The open signups they once had were caused by a glitch, and they disabled all accounts created in this manner. Never bothered either; I'm not into magic, and if I were, other sources exist. I think even hardcore traders have realized they can't get in and stopped bothering, but hope dies last. Apparently, for those with genuine interest, there is an invite application process via e-mail where you're supposed to answer a long questionnaire and submit a video of you performing a trick they haven't seen before. AoMKiller/CHEEKYCHAP used to spawn drama threads semi-regularly on FST, but thankfully they stopped; none of that shit had any sense or relevance for those who weren't involved anyway.
iTS, had almost forgotten about that one. The first thing that springs to mind is their fake login page where you had to "search" the right details... or bypass it setting a cookie :wgrin: Someone once gave their account away to me, I logged in and saw they were nothing special, then when I eventually logged in again to keep it active it had been disabled because "[they] do not support account trading". Well, they did me a favor. Back in the day at least, 90% of their members were either traders or collectors. I once saw a request from someone who didn't even know what they specialized in (thinking AFR stood for "Alternative Frame Rates") and obviously wanted it because it was rare.
Revolt is another more extreme example of a forum with a tracker and not the other way around; as I recall they only had 2~3 torrents. They're largely remembered for the various dramas they've been involved in. Opened signups on '07, but their strict anti-spam and anti-trading policies wiped out 99% of those who joined. Surprised they still exist, but I guess it doesn't take a lot of donations to keep a server with a stock TB source and few active members running :wwink:
For those who want to know what the hell we're talking about, all of the above trackers have review threads here, even the dead ones.
Agree with everything you said but not sure why you would decline invites to these highly exclusive sites, just for curiosity if nothing else, though its the right thing to do if you dont use it.
BTW btmusic is alive http://xbtmusic.org/
Also AOM did open signups accidentally twice and they banned everyone who joined but I was referring to their first open signup when they were like Demonoid. Quite a few of them didnt use their accounts and those were disabled due to inactivity. This is as per some FST user.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100810221622/http://onasoapbox.co.uk/2010/06/09/should-you-start-a-tracker/
:wthink:
I'm short on the "Money" part. LOL :biggrin: . I did look for trackers announcers though and really thinking of making one :stupid:
Agree with everything you said but not sure why you would decline invites to these highly exclusive sites, just for curiosity if nothing else, though its the right thing to do if you dont use it.
Reading reviews (and in FTN's case, using that shared account once) was enough to find out they weren't worth my time. If I'd accepted the invites, they would have become yet another account requiring a regular login just to keep them alive... FTN and FSC wouldn't have taken over TL, FL.ro or IPT as my most-used trackers, that's for sure. I figured they were better off in the hands of someone with a higher chance of being active; the last thing these places needed were more collectors that never used their account.
Speaking of which, remember SceneLife? On 2009 they threatened to clean up inactive accounts and "review" less-active ones. I was so afraid of losing mine that I started snatching stuff I didn't want, even uploaded an avatar and made some forum posts. I survived the cleanup and then went back to never using it again, until they shut down... what a load of crap. If this happened today, I'd happily let them delete me. The only good thing they had was the site design :wgrin:
BTW btmusic is alive http://xbtmusic.org/
Nice; according to what I'd heard, they'd been stuck on a site makeover/recode for some time, and were considered de facto dead at this point. Doesn't affect me in any case.
Also AOM did open signups accidentally twice and they banned everyone who joined but I was referring to their first open signup when they were like Demonoid. Quite a few of them didnt use their accounts and those were disabled due to inactivity. This is as per some FST user.
Had no idea about this. It's very much possible, since all elite trackers have had open signups at some point. Even HDBits, BTN, PTP, RED... and BitMeTV, TC, What.cd before them... it's the fastest way to start building up a user base.
Reading reviews (and in FTN's case, using that shared account once) was enough to find out they weren't worth my time. If I'd accepted the invites, they would have become yet another account requiring a regular login just to keep them alive... FTN and FSC wouldn't have taken over TL, FL.ro or IPT as my most-used trackers, that's for sure. I figured they were better off in the hands of someone with a higher chance of being active; the last thing these places needed were more collectors that never used their account.
Speaking of which, remember SceneLife? On 2009 they threatened to clean up inactive accounts and "review" less-active ones. I was so afraid of losing mine that I started snatching stuff I didn't want, even uploaded an avatar and made some forum posts. I survived the cleanup and then went back to never using it again, until they shut down... what a load of crap. If this happened today, I'd happily let them delete me. The only good thing they had was the site design :wgrin:
Nice; according to what I'd heard, they'd been stuck on a site makeover/recode for some time, and were considered de facto dead at this point. Doesn't affect me in any case.
Had no idea about this. It's very much possible, since all elite trackers have had open signups at some point. Even HDBits, BTN, PTP, RED... and BitMeTV, TC, What.cd before them... it's the fastest way to start building up a user base.
I prefered FTN over the other scene sites because it was ratiofree but TL and probably SCT always had more content than it. I got into IPT a couple of times but didnt use it, the interface put me off so I let those accounts die. It was either one of the scenesites or Demonoid, sometimes TPB.
ScL aka The flower or was it called Clover LOL. They were popular for their packs and a nice site design too. I had them hoping that I'll somehow climb to the rarer trackers like FTN/FSC etc. FTN's site design was cool too along with the stylish name "Feedthenet" which other copycat sites took like PTN(piratethenet), iTN took.
I was a member of Pedros and was trying to get into Exigo. An exigo staffer,UObean had an Exigo giveaway just once in the forums which I narrowly missed and the only thing required was a good ratio, no uploader requirement as they seem to have now. You're right that they had a site design, I didn't use my account much since FLAC downloads take up too much space so I kept the account alive by ocassionally logging in and I think after sometime they disabled me.
Besides open signups, it's hilarious that the sysops of these secret sites did giveaways in FST's bittorrent section. Here's a FTWR giveaway by the sysop https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/203744-Free-Giveaway-F***
The replies are quite entertaining. I wish I was a member of FST around that time just for fun.
Another interesting thread about all the secret site admins(FTN/FSC/Exigo/FTWR/UK-T) and their account https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/232869-IRC-Channels-and-Tracker-staff-members-at-FST
You can go through their threads/posts when you have some time to kill, it's a lot of fun to read.
I prefered FTN over the other scene sites because it was ratiofree but TL and probably SCT always had more content than it. I got into IPT a couple of times but didnt use it, the interface put me off so I let those accounts die. It was either one of the scenesites or Demonoid, sometimes TPB.
ScT was truly an elite tracker in the good sense of the word. Great pretimes, great packs, the design was slick, the jailbait thread forums and IRC were very active. And those speeds! :w00t:
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=16719
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=4855
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=16718
Even though they had a "transparency report" thread where they provided evidence of their high operational costs, the rumors of donation misuse and pocketing circulated until the very end... and were then increased by the fact they'd had a huge donation drive just a few weeks before their shutdown. Thumbs up if you remember Feeling's engagement ring or djGrrr's gaming PC, which they allegedly bought in this manner (and djGrrr never finished the ScT v2 design, boo).
IPT is very much worth having in your arsenal, if you use custom CSS to hide the huge site banner, and even if you don't. Despite all the dramas the sysop has been involved in, and the fact he runs it as one of several moneymaking machines, the content and speeds are still great. Just don't donate and you'll be fine. And definitely don't spend 1000 USD in seedboxes thinking a good IPT ratio proof will open the doors to "better" sites, like that guy from /r/trackers...
ScL aka The flower or was it called Clover LOL. They were popular for their packs and a nice site design too. I had them hoping that I'll somehow climb to the rarer trackers like FTN/FSC etc. FTN's site design was cool too along with the stylish name "Feedthenet" which other copycat sites took like PTN(piratethenet), iTN took.
ScL had three years to become a decent site, but apparently just couldn't achieve it, despite several open signups and lots of invites given out. The design was great, the packs were okay; the community was said to be good but I'm into torrents to get files, and the levels of activity made it evident no one used this tracker as their main one.
Having a domain ending in "the.net" was a surefire way to show you were serious about your tracker. Perhaps you remember storethe.net, rapthe.net and even elitethe.net :weirdo:
I was a member of Pedros and was trying to get into Exigo. An exigo staffer,UObean had an Exigo giveaway just once in the forums which I narrowly missed and the only thing required was a good ratio, no uploader requirement as they seem to have now. You're right that they had a site design, I didn't use my account much since FLAC downloads take up too much space so I kept the account alive by ocassionally logging in and I think after sometime they disabled me.
I had an account on Pedro's too, several years ago, given to me by a friend who wasn't going to use it anymore. We set up an elaborate story to explain the IP country change to the staff (which they accepted), and I even cloned his browser fingerprint and cookies to make it look like I was him, using the same laptop as usual. It worked, but my activity levels weren't good enough to stay alive either. Unfortunate, but no big loss.
Perhaps you remember Lossless World, a FLAC tracker started by the shady GeddyLee? I had a lot of fun abusing their referral link system and stealing their exclusive rips to upload on What.cd and reach Elite rank on one of my accounts :happy:
Besides open signups, it's hilarious that the sysops of these secret sites did giveaways in FST's bittorrent section. Here's a FTWR giveaway by the sysop https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/203744-Free-Giveaway-F***
The replies are quite entertaining. I wish I was a member of FST around that time just for fun.
Note the timestamps. On 2007 I wasn't on FST either; my only tracker accounts were ILT, TL and BCG, and I had zero interest on the BitTorrent community or politics. However, according what I can grasp from reading old threads and asking around, it was a very different time. There was a lot more activity and engagement between users and tracker staff. Brandon did an FTN giveaway and also once invited someone who made a request with like 5 posts (can't find the thread right now), Feeling did an ScT giveaway, fatcat69 recruited several times for his "mystery" site FSC, Squizzle did a UK-T giveaway in TTC some months before they shut down.
https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/294702-Be-creative-make-me-laugh-and-get-FTN
https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/287860-Giving-away-a-few-ScT-invites
https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/385836-FatCat-Mystery-Recruitment-D
All of that died down in the years that followed. Many blame trading, or at least changing attitudes towards it, stating that it eventually became too contentious of an issue and it was impossible for FST to maintain a good relationship with tracker staff at the same time they ran a subforum where one of their rules could be broken. Others believe that said staff decided they felt much more at home on invite forums like TPS and tR, whose activity levels indeed soared post-2008, because everyone there was a "perfect" member who would never dare to trade or cheat and was always ready to suck dick. I think it's a combination of both.
Trading is one thing that no one cares about now, but was serious-fucking-business in its heyday. Tracker levels, middlemen, scammers, FST's secret Veteran Trade Group, trader hunters and their IP-catching images/links, my oh my... personally, I never did it. It seemed too hard and risky in the beginning, and by the time I'd gotten accounts and invites with enough "value", I also already had all the trackers I wanted and could get any new ones by just asking.
Another interesting thread about all the secret site admins(FTN/FSC/Exigo/FTWR/UK-T) and their account https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/232869-IRC-Channels-and-Tracker-staff-members-at-FST
You can go through their threads/posts when you have some time to kill, it's a lot of fun to read.
I have done so back in the day, and indeed it was very fun. The trash section had lots of interesting threads too, hidden away from public view, until it was wiped by the administrator last year. Same with the infamous TTC (which was just a largely inactive hidden subforum, but successfully pulled the "exclusive and impossible to join BitTorrent-based topsite" prank for years).
Note how all of the accounts listed on that thread are no longer active, and some were even banned.
ScT was truly an elite tracker in the good sense of the word. Great pretimes, great packs, the design was slick, the jailbait thread forums and IRC were very active. And those speeds! :w00t:
image (http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=16719)
image (http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=4855)
image (http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=16718)
Even though they had a "transparency report" thread where they provided evidence of their high operational costs, the rumors of donation misuse and pocketing circulated until the very end... and were then increased by the fact they'd had a huge donation drive just a few weeks before their shutdown. Thumbs up if you remember Feeling's engagement ring or djGrrr's gaming PC, which they allegedly bought in this manner (and djGrrr never finished the ScT v2 design, boo).
I remember that speed screenshot. Crazy and those speeds were seen about a decade ago. Some said it was almost a topsite. Feeling was a funny guy, he had fights with the FTN sysop Brandon over some girl and competition between FTN and SCT. Not aware of the Feeling engagement ring and djgrr stuff but sounds interesting.
IPT is very much worth having in your arsenal, if you use custom CSS to hide the huge site banner, and even if you don't. Despite all the dramas the sysop has been involved in, and the fact he runs it as one of several moneymaking machines, the content and speeds are still great. Just don't donate and you'll be fine. And definitely don't spend 1000 USD in seedboxes thinking a good IPT ratio proof will open the doors to "better" sites, like that guy from /r/trackers...
I think I'll give IPT another shot and try the custom CSS thing, if someone invites me. It's funny that all the criticism around pay2leech sites and them going down but it's the secret sites that went down and sites like IPT and TL are still around after so many years. I think the sites that are hosted in London almost always go down.
ScL had three years to become a decent site, but apparently just couldn't achieve it, despite several open signups and lots of invites given out. The design was great, the packs were okay; the community was said to be good but I'm into torrents to get files, and the levels of activity made it evident no one used this tracker as their main one.
Having a domain ending in "the.net" was a surefire way to show you were serious about your tracker. Perhaps you remember storethe.net, rapthe.net and even elitethe.net :weirdo:
ScL tried but couldn't either become a rare site because of invites and signups and didn't have enough content so they were caught in between, not a good place to be stuck. The 'F' sites and UK-T were crap but they had the rarity status so could attract good users and their members could get invited to all the good sites like SCT, TL etc.
I had an account on Pedro's too, several years ago, given to me by a friend who wasn't going to use it anymore. We set up an elaborate story to explain the IP country change to the staff (which they accepted), and I even cloned his browser fingerprint and cookies to make it look like I was him, using the same laptop as usual. It worked, but my activity levels weren't good enough to stay alive either. Unfortunate, but no big loss.
Perhaps you remember Lossless World, a FLAC tracker started by the shady GeddyLee? I had a lot of fun abusing their referral link system and stealing their exclusive rips to upload on What.cd and reach Elite rank on one of my accounts :happy:
Pedro's inactivity rules were retarded because you were forced to download so you had to be active(active cheater I mean :biggrin:).
I saw GeddyLee in the Pedro forums, he had a red indian avatar and do remember lossless world but couldn't manage an invite; wasn't that interested, my eyes were always on Exigo, still want in. That's the only rare/leet site I've always wanted to join, the site design is just beautiful.
I don't know how you managed to steal their rips and upload to what.cd cause it was risky as Pedro was tough to get and What.cd had the music uploaded already.
Note the timestamps. On 2007 I wasn't on FST either; my only tracker accounts were ILT, TL and BCG, and I had zero interest on the BitTorrent community or politics. However, according what I can grasp from reading old threads and asking around, it was a very different time. There was a lot more activity and engagement between users and tracker staff. Brandon did an FTN giveaway and also once invited someone who made a request with like 5 posts (can't find the thread right now), Feeling did an ScT giveaway, fatcat69 recruited several times for his "mystery" site FSC, Squizzle did a UK-T giveaway in TTC some months before they shut down.
https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/294702-Be-creative-make-me-laugh-and-get-FTN
https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/287860-Giving-away-a-few-ScT-invites
https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/385836-FatCat-Mystery-Recruitment-D
All of that died down in the years that followed. Many blame trading, or at least changing attitudes towards it, stating that it eventually became too contentious of an issue and it was impossible for FST to maintain a good relationship with tracker staff at the same time they ran a subforum where one of their rules could be broken. Others believe that said staff decided they felt much more at home on invite forums like TPS and tR, whose activity levels indeed soared post-2008, because everyone there was a "perfect" member who would never dare to trade or cheat and was always ready to suck dick. I think it's a combination of both.
Trading is one thing that no one cares about now, but was serious-fucking-business in its heyday. Tracker levels, middlemen, scammers, FST's secret Veteran Trade Group, trader hunters and their IP-catching images/links, my oh my... personally, I never did it. It seemed too hard and risky in the beginning, and by the time I'd gotten accounts and invites with enough "value", I also already had all the trackers I wanted and could get any new ones by just asking.
I have done so back in the day, and indeed it was very fun. The trash section had lots of interesting threads too, hidden away from public view, until it was wiped by the administrator last year. Same with the infamous TTC (which was just a largely inactive hidden subforum, but successfully pulled the "exclusive and impossible to join BitTorrent-based topsite" prank for years).
Note how all of the accounts listed on that thread are no longer active, and some were even banned.
Wish you had taken screenshots of Squizzle's UK-T giveaway on TTC, that would've been interesting. Those days were fun when trading wasn't looked down on.I think even sites were ok with invite trading at one point but not account trading, Oink was one such case. FST was the mecca. Fun times.
Due to the people who wanted to get in these rare trackers started this anti-trader thing where they would claim they're anti-traders so they could get in.
With streaming sites like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Spotify, torrent sites have become sort of redundant and with that the end of torrent site collectors too.
I remember that speed screenshot. Crazy and those speeds were seen about a decade ago. Some said it was almost a topsite. Feeling was a funny guy, he had fights with the FTN sysop Brandon over some girl and competition between FTN and SCT. Not aware of the Feeling engagement ring and djgrr stuff but sounds interesting.
Those speeds were absolutely insane back then, when gigabit lines were slowly beginning to become a thing. Then again, if you visited the forums on ScT and SCC, there were quite a lot of people who apparently spent hundreds of dollars a month on the fastest of seedboxes. Do the names splic3 or SpX21 ring a bell?
I have read some of those ScT vs. FTN threads, where indeed the sysops of both often participated personally. The girl you mention may have been kimii? In hindsight, though, the Feeling vs. Brandon rivalry was likely an act they pulled rather than any serious hostility. In any case, I think FTN couldn't hope to compete with ScT in anything besides seeding difficulty.
Brandon was an ex-FSC staff member who decided to create his own tracker, and was doxed at least once, as was Feeling who apparently lived in England and used his real IP everywhere. As for the engagement ring, the rumor had been circulating since at least 2008 and the ring itself allegedly was for michelle from Waffles. Who said love can't bloom in the torrent world? :wub:
I think I'll give IPT another shot and try the custom CSS thing, if someone invites me. It's funny that all the criticism around pay2leech sites and them going down but it's the secret sites that went down and sites like IPT and TL are still around after so many years. I think the sites that are hosted in London almost always go down.
Send me a message if you want an invite. As for the rest, I'm in complete agreement. It's insane how TL and IPT have hundreds of thousands of users (the former even opens signups regularly) and big monthly expenses, yet apparently have never faced any sort of legal trouble in the 15 years or so they've existed, whereas many smaller and harder to get into trackers have disappeared in the last decade (see 33773). It's like they're untouchable... not that I have any problem with that!
Hosting or operating a torrent tracker on a Five Eyes country is suicidal nowadays, but then again I think everyone already knows it, and only uses them for reverse proxies if at all.
ScL tried but couldn't either become a rare site because of invites and signups and didn't have enough content so they were caught in between, not a good place to be stuck. The 'F' sites and UK-T were crap but they had the rarity status so could attract good users and their members could get invited to all the good sites like SCT, TL etc.
True, but I think most people would have already had ScT and TL by the time they joined FTN or FSC.
Pedro's inactivity rules were retarded because you were forced to download so you had to be active(active cheater I mean :biggrin:).
I saw GeddyLee in the Pedro forums, he had a red indian avatar and do remember lossless world but couldn't manage an invite; wasn't that interested, my eyes were always on Exigo, still want in. That's the only rare/leet site I've always wanted to join, the site design is just beautiful.
I don't know how you managed to steal their rips and upload to what.cd cause it was risky as Pedro was tough to get and What.cd had the music uploaded already.
I don't blame them for wanting people to be active, but I don't think mandatory downloading works well on a small and fairly niche tracker. As I recall there was also a strict anti-overseeding rule, and if you had a ratio higher than 3:1 or so on a torrent you'd get a warning?
Lossless World had open signups initially, that's how I got in. I had access to a shared seedbox at the time, and thought I could put it to good use on an upcoming global freeleech at What.cd. Autodownloading every new FLAC torrent would have worked well, but I felt it was possible to do even better... the answer was taking files from L-W and VIPMusic (a long-defunct scene music tracker) and reuploading on What, to build buffer and reach a higher user class. I also filled several requests in the same manner, because some people were apparently too lazy to do even the simplest searches.
Hitting Power User was easy. Becoming Elite took a few days of continuous work. I wanted to go all out and reach Torrent Master, but gave up at around 120 torrents (out of 500 required), because it was getting too repetitive and boring. Also, L-W staff noticed my deed and banned me shortly before the freeleech ended. Funnily enough, some of "my" uploads eventually trickled down to RuTracker, with me being credited as the original ripper in the description, and those torrents are still there! A small monument to the days when ore-sama was a high school boy and had lots of time for this shit, I suppose :smilie4:
Wish you had taken screenshots of Squizzle's UK-T giveaway on TTC, that would've been interesting. Those days were fun when trading wasn't looked down on.I think even sites were ok with invite trading at one point but not account trading, Oink was one such case. FST was the mecca. Fun times.
Due to the people who wanted to get in these rare trackers started this anti-trader thing where they would claim they're anti-traders so they could get in.
With streaming sites like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Spotify, torrent sites have become sort of redundant and with that the end of torrent site collectors too.
From memory, the thread was titled "anyone want a UK-T invite?", and in the first post he acknowledged that while they were unlikely to offer anything an experienced torrenter couldn't already get content-wise, the security aspect might be attractive. One or two people took him up on his offer, then it was basically an FST thread.
Not all trackers have opposed trading, indeed (see https://web.archive.org/web/20100811122750/http://onasoapbox.co.uk/2010/04/30/every-tracker-hates-trading/). Personally, I've always been of the opinion that the "security risk" rationale to disallow it is greatly exaggerated and never saw a problem with it, as long as both parties involved are genuinely interested on what they're trading for (see https://filesharingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=3336460); account trades, giveaways or sharing can also be okay depending on circumstances (see 21339 and 24222). If trading was seen as more acceptable in the past, it was likely and simply because these good traders (so to speak) outnumbered rarity seekers and sellers looking for merchandise.
FST allowed tracker staff to become official community reps on the forum and disallow account (but not invite) trades for the sites they belonged to. However, said rank was relatively short-lived (see https://filesharingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=278399) and the relationship between both fell apart from 2008 onwards, as we discussed above.
The anti-trader thing was as stupid as it sounds. Sticking a label on yourself so that it was really clear that you were a good, trustworthy guy who deserved to be invited everywhere "for the community". Not surprisingly, some of those "anti-traders" were just pretending to be nice at all costs to get what they wanted, were collectors, actually traded in secret with dupe accounts, or a combination of the three. The premise of forums run entirely around the concept of obtaining tracker invites was not healthy, and led to this sort of behavior (see 350819).
Streaming services have been responsible for a big decline in filesharing in general, even if there are occasional bursts of activity. However, I want to believe that tracker collectors grew up and realized there was no point to that shit anymore :happy:
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=16106
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=17600
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20691
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20692
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20693
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20694
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20058
That's all.
Hitting Power User was easy. Becoming Elite took a few days of continuous work. I wanted to go all out and reach Torrent Master, but gave up at around 120 torrents (out of 500 required), because it was getting too repetitive and boring.
Here are the final stats for that account, long after I got bored with What.cd.
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=20695
Those speeds were absolutely insane back then, when gigabit lines were slowly beginning to become a thing. Then again, if you visited the forums on ScT and SCC, there were quite a lot of people who apparently spent hundreds of dollars a month on the fastest of seedboxes. Do the names splic3 or SpX21 ring a bell?
I have read some of those ScT vs. FTN threads, where indeed the sysops of both often participated personally. The girl you mention may have been kimii? In hindsight, though, the Feeling vs. Brandon rivalry was likely an act they pulled rather than any serious hostility. In any case, I think FTN couldn't hope to compete with ScT in anything besides seeding difficulty.
Brandon was an ex-FSC staff member who decided to create his own tracker, and was doxed at least once, as was Feeling who apparently lived in England and used his real IP everywhere. As for the engagement ring, the rumor had been circulating since at least 2008 and the ring itself allegedly was for michelle from Waffles. Who said love can't bloom in the torrent world? :wub:
Spx21 was sysop at Tehconnection iirc but that's a familiar nick. 172 MB/s in 2005-06 LOL. Let that sink in.
Yes it was about Kimii and she was a member of FST too. What drama LOL. FTN had exclusivity up their sleeve over SCT and also a supposedly friendlier staff. Feeling was a bit of a dick to pretty much everyone but that was just him haha.
So FSC was the mothership for both Brandon and Feeling? Wow I didn't know that but I do recall Feeling have the English flag in his accounts. I looked up their names on Redacted,BTN,PTP but couldn't find them. Not sure why these sysops dont register on the more content driven sites.
Waffles had a nice community, friendly staff, nice site design, it was actually better than wcd and more in demand than wcd before wcd went gazelle. What an invention gazelle was huh? I remember michelle and Shinikaru who was the 'syrup king' but michelle was very active in the forums.
Send me a message if you want an invite. As for the rest, I'm in complete agreement. It's insane how TL and IPT have hundreds of thousands of users (the former even opens signups regularly) and big monthly expenses, yet apparently have never faced any sort of legal trouble in the 15 years or so they've existed, whereas many smaller and harder to get into trackers have disappeared in the last decade (see 33773). It's like they're untouchable... not that I have any problem with that!
Hosting or operating a torrent tracker on a Five Eyes country is suicidal nowadays, but then again I think everyone already knows it, and only uses them for reverse proxies if at all.
I don't think I'll be able to maintain another account and will most probably end up cheating and get myself banned and inturn get you banned too so I'll pass but thanks a lot. Ya it baffles me how TL and IPT, too of the biggest money making torrent sites probably havent been busted yet. Long may they continue. Yes but then again the what.cd takedown was shocking as it was in France.
True, but I think most people would have already had ScT and TL by the time they joined FTN or FSC.
Yup. It would be easier for an FTNer or FSCer to get into a fellow leet site like Exigo or iTS etc.
I don't blame them for wanting people to be active, but I don't think mandatory downloading works well on a small and fairly niche tracker. As I recall there was also a strict anti-overseeding rule, and if you had a ratio higher than 3:1 or so on a torrent you'd get a warning?
Yes it was tough to stay an active cheat on that tracker cause you couldn't just download a 200/300 mb file so the bigger the files the harder to keep a sustainable ratio.
They did and I think I got warned for overbuffering a torrent cause I used to look for torrents to cheat on in Pedros and it wasn't straight forward cause a lot of torrents had 1 or 3 leechers. I think pedros banned countries like Romania, not fair but who can blame them if so many cheaters come from a single country?
Lossless World had open signups initially, that's how I got in. I had access to a shared seedbox at the time, and thought I could put it to good use on an upcoming global freeleech at What.cd. Autodownloading every new FLAC torrent would have worked well, but I felt it was possible to do even better... the answer was taking files from L-W and VIPMusic (a long-defunct scene music tracker) and reuploading on What, to build buffer and reach a higher user class. I also filled several requests in the same manner, because some people were apparently too lazy to do even the simplest searches.
Hitting Power User was easy. Becoming Elite took a few days of continuous work. I wanted to go all out and reach Torrent Master, but gave up at around 120 torrents (out of 500 required), because it was getting too repetitive and boring. Also, L-W staff noticed my deed and banned me shortly before the freeleech ended. Funnily enough, some of "my" uploads eventually trickled down to RuTracker, with me being credited as the original ripper in the description, and those torrents are still there! A small monument to the days when ore-sama was a high school boy and had lots of time for this shit, I suppose :smilie4:
I was a member of VIPMusic and later it went down and came back as VIPV2 which I was a member too. Easy to get in. I think you were lucky to catch lossless world when they were open signups cause they closed pretty quickly. Amazing you were able to do the cross uploading files to What to become Elite, I did have the idea but was just too lazy to rip and upload. I just wanted to cheat gbs and have enough buffer to download and get into their invites forum to trade or move to other sites. I'll try to find your uplaods on rutracker, are they uploaded by "anon"?
From memory, the thread was titled "anyone want a UK-T invite?", and in the first post he acknowledged that while they were unlikely to offer anything an experienced torrenter couldn't already get content-wise, the security aspect might be attractive. One or two people took him up on his offer, then it was basically an FST thread.
Interesting. Clearly you were in some cool, mystical places on FST that I wasn't privy too, perks of being a FST mod huh? But that's the only UK-T invite thread that I've ever heard about on the internet. Funny thing was when UK-T went down, all their members were panicking and wondering where to go when there were all these regular sites like TL etc that they could easily join. It's like UK-T was the only torrent site that existed for them. It's cute haha.
Not all trackers have opposed trading, indeed (see https://web.archive.org/web/20100811122750/http://onasoapbox.co.uk/2010/04/30/every-tracker-hates-trading/). Personally, I've always been of the opinion that the "security risk" rationale to disallow it is greatly exaggerated and never saw a problem with it, as long as both parties involved are genuinely interested on what they're trading for (see https://filesharingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=3336460); account trades, giveaways or sharing can also be okay depending on circumstances (see 21339 and 24222). If trading was seen as more acceptable in the past, it was likely and simply because these good traders (so to speak) outnumbered rarity seekers and sellers looking for merchandise.
FST allowed tracker staff to become official community reps on the forum and disallow account (but not invite) trades for the sites they belonged to. However, said rank was relatively short-lived (see https://filesharingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=278399) and the relationship between both fell apart from 2008 onwards, as we discussed above.
The anti-trader thing was as stupid as it sounds. Sticking a label on yourself so that it was really clear that you were a good, trustworthy guy who deserved to be invited everywhere "for the community". Not surprisingly, some of those "anti-traders" were just pretending to be nice at all costs to get what they wanted, were collectors, actually traded in secret with dupe accounts, or a combination of the three. The premise of forums run entirely around the concept of obtaining tracker invites was not healthy, and led to this sort of behavior (see 350819).
Agree. The whole anti-trading stuff killed off the drama which made FST interesting.
Streaming services have been responsible for a big decline in filesharing in general, even if there are occasional bursts of activity. However, I want to believe that tracker collectors grew up and realized there was no point to that shit anymore :happy:
Unfortunately streaming services made it impossible for the torrent drama to flourish so I dislike them for that. Plus when FTN, FSC,SCT,UK-T, FTWR all went away it reduced the collectors a lot. Now you just have Exigo, AOM and FSC out of which it's just Exigo and FSC that collectors are more interested in imo.
Spx21 was sysop at Tehconnection iirc but that's a familiar nick. 172 MB/s in 2005-06 LOL. Let that sink in.
Yes it was about Kimii and she was a member of FST too. What drama LOL. FTN had exclusivity up their sleeve over SCT and also a supposedly friendlier staff. Feeling was a bit of a dick to pretty much everyone but that was just him haha.
So FSC was the mothership for both Brandon and Feeling? Wow I didn't know that but I do recall Feeling have the English flag in his accounts. I looked up their names on Redacted,BTN,PTP but couldn't find them. Not sure why these sysops dont register on the more content driven sites.
Waffles had a nice community, friendly staff, nice site design, it was actually better than wcd and more in demand than wcd before wcd went gazelle. What an invention gazelle was huh? I remember michelle and Shinikaru who was the 'syrup king' but michelle was very active in the forums.
SpX21 was active in a lot of trackers. When SCC struggled financially three years ago, he allegedly promised to make a five-digit "bailout" donation, although it's clear from the end result that such a thing did not or could not happen. As I recall, he was a fairly colorful character in the torrent world, his name even showing up on many scene notices.
Scene.Access.Owner.SpX21.Discussing.His.TopSites.K ILLTHEPRICKS-FUCKSAKE
[12:56] (SpX21) TiT ?
[12:56] (SpX21) torrentit?
[12:56] (******) lol i'm marked as an upper there, but don't do anything
[12:56] (******) i race for a couple sites
[12:57] (SpX21) ;>
[12:57] (SpX21) couple sites.. as in torrent or ftp
[12:57] (******) i mean i race nascar :/
While I recognize the potential security benefits, I don't consider exclusivity an advantage in this case. It meant there was much less going on at FTN, and I've never heard of anyone getting copyright strikes for downloading from ScT. Nicer staff, that may have been possible; Feeling, Terska and Eezee did have a bit of a reputation. Whether it was deserved I don't know, but a March 2009 poll puts them second only to BitMeTV, which "wins" by a large margin (see https://filesharingtalk.com/poll.php?pollid=1837&do=showresults). Interestingly, two years prior to that, OiNK would earn the award to the worst staff by a landslide (see https://filesharingtalk.com/poll.php?pollid=1205&do=showresults).
FSC is amongst the oldest places still operating, and itself was spun-off an even older one that no longer exists (can't remember its name), guess it's a small world after all :wwink: As for the "missing" staff members, not finding their names on modern trackers doesn't mean they aren't there, although these are well-connected people who could likely cut the middleman and get a slot on a topsite if they wanted. Or perhaps they simply moved over to Usenet, as have so many other torrenters, staff or not. However, Brandon is or at least was active on TL for sure (see https://filesharingtalk.com/showthread.php?p=3370091). Also, keep in mind that Gazelle logs your searches and visited profile pages, because that's how toxic things are now.
Gazelle and Ocelot are indeed two huge contributions to the torrent world, ensuring What.cd's legacy will live on for a long time. Regarding Waffles, if it had a higher initial popularity, it's likely because they attempted to keep the OiNK feel as much as possible when the memory of OiNK was still fresh in people's minds; they even had a copycat pink layout, and you could choose "OiNK Island" as your country flag, which I did :wgrin: Anyway, thanks for mentioning them, because it reminded me of Woodenhead and how he was the nicest and best staff member from any tracker I've interacted with. It's a shame they had to go out like that: long downtimes, usability issues, the sysop's complete disappearance leading to a de facto site closure...
I don't think I'll be able to maintain another account and will most probably end up cheating and get myself banned and inturn get you banned too so I'll pass but thanks a lot. Ya it baffles me how TL and IPT, too of the biggest money making torrent sites probably havent been busted yet. Long may they continue. Yes but then again the what.cd takedown was shocking as it was in France.
No worries. The offer still stands if you ever want it in the future.
I pictured France as a somewhat safe location (so many OVH seedboxes; Hadopi law eventually repealed) but the 2016 raid clearly proved me wrong. Even though only a reverse proxy had been compromised, it's clear that the What.cd staff decided to call it quits rather than risk something worse down the road. WhatMan had a "if 'they' ever connect the site to me in a personal level, it's game over immediately" policy, and it must have only been tightened after he stepped down.
Yup. It would be easier for an FTNer or FSCer to get into a fellow leet site like Exigo or iTS etc.
iTS has had public invite applications, so it's not as l33t as the others, sorry. :wgrin:
Yes it was tough to stay an active cheat on that tracker cause you couldn't just download a 200/300 mb file so the bigger the files the harder to keep a sustainable ratio.
They did and I think I got warned for overbuffering a torrent cause I used to look for torrents to cheat on in Pedros and it wasn't straight forward cause a lot of torrents had 1 or 3 leechers. I think pedros banned countries like Romania, not fair but who can blame them if so many cheaters come from a single country?
I don't know what things are like nowadays, but back in the day Romania, Egypt, India and Israel were the "G4" of countries banned for excessive cheating and trading (see http://fsfmirror.blogspot.com/2008/12/private-trackers-announce-global-ban-of.html). I'll never understand why Romanians cheated, their connection speeds have always ranked among the fastest in the world. In any case, there was no shortage of other trackers, both domestic and international, willing to welcome them. And if their country was also banned on BTM, that's somewhat ironic and/or hypocritical as Pedro is himself Romanian, or at least had that country flag on ScT.
I was a member of VIPMusic and later it went down and came back as VIPV2 which I was a member too. Easy to get in. I think you were lucky to catch lossless world when they were open signups cause they closed pretty quickly. Amazing you were able to do the cross uploading files to What to become Elite, I did have the idea but was just too lazy to rip and upload. I just wanted to cheat gbs and have enough buffer to download and get into their invites forum to trade or move to other sites. I'll try to find your uplaods on rutracker, are they uploaded by "anon"?
I didn't know there was a VIPMusic v2. Remember STMusic and SoftMP3? The former was a sister site of SuperTorrents, and often recommended as a third-rate alternative for those who couldn't get into What.cd or Waffles. The latter shut down on May 2009, but released their source code, and a few unofficial sequels followed; SceneSound was my favorite, and I used my account there a lot until they also closed. Anyway, scene music trackers had already lost their raison d'être at the time; their 0-day counterparts were good enough at catching those releases (which are somewhat narrow in terms of artists and genres covered), and dedicated music trackers perfectly fulfill the need for stuff that's less popular and/or in different formats.
Getting What invites to share was partly what I had in mind when trying to reach the highest class I could, but in the end I only invited a single person, cheatuga from this forum. My username there was RndmSmash. I don't know if/how RuTracker deletes inactive torrents, but last time I checked they still had a handful where I was credited under that name. Other perks of having the Elite rank included: "access to an exclusive section, with enlightening discussions such as 'would elites have sex with a pregnant woman?', invites that were 'better' than those in the regular invite forum, torrent editing privileges and the possibility of becoming an interviewer" (see 355346).
Interesting. Clearly you were in some cool, mystical places on FST that I wasn't privy too, perks of being a FST mod huh? But that's the only UK-T invite thread that I've ever heard about on the internet. Funny thing was when UK-T went down, all their members were panicking and wondering where to go when there were all these regular sites like TL etc that they could easily join. It's like UK-T was the only torrent site that existed for them. It's cute haha.
Fufu, there's been plenty of stuff on FST hidden away from regular members. TTC, VTG (Veteran Trade Group), a staff section like every forum has, the infraction logs and discussions, two trash cans (pre- and post-2011), and all deleted posts and threads. A lot of it was lost after the current admin took over on 2013 and started deleting old data; only the staff section, trash can no. 2 and deleted posts remain. To this day I'm surprised they made me staff, but I genuinely like the place and stuck around long after more "respected" members had moved on, guess that counted for something.
This is not the first time I hear about UK-T members not having accounts anywhere else, and considering their history and clientele, it's very much possible. FSC opened its doors to these "refugees" (ugh, I hate using that word in this context :whmm:), as did less exclusive sites like TL and PreToMe.
Agree. The whole anti-trading stuff killed off the drama which made FST interesting.
:fst:
Unfortunately streaming services made it impossible for the torrent drama to flourish so I dislike them for that. Plus when FTN, FSC,SCT,UK-T, FTWR all went away it reduced the collectors a lot. Now you just have Exigo, AOM and FSC out of which it's just Exigo and FSC that collectors are more interested in imo.
I don't like them for several reasons. First, there is no way of making anonymous/cash payments. Secondly, you're forced to use their proprietary platforms and DRM, you can't just add a stream to your player of choice. If you're in the "wrong" country, you may not be able watch/listen to certain things unless you also pay for a VPN, i.e. spend more money for a workaround, assuming what you're interested on has been licensed for any country at all. And obviously, if you're in a situation where Internet access is slow or non-existent, any sort of streaming will be unusable. In other words, they're fairly good for lowest common denominator scenarios (a market they have obviously excelled at capturing), but streaming won't become the complete end of piracy for a very long time, if ever. When you download something from a "pirate" site, you have the actual files, they're not encrypted, you can copy and use them anywhere you want, as often as you want, and no one will track this or remotely delete them. Not to mention the possibility of finding very old or rare things that are outright impossible to obtain legally, because they're no longer sold or never were, like VHS rips, old TV captures, Sega Channel/Satellaview ROMs...
With regards to the drama, I'm indifferent. I liked reading it, but it's not like I can't sleep because Spotify doesn't steal donations or Netflix doesn't DDoS their rivals. /r/trackers remains a relatively active source, if you're interested. Anyway, here are the last great drama threads that pop into my mind right now.
https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/387453-BT-politics-general-thread-Oh-the-drama
https://filesharingtalk.com/threads/403539-PassThePopcorn-or-PassTheChildPorn
Love to read these posts :klatsch_3:
Remember these? No? It's alright, you missed absolutely nothing.
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=21350
http://www.sb-innovation.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=21351
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