Non-BT torrent tracker cheating techniques.

[SljWk3Js8]

Are cheating techniques that don't exploit BitTorrent relevant to this forum?

My favorite cheating method for music trackers is fake uploads. I've used this successfully many times on what.cd and waffles.fm and have never been caught. It's a bit more work, but if you can earn yourself a large bounty for filling a request with a fake upload, or are scared of faking your ratio, then it's worth it. Bonus points if you dislike the tracker and get enjoyment out of sabotaging it.

A description of how I do it:

1. Pick a request that you think you can safely fake without getting caught. Ideally it's something pretty rare so nobody will catch you. Every fake upload is different, so planning it takes some thought.

2. Pick audio files that you will use to fill it. For example:
- Audio from a completely different source(s), if you think nobody will notice.
- Audio that you invent by mixing together tracks from other sources, if you think nobody will notice.
- An existing CD rip that doesn't have an EAC log, or something like that.
- Existing MP3 files.
- Existing CD rips of the same tracks that a Vinyl rip is requested for.
- A combination of the above. Many only some tracks will be faked!
Obviously, this all depends on the style of music, popularity of band, etc.

3. Modify your files to create the fake upload version. This step varies greatly depending on what the request is for and what you need to do to get there. For example:
- Often I need to create a fake EAC log. I take an existing one and change it, filling out the TOC based on the files and pasting in the CRC for each track. Finally, I use an online tool to calculate the checksum for the EAC log. Alternatively, you can waste a CD-R burning your tracks to it and re-rip it with EAC to get a valid log file. (I wonder if you can do that with a virtual disc....)
- For a fake vinyl rip, you may need to add some clicks and dust and minor sound distortion to make it sound like it came from a vinyl. Change the length of the tracks by a few seconds, etc, obviously. If you need to convert to 24bit 96KHz format, add some noise in the higher frequencies to make it look real. For example, you can take some noise in those frequencies from a different 24bit 96KHz source and mix it together, since nobody can hear that high anyway.
- If starting with MP3s, you need to apply some heavy processing/remastering so that it won't be obvious when someone looks at the spectrum analysis.
- Sometimes you have the real audio and you just don't want to share a real rip of it. Apply some processing over the audio, maybe shift all the tracks a bit, add some noise, add some of your effects in FL, whatever. Keep it believable and have fun with it.

4. Upload & fill the request. Laugh as you think of all the dummies who will be happy to listen to this junk and claim it's their new favorite music.

5. Profit! With your newly earned bounty, you should be good with ratio for awhile.

[anon]

I may or may not have faked uploading one or more movies () through the use of NTFS sparse files. You can use fsutil to create one or more with any desired length, then make a torrent out of them. Fake logs, screenshots, etc. can be crafted manually if necessary, as they were in my case.

Find someone with a throwaway account on the tracker, or willing to take a hit on their ratio, and use RatioMaster/mRatio/VEM's ratio tool, each of you using the same fake speed but on a different direction. That way, not a single byte must be transferred.

One possible detection vector is that since attempting to read from empty portions of a sparse file always returns null (0x00) bytes, your torrent will have tons of pieces with the same hash. This could be solved by using files filled with random data instead.

The fake torrent can later be abandoned, and hopefully will end up automatically deleted because no one else actually wanted what it's supposed to be.

And I said hopefully, because in my opinion is a very low tactic. In addition to being a form of cheating and thus inherently "wrong", it pollutes the tracker with fake files and uploads - one of the irritating tactics used by copyright agents on public sites. I expect quality when downloading from a private tracker, particularly in the case of music and movies, and being fed a fake torrent isn't something I'd want. And needless to say, tracker staff will think the same as me on this regard. Expect punishment on par or even harsher than the one for regular cheating if you get caught.

[SljWk3Js8]

That's very interesting. It sounds only feasible for something that nobody would be interested in, or for very short-term accounts, since you'd be caught as soon as someone tried to watch your files.

[anon]

I would never actually transfer these fake files to get upload credit, even if I could get away with it. In addition to the reasons I have already mentioned, it is a waste of bandwidth for all parties involved.

I guess my principles limit this tactic to situational yet safe (but not risk-free) usage.