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The Internet

Demonoid Tracker Is Back Online 211

Posted by kdawson from the score-one-for-the-mole dept.
Crymson4 writes "We discussed the shutdown of the Demonoid torrent tracker last fall. For those who don't already know, Demonoid is back up. Looks like they found a new host for the Web site and the tracker is functioning properly as well. For those with old accounts, all the old data has been saved. It's almost as if they never left."
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Demonoid Tracker Is Back Online More

Demonoid Tracker Is Back Online

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  • Wha? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by JoshJ ( 1009085 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @02:09AM (#23052382) Journal
    Okay, seriously, what's the point of invite-only registration? I see right now, it says you have to be an invite, but it also says (on the "got an invite?" page) that they open registration to the public once a month. If they're trying to keep the MAFIAA out via invite-only reg, then why the hell would it ever be open to the public at all?

    • Re:Wha? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13, 2008 @02:15AM (#23052400)
      Its a pure traffic problem, once a month the delete all the idle accounts and let new people join, the invite systems means its fairly easier for you to get in if you want anyway.

      though off the top of my head i can also see how a 'closed' system could be a legal defence, your not distributing to the public everyone is a member of your 'private' club.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by RKBA ( 622932 )
        So what day of the month do they allow new memberships? How does one get an invitation?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Mike89 ( 1006497 )
          One asks :). I'd email you one but you haven't listed it. Perhaps reply to this with it and I can (though I understand if you're unsecure doing so, etc)

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by SacredByte ( 1122105 )
            I would be careful to only give them out to people I trust, as it is my understanding that, should someone you invited get banned, you will as well.

          • Re:Wha? (Score:5, Funny)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13, 2008 @05:31AM (#23053098)
            Thanks! My email is: investigations@mediasentry.com.

            I cannot wait to start torrenting those warez. I'm going to collect hundreds of MP3s! Information wants to be freeeeee!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by RKBA ( 622932 )
            Excellent. The problem of course is knowing who to ask. If you are still so inclined, please send my invitation to:

            mike89@spamex.com

            I will delete that email address as soon as I get the invite. THANK YOU!
        • So what day of the month do they allow new memberships? How does one get an invitation?

          *Rolls eyes* It's not at all hard to get in. The second time I tried them, they must have just done a purge, because I signed up there and then.

          I'm assuming their resurrection will engender a lot of traffic. Give it a couple of weeks and you'll probably be able to register just fine.

    • Re:Wha? (Score:5, Informative)

      by chasingsol ( 743706 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @02:16AM (#23052406)
      Demonoid has always been a public tracker, but other features of the site require an account (including uploading). You don't need to be a member to use it, just a member to access other stuff.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Firehed ( 942385 )
        Yes, the tracker is public. However even to browse to many of the older torrents, you need to be a member. So many of their torrents end up on other sites so it barely matters, but it's still not as wide-open as TPB.

    • Re:Wha? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Madalienmonk ( 1255494 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @02:22AM (#23052428)
      It's private to stop Joe-hit-and-run from just leeching without sharing, people have to share to a ratio on Demonoid (usually 1:1).

      • I don't know about this 1:1 ratio thing of which you speak, but I am sure glad to be able to resume leaching from Canada. They blocked the country due to legal threats quite a while ago, and now seem to have forgotten to do so again. Will see where that goes.

        If you ask me it is the protocols job to get leaches to contribute not the sites. After all the site serves ads regardless...

        • Re:canada back online (Score:4, Informative)

          by number11 ( 129686 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @11:17AM (#23054620)
          I am sure glad to be able to resume leaching from Canada. They blocked the country due to legal threats quite a while ago, and now seem to have forgotten to do so again.

          Traceroute shows they're not in Canada anymore. The web server is in the Ukraine, the domain registration is in Brazil. So I'd guess that those legal threats are no longer a problem.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by shark72 ( 702619 )

            Not if the site operator resides in a country that's a signatory to the Berne Convention and is providing access to folks in those countries.

            I'm aware that it's a popular myth that hosting your site in some other country will exempt you from the laws of the country in which you live. And, sure enough, lots of folks have tried it. But it's generally not the case.

            If this is boggling anybody, conduct a thought experiment by substituting "information freedom fighter sticking it to the rich and greedy copyri

            • Re:canada back online (Score:5, Insightful)

              by number11 ( 129686 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @01:52PM (#23055498)
              I'm aware that it's a popular myth that hosting your site in some other country will exempt you from the laws of the country in which you live.

              Of course not. But it makes it a lot harder to pursue. Dealing with your own government is numbingly frustrating as it is. Now consider having to deal with governments that are not your own, and that may not have the same priorities. So, let's see. You need to jump through the hoops of Brazil's government to compel a "privacy guard" type registrar to give the name of the domain holder. That turns out to be a mail drop in Vanuatu. Call around and try to find someone who speaks Bislama, because while you're pretty sure that whoever answers the government phone in Vanuatu understands English, they're being pricks about it. Give up on that approach, which is just as well because even if you had found someone who spoke Bislama and filed the necessary paperwork in that language with the Vanuatu Justice Ministry, it would have turned out that the mailing address is vacant lot in Amsterdam, and the email address is a free account in South Africa.

              So, go after the server in the Ukraine (even though you're pretty sure the operator is backing everything up by FTP to somewhere else, and can start up at a new location on 24 hours notice). Call around to find someone who speaks Ukranian, and someone else who has a petty cash fund big enough to pay the bribe that's going to be required. On second thought, say "what the hell" and give up, you joined the force to catch bank robbers, not to play bureaucratic games in languages you don't understand, for the benefit of some company that isn't even in your country.

              Besides, what makes you think the site operator is Canadian?

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by shark72 ( 702619 )

                Excellent points! You're certainly correct that it might make it a lot harder.

                Funny that you referenced Vanatu -- of course, that's where the fine folks at Kazaa registered their company, apparently in a similar attempt to throw up some legal barriers. As we know, it ultimately didn't work out, as they were tried in Australia, where the executives live.

                I did not state that the kid running Demonoid is a Canadian (the "canada back online" title was from an earlier post, something about being blocked in Ca

    • Re:Wha? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Andtalath ( 1074376 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @03:20AM (#23052614)
      The point is the avoid leeches, not to avoid legal shitbags.
      • Demonoid is one of the few private trackers that doesn't ban on bad ratio. You can leech all you want, and the only thing that will suffer is your pirate karma.

    • Okay, seriously, what's the point of invite-only registration?
      It's pure marketing. If you have to wait 15 days for your friend to give to an invite to this "exclusive" tracker, chances are you're going to think it's this great thing and you'll talk about it and use it more than you otherwise would.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by AiToyonsNostril ( 1082283 )
        As true as the theory of cognitive dissonance might be in general, Demonoid truly has a lot of rare stuff you don't see on the open sites and, usually, greater percentage of reliable uploads as well. Also, the type of person who'd wait two weeks for registration and remember to sign in within a certain time window tends to be different from the hit-and-run people who congregate around the open sites.

    • Re:Wha? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by p0tat03 ( 985078 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @03:39AM (#23052684)
      I'm not sure about Demonoid, but my preferred tracker is also invite-only for a good reason: ratios. The tracker stays fast because people are forced to give back. The thing works on a credit system - downloading costs credits, uploading gains credits. To avoid people signing up over and over for free credits, EVERY single account that is opened needs to have credits donated from an existing member, such that credits never magically materialize out of nowhere. It's a good system - and the only tracker I've ever been on where I can always max out my pipe at all times.
      • They don't allow for the creation of ANY new money?

        http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=684425 [ssrn.com]

        That might pose a problem. There is a reason that the fed expands money supply.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by p0tat03 ( 985078 )
          There's a bonus credit gain applied to seeders, I'm not intimately familiar with the precise inner workings of their system, but this can provide the growth in "money" that they need.

        • There is a reason that the fed expands money supply.
          Yes, to keep the bottom from dropping out until November, in the hope that they can get McCain elected.

          I thought everybody knew that.
      • how do they get arround the problem of people modding thier clients to lie to the tracker?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Stormie ( 708 )

      Feel free to send an invite to rjpkhsmz@trashmail.net [mailto]

      You know someone with a three-digit Slashdot ID is the sort of fine character who will be a credit to your torrenting community. :-)

  • Private tracker. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13, 2008 @02:16AM (#23052408)
    One of the things that made/makes Demonoid so great is that the unwashed masses aren't permitted to ransack and abuse the system in the same way that they are at TPB.

    You need invite only registration if you really want to be able to enforce ratios. Otherwise people just create disposable accounts, leech to the cap and never seed.

    On Demonoid, people seed or their ratio goes to shit and they can't DL.

    Anyway, I'm glad it's back. TPB is great, but it doesn't always cover all the bases for me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suss ( 158993 )
      Yeah... except if it weren't for the fact that demonoid has no safeguards/checks against cheating and even if the cheating is blindingly obvious, cheaters aren't punished...

      Nice ratio of 1.5 million there, buddy!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )
      Hypocrites.

      "Information must be free!" ( but only to my friends that in effect pay for it by being required to do something in return )

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bogtha ( 906264 )

        I don't see any hypocrisy. The opinion that the law shouldn't be used to restrict people from sharing information does not oblige them to use their resources to distribute it. The opinion is not that they must do so, but merely that they should be able to do so if they want to.

        Maybe your confusion is because you got the saying wrong. It's "Information wants to be free", and it's a statement about economics.

  • no catch? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by B5_geek ( 638928 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @02:18AM (#23052418)
    After all the fuss & muss (with no court-based legal rulings) how are they back up?

    They did not goto court (the innocent admins would have shouted it from the roof-tops), they must have had an out-of-court settlement. Considering all the old account are still available, this stinks of a setup.

    I am from Canada, and as we are aware there are several laws that 'allow' me to d'load. There is even one that I can think of that allows me to upload. BUT that said, I will not log back into demonoid, I will not create a new account.

    I will continue to use the private trackers that I am currently on, and most importantly continue to use Piratebay to search.

    • Re:no catch? (Score:5, Informative)

      by chasingsol ( 743706 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @02:23AM (#23052434)
      The new server is located in Ukraine, so unless there's a very elaborate international conspiracy here, I doubt it's a setup. The original admin isn't from Canada or the USA (or Europe for that matter). The original servers were located in Amsterdam, then they moved to Canada before being shut down, and now they've moved again. Not at all unusual for torrent sites, even huge ones like The Pirate Bay.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by B5_geek ( 638928 )
        Don't confuse my tone of pessimism, I _hope_ they are back.

        Just wary, and paranoid.

        hehe paranoid of demoniod.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Ironix ( 165274 )
          I logged into the newly functional demonoid using my old account and it works fine. Now unless they gave away all their users old account data, I doubt it is some kind of honey-pot or such thing.

          • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

            by base3 ( 539820 )
            Or that prosecutors made them an offer they can't refuse. I wouldn't be sure at all that the resurrected Demonoid isn't a honeypot.
  • ...but Demonoid did. I think this indicates a subtle but meaningful change.
    • Actually Suprnova did come back but under new management.
      • I should've been more precise. Suprnova was never directly re-instantiated, it basically became a brand because people were already familiar with the name.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by soilheart ( 1081051 )
      A "subtle" difference is also that demonoid never was taken down because of the pressure on the admin (as I've understood it) but because the host didn't want demonoid on their servers anymore. Since then deimos have said that it probably would come back as he never had a problem with having the site.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by slyn ( 1111419 )

      ...but Demonoid did. I think this indicates a subtle but meaningful change.

      Though it's possible that the idea behind pirating has evolved from a "free stuff is sweet" idea when it first started to a "free stuff is sweet + stick it to the RIAA/MPAA/similar entities" idea, I think that would probably be looking over a number of much less ideological and much more IRL/priorities/personal reasons not to restart it consequential to whoever was administrating the site.

      That being said, on a completely OT side point, though I (mostly) dislike the new skin of /. (I have the beta skin

  • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • LONG LIVE RAPIDSHARE!

  • Oblig. Ackbar quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eudial ( 590661 ) on Sunday April 13, 2008 @04:59AM (#23052972)

    It's a trap!

      ~ Admiral Ackbar.

  • Wow (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Cinnaman ( 954100 )
    Demonoid had the best community out of the "public" torrent sites and made for a richer filesharing experience, I've been lamenting it's loss ever since.
    The Pirate Bay is okay but didn't have the range of Demonoid. I used to have a Torrentleech account with 20gb worth of positive ratio but was a victim of their new "regular login" rule, so it's great to have a comparable site back from the dead.
  • Old out of print comics (Kamandi... Warlord...) which have no graphic novels you can buy... never found another good site and sure missed Demonoid for them.
  • I could find a way around Bell's upstream throttling. (I have a 3rd party ISP)

    Anyone manage to find a Bell throttling workaround for deluge? ( or any other Linux P2P) Turning on encryption hasn't helped.

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