Dev seeking to track large torrent for a group

[DeHackEd]

I've come up with my own tracker algorithm which tries to get clients to connect more locally than usual. Azureus/Vuze users may have heard of assorted plugins to accomplish this - I'm trying it in the tracker myself. It's passed all my self-tests and now I'm seeking a real-world test.

I don't know who I should ask, so I'm posting this here. The way I want to do this is I would run my own tracker (I can accommodate most technical requests) for the material of your choice. If there are any takers, I'm in irc.rizon.net & irc.quakenet.org or just reply to this thread.

[zero1328]

Since this is (presumably) an innovative development that may have a great effect on torrents, I'd probably have half a mind to not ask people involved in something a bit questionable like fansubbing... especially in public form.

I think it would be a better idea to talk to someone involved in distro for some open source project, like for some torrent client or something; you could get more interest there. You'd probably also have larger and continuous (worldwide) traffic and data from a linux distro's torrent or something. Try asking on Freenode.

[DeHackEd]

Yes, but in order to be effective I need something with an expected thousands (ideally) of users and something that will be freshly seeded in an immediate timeframe. And somehow I doubt the Fedora project would be willing to try something a tad on the experimental side. Every open source thing I've ever seen tends to to very heavily seeded, has rare releases and not all that many downloads at onec

[zero1328]

You could probably make the same arguments about willingness to fansubbers, too, though. These are mostly personal and hobby projects, after all. I'm sure this isn't the only forum you're making this request in; It still wouldn't hurt to try asking people from something like the open source area as well.

You might also grab attention more easily if you privately/directly speak to someone involved in distro.

[DeHackEd]

The differences is fansubbers tend to not have fast-ethernet seeds handy, a 6 months release schedule, nor an HTTP mirror collection across the globe. They're probably more willing to accept such an odd request as well.

[windstar!~]

Might want to provide some details about your development to increase the interest.

[DeHackEd]

Long story short, I have a tracker that knows of the layout of the Internet and will try to take local peers (in the ISP sense) into account when handing out user lists. Speeds could benefit because there's usually shorter physical distances, fewer hops and just plain more bandwidth between users on the same ISP. The ISP literally saves money as this is free bandwidth for them. At the same time I try to still give out good lists of foreign users. If anyone's running the aforementioned Azureus plugin, it will get an excellent start ahead of time.

So that's the jist of how the program works.

Due to the nature of the project, until it's ready for public release (should it reach that stage) I would basically ask to do the tracking myself. Honestly I would host it on my home connection, but it's fast, sees somewhat low use from me, has a static IP address, is on battery-backup and I'm willing to accommodate all kinds of conditions of service.

(If anyone asks, the reason I'm doing hosting myself is that the program is currently a bit CPU hungry and would easily anger your hosting provider. I have a monster system with nothing better to do)

[cyberbeing]

Originally Posted by DeHackEd

(If anyone asks, the reason I'm doing hosting myself is that the program is currently a bit CPU hungry and would easily anger your hosting provider. I have a monster system with nothing better to do)

Since when do hosting providers get upset about CPU usage on Dedicated Servers?
You would be also be hard pressed to find any decent sized group without their own tracker and at least one 100Mbps webseed.

Who are you exactly? Age? Location? Occupation?
How do we know you're not lying your ass off? I mean, before you posted this topic, your last post was over 4 years ago.

Why don't you just make it open source and stick it up on SourceForge?

If it's closed source why don't you just make a website and post your beta (alpha?) bits there?

Leaving it up to people to test it on their own terms and give feedback would give you a lot more willingness.

Why not just make your test tracker open to the public and upload some torrents yourself?

In all seriousness though, all fansubbing is illegal. You asking a fansub group to trust you to host their tracker is like going up to the admins of a 0-Day warez tracker and asking the same thing. Next thing they know, they are being raided by the FBI. With all the recent happenings with Funimation stream leaks, and lawsuits being promised, you posting this topic seems a little to convenient to be a coincidence. I pity the fansubbers who fall for your trap.

If this is really legitimate, good luck to you, but you picked an absolutely horrible time to ask if fansubbers are interested.

[DeHackEd]

Once upon a time I wrote what might have been the first PHP-based bittorrent tracker. I still hang on in the original-dev IRC channel. I live in Ontario (Canada) and am in my mid-20s.

The new tracker is a spinoff of my PHP code for ease of tampering and live editting. I'm the kind of guy who deeply enjoys doing things his own way, so I don't like sites like sourceforge, though I do believe they're a benefit to the internet overall.

I'm not asking for a complete handover of control. I'm asking for maybe one release with the option to take back tracker duties if so requested by anyone who happens to ask (would part of the whole accommodation thing). Dear god, I'm not planning to spin off another scarywater.net. Speaking of which, mxs may or may not remember me.

As for the years of silence, between having little to say and University, stuff happens.

If you want to go into further detail, you know where to find me.

[zero1328]

Well, I guess taking the non-subtle route works as well, cyberbeing...

Even if you say all that, people are still going to be sceptical about this. You can't just simply explain it, but actually show evidence of the project. Show a website or page with documentation or progress updates, maybe a contact email and such. Something that looks legit, professional, with information; not just a vague forum post.

Frankly, asking for help in this way arouses a lot of suspicion. This isn't the first time I've seen a dev do this, and it only attracts scepticism. And compounding the fact that this forum is for fansubbing? Something illegal? Good luck to that.

Even putting that aside, I already said fansubbing is a private work. They are more likely to be protective of their 'property', and who can access it.

The reason I mentioned the open source folks right off the bat is because they are inherently open. They can give more help in this area than I can, even if it's just pointing you the right way. You should know this.

Have you spoken to any other devs about this? In #bittorrent? What have they said?

[DeHackEd]

This argument cannot end well...

I chose to approach fansubbers because I do watch anime myself from time to time (though my last series was Death Note within the last year - take from that what you will) and I thought that it would best fit my ideal operating model. As for open source projects, I honestly can't think of any who would fit the parameters. Fedora 1 goes live in 1 or 2 days (depending on timezone) but I REALLY don't see that happening. Got any suggestions?


Bittorrent devs think it has some merit and locality-based P2P is in the news lately. Unfortunately running a large swarm tends not to fly very often, and mxs is usually quiet. All in all, I'm going nowhere fast.

[zero1328]

I can't think of any specific place for you to test it, really. That's why I said before that someone from the open source community could possibly help you with even just that. Have you actually tried talking with them rather than just thinking they'll say no? Like I said, it doesn't hurt to at least ask around. If there's a possibility, then contact them directly.

[Plorkyeran]

Originally Posted by cyberbeing

In all seriousness though, all fansubbing is illegal. You asking a fansub group to trust you to host their tracker is like going up to the admins of a 0-Day warez tracker and asking the same thing. Next thing they know, they are being raided by the FBI. With all the recent happenings with Funimation stream leaks, and lawsuits being promised, you posting this topic seems a little to convenient to be a coincidence. I pity the fansubbers who fall for your trap.

Uh...

Let's suppose this was a trap. What exactly could he even do? Stop tracking it after a few hours, forcing them to relist it with a different tracker? Get the IP address of the group's seedbox that's already trivial to get? Other than for speedsub groups that are racing to get a release out first I don't see how helping him test it is any way risky even if you assume he's malicious.

[cyberbeing]

Originally Posted by zero1328

Well, I guess taking the non-subtle route works as well, cyberbeing...

Yeah, I guess I may have gone a little overboard
Because of recent goings-on, I've been in a no-nonsense mood, and DeHackEd's post just happened to hit a nerve.

Originally Posted by Plorkyeran

Uh...

Let's suppose this was a trap. What exactly could he even do? Stop tracking it after a few hours, forcing them to relist it with a different tracker? Get the IP address of the group's seedbox that's already trivial to get? Other than for speedsub groups that are racing to get a release out first I don't see how helping him test it is any way risky even if you assume he's malicious.

You need a better imagination. If that is the worst you can think of, you deserve something bad to happen. Ignorance is bliss as they say... Or is it?

In any case, I can somewhat believe that he may honestly be trying to find people to test his new tracker algorithm, but the fact that he requires hosting the tracker himself, still puts me a bit on edge. That alone would prevent me from ever approving of such a thing. Better to be safe then sorry.

@DeHackEd Most older established groups probably wouldn't take you up on your offer. Your best bet would likely be going on IRC and directly approaching some of the smaller/newer groups as they would probably be more open, as well as benefit more from such a tracker algorithm.

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by cyberbeing

You need a better imagination. If that is the worst you can think of, you deserve something bad to happen. Ignorance is bliss as they say... Or is it?

stop being so retardedly paranoid, people let other people track stuff for them all the goddamned time (public trackers aren't exactly uncommon)

what is your point exactly; never use a tracker you don't control yourself? how exactly is this better or more secure? (hello nyaatorrents/anirena/scarywater users, cyberbeing thinks you're being ignorant)

dehacked, pm me on rizon and I'll see if I can't get someone to test your stuff

e: by the way, sources inform me this idea isn't exactly new and that boxtorrents used to have something similar years ago; out of curiosity what is new with your implementation?

[ASR1FanSubs]

I dont think they need this.
go to PC forum or something and ask there.

[Scab]

If this guy doing the hosting is such a big concern, just set up your own hostname and point it to his tracker, then point it back to your regular tracker when the test is over. Also, it's BitTorrent we're talking about here, the whole protocol is completely open—there's nothing to hide. If you were concerned about peer security you wouldn't be using it in the first place. What exactly is it you think this guy could do that any client wouldn't be able to accomplish? Sabotage your swarm for a couple of hours before you revert back to a working tracker?

[Plorkyeran]

Originally Posted by cyberbeing

You need a better imagination. If that is the worst you can think of, you deserve something bad to happen. Ignorance is bliss as they say... Or is it?

Name one way, probable or otherwise, that a group could be nontrivially negatively impacted by using his tracker for a release or two.

[dj_tjerk]

I actually read some papers on the Small-World approach recently, and I'm quite curious as to how you implemented it without making it very cpu-hungry, and what you used to decide if peers are close

Of course you need to see if the algorithm actually works, so I guess you should keep track of the progress of the leechers over time (cause that matters to most people) and maybe find a way to calculate the amount of traffic that is cross-isp/AS/continent (donno if that's possible, but this one is interesting for the tech guys). One test without the algorithm, one test with the algorithm. Preferably two episodes of the same show of the same group.

[Quarkboy]

Doesn't this just end up boiling down to optimizing an approximate solution to the traveling salesman problem that runs in polynomial time?

That's been studied pretty much since complexity theory began.