Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by Svenskunganka on Friday August 05, 2016 @05:00AM (#12230882)

It's a tricky business running a torrent site. Unless it is fully decentralized, it can be shut down fairly easily.

Starting a torrent site using the HTTP & DNS protocols is a lost cause. HTTP can be worked around, but DNS is very problematic. I think we'll see more and more torrent sites show up that leverages IPFS[1] or ZeroNet[2], but the second the main browser vendors adds support for something like IPNS (decentralized alternative to DNS), torrent sites will have won the battle with MPAA, RIAA and other IP and DMCA enforcers. Considering the grip that the movie studios has around the vendors, it is very unlikely that it will happen.

[1] - https://ipfs.io/

[2] - https://zeronet.io/

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Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by lkjhgfdsa57 on Friday August 05, 2016 @05:54AM (#12231053)

Don't forget Freeenet https://www.freenetproject.org/, which has the goal of anonymity. IPFS isn't anonymous and the IP address of users pinning the content is easily discoverable.

Freenet has at least one site that lists magnet hashes and inserts some of the torrent content directly into the network.

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Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by jpalomaki on Friday August 05, 2016 @05:20AM (#12230952)

I believe the main problem is how the site owner can remain anonymous and still collect the advertising revenue. The hosting does not seem to be so big issue, since these well known sites have been running for quite a while.

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Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by jjn2009 on Friday August 05, 2016 @05:11AM (#12230913)

DNS appears to have a decent amount of decentralization, otherwise what use would it have been to switch around TLDs for the pirate bay?

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Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by Svenskunganka on Friday August 05, 2016 @05:27AM (#12230973)

Yes it is decentralized, but it relies on central authorities to work, which in turn relies on a stable, cross-border legal system - which many believes is currently not in a good state (see Freak_NL's response for example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12230903 ).

People have different views on this of course, but I think we all can agree that it needs a major overhaul to make the majority happy (the legal system that is).

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Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by tempestn on Friday August 05, 2016 @05:56AM (#12231061)

Instead of major browsers, could major torrent clients build in search functionality based on something like this?

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Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by Svenskunganka on Friday August 05, 2016 @05:58AM (#12231068)

They definitely could, but there's barely any innovation in the torrent "market" anymore...

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Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by icebraining on Friday August 05, 2016 @06:13AM (#12231120)

https://www.tribler.org/

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Re:Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine S... by Roritharr on Friday August 05, 2016 @05:45AM (#12231024)

Since Mozilla didn't shy away to include Adobe Binaries in Firefox to decrypt Movie-Streams, i'm pretty sure for IPNS we're going to get a unmodifiable Blacklist so "Bad"-Sheep can be blocked.

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