PC Piracy: Something We Tell Our Grandchildren About?

GasBandit · Jul 26, 2013

Also equally important is WHERE you are torrenting. Are you just doing public torrents, like off piratebay or some other such place? A private tracker goes a long way. I can get you an IPTorrents.com invite, but bear in mind they're real sticklers for UL/DL ratio. As in, they want you to maintain a better than 1.0 ratio (seeding at LEAST as much as you download).[DOUBLEPOST=1374863354][/DOUBLEPOST]

Gilgamesh said:
Installed proXPN, installed, ran it.

10kb a second throttled.....

Of course, if your ISP is just throttling all torrent-type activity no matter the IP, you might be out of luck at this point and have to wait for them to lift your cap. But I'd be surprised if they did that, it'd make patching games like WOW practically unworkable since they use a modified BT client for distributed patching.

VPNs are more about not getting caught... but you're already caught.

NSA · Jul 26, 2013

GasBandit said:
I can get you an IPTorrents.com invite

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your tracker.

GasBandit · Jul 26, 2013

NSA said:
Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your tracker.

Sure, just shoot me an e-mail at MaybeTryReadingTheConstitution@FirstAgainstTheWallWhenTheRevolutionComes.com.

Officer_Charon · Jul 26, 2013

... for links to decent spoofers. Be damned if I'm going to be throttled over an occasional "patch" and "free-to-play" download...

Gilgamesh · Jul 26, 2013

Officer_Charon said:
... for links to decent spoofers. Be damned if I'm going to be throttled over an occasional "patch" and "free-to-play" download...

Welp I'm switching ISPs now (new service gets connected on Monday). Same speed but this time I'll be using a VPN until Google Fiber comes along. Luckily I'll be paying the same per month, yet have a few better options for the TV service and DVRs. This ISP also throttles torrents if they -catch- you so I'll just have to stick with VPNs for now.

GasBandit · Jul 26, 2013

Unless you've heard something I haven't yet, Google Fiber may be a long way off. They do one city at a time, and the cities have to climb over each other offering google deals/breaks to get them to come.

Bowielee · Jul 26, 2013

My area was up for Google fiber, and despite intense lobbying, was unable to get it.

AshburnerX · Jul 26, 2013

GasBandit said:
Unless you've heard something I haven't yet, Google Fiber may be a long way off. They do one city at a time, and the cities have to climb over each other offering google deals/breaks to get them to come.

It's eventually going to happen though, unless Time Warner and Comcast wake up and start matching service and price. It may take a few years, but it's going to be nationwide eventually unless something stops them.

GasBandit · Jul 26, 2013

AshburnerX said:
It's eventually going to happen though, unless Time Warner and Comcast wake up and start matching service and price. It may take a few years, but it's going to be nationwide eventually unless something stops them.

It's not expanding very fast. "Matter of years" is a little optimistic. Even at this point, they still only have Kansas City done, and have only started to preliminarily to expand into Austin and Provo. Given that there are 19,355 "incorporated" entities (Cities, towns, etc) in the United States, at the rate they're going (if they finish Austin and Provo this year, it'll be average of 1 city per year since rollout), that works out to be just over 53 years at the most optimistic of estimates.

Not exactly a blowtorch lit under existing cable and telecom companies.

GasBandit · Jul 26, 2013

I know, I know.

(it's surprisingly hard to find a picture of an actual wet blanket on google image search)

Ravenpoe · Jul 26, 2013

AshburnerX said:
It's eventually going to happen though, unless Time Warner and Comcast wake up and start matching service and price. It may take a few years, but it's going to be nationwide eventually unless something stops them.

I don't believe we'll ever see it here in bumfuck, Florida. We don't even have the usual jerks like Time Warner or Cox. Out here it's satellite if you want tv, and verizon 4G cellular if you want internet.

Gilgamesh · Jul 26, 2013

GasBandit - Austin (where I live) is the recently confirmed Google Fiber city, so yeah, I'm just biding my time for 7 months.

AshburnerX · Jul 26, 2013

Ravenpoe said:
I don't believe we'll ever see it here in bumfuck, Florida. We don't even have the usual jerks like Time Warner or Cox. Out here it's satellite if you want tv, and verizon 4G cellular if you want internet.

Eventually wireless internet is going to be better than it is now in a decade or two and could potentially be as ~~ambiguous~~ ubiquitous as cellphone coverage. So you might not have the best connection, but eventually you'll have something bearable.

PatrThom · Jul 26, 2013

AshburnerX said:
Eventually wireless internet is going to be better than it is now in a decade or two and could potentially be as ~~ambiguous~~ ubiquitous as cellphone coverage. So you might not have the best connection, but eventually you'll have something bearable.

FTFY.

Also, I have little to no experience with trackers/VPNs/etc, so I won't be of much use.

--Patrick

Ravenpoe · Jul 26, 2013

AshburnerX said:
Eventually wireless internet is going to be better than it is now in a decade or two and could potentially be as ambiguous as cellphone coverage. So you might not have the best connection, but eventually you'll have something bearable.

As far as speed goes, it's not too shabby, but the data caps terrible.

GasBandit · Jul 27, 2013

I actually set up my own VPN for my mobile devices to connect to when out on the road, so I can stream content to my tablet anywhere with a wifi internet connection (my phone's 3g, a teensy bit too slow for streaming video) using VLC's streaming without... you know, exposing my whole home network to the internet at large.

Bubble181 · Jul 30, 2013

GasBandit said:
they're real sticklers for UL/DL ratio. As in, they want you to maintain a better than 1.0 ratio (seeding at LEAST as much as you download).

I never quite understood this. I mean, I understand not wanting a bunch of leeches DLing without UPing, but isn't it technically impossible for all users to be over a 1.0 ratio?

strawman · Jul 30, 2013

Bubble181 said:
I never quite understood this. I mean, I understand not wanting a bunch of leeches DLing without UPing, but isn't it technically impossible for all users to be over a 1.0 ratio?

It depends on how it's counted. If each torrent has to be 1.0 or greater, it means that you have to leave all your torrents up until they reach 1.0 so it effectively means that they count active seeds as following the rule even if they are below 1.0.

If they count a global upload value, then you are right, they have to actively seed popular things so that over time they'll obtain a 10-20 seeding rate which will account for their less than 1.0 rate on less popular things.

If everyone downloaded everything, then yes, one could never get to 1.0. But because people have tastes and only download a relatively small amount of stuff relative to what's available, then it's still possible, mathematically.

GasBandit · Jul 30, 2013

Bubble181 said:
I never quite understood this. I mean, I understand not wanting a bunch of leeches DLing without UPing, but isn't it technically impossible for all users to be over a 1.0 ratio?

Their exact policy is a bit complex. Overall, they want you to maintain a 1.0+ global average, but don't actually start threatening to kick you until you get to 0.5 or so. They also have an individual 1.0 quota for every individual torrent. This would normally be extremely difficult, but some torrents are tagged as "freeleech" which means they are exempt from quotas and don't add to your download byte count. So a good way to raise your ratio is to get a popular freeleech-enabled torrent and seed it for a long time. Additionally, the more you seed, the more "bonus points" you generate even if no peers are actually downloading what you're seeding. You can spend 50 bonus points to "zap" a hit'n'run (a torrent you haven't gotten to 1.0 ratio yet) so you can stop torrenting it without it showing up on your "you stopped seeding the following torrents too early, dipshit" list, or you can spend them to buy upload credit at about a 10mb-1bp ratio.

So, all that comes together to give me a 3.0+ ratio with 7431 bonus points, though it used to be higher. I think how it works is you have to be 1.0 to send invites, make requests and other stuff... they call that rank "super user." Below 1.0 you get just regular "user" and can still download torrents, but if you slip to below 0.5 or maybe it was 0.3 (I don't remember exactly) they demote you to "peasant," send you a nasty e-mail and give you 2 weeks to fix your ratio before they delete your account. And restrict you to freeleech torrents only.