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Comment by thrdbndndn | Hacker News Reader

> Without private trackers, it’s not obvious that anyone..

The piracy scene (with 0-day FTP etc.) worked fine before BT was even well-known.

And there are more than enough groups directly release their content on public trackers for anything remotely popular (any Netflix series fall into this category). You (or they) don't need PT for that.

PT is kinda essential if you're interested in obscure/niche content though, I agree.

I hate private trackers purely due to (my personal) value. I think it's a violation of "piracy spirit", and it somehow enables lots of people/groups' superiority complex or unnecessary gatekeeping behaviors (emphasis on "unnecessary": I know by definition it's not gateless).

But I do acknowledge it's probably the most practical way nowadays.

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> And there are more than enough groups directly release their content on public trackers for anything remotely popular (any Netflix series fall into this category)

Name one! Or link a torrent. I’m pretty sure you will only find shit quality webrips made with capture cards and not actual decrypted streams.

> The piracy scene (with 0-day FTP etc.) worked fine before BT was even well-known.

The TV scene has been reduced to nothing because none of the groups could figure out Widevine. Just look at any pre feed.

Private tracker groups did though, and now everybody depends on them.

Dude, you totally overestimated how hard cracking Widevine is.

It's not exactly "trivial", but extracting L1 key from an Android phone running older Android OS version isn't rocket science either.

Dude, I know exactly how not hard it is because I have done so.

The fact remains, zero scene groups figured this out.

They have, but it’s just not interesting. Similar to how the p2p scene doesn’t give a damn about software DRM.

Regarding WV: There is actually lots of open source software and even some discords where WV keys are being shared. FFMPEG is capable of decrypting it, so all you need as ffmpeg inputs is the netflix stream and a key and then dump it to disk.

Regarding pita DRM: the scene is the only capable group who still supply clean patches for modern DRM in games and applications. (Like denuvo)

Clean in the sense that they don’t just install a hypervisor and hook everything for big performance penalties, but actually patch the binary to remove the checks through static analysis. 3DM is the last p2p group I know which done that, but that was half a decade ago. I don’t think there are currently any p2p groups which take a look at this, because it’s just not interesting (effort vs reward) for them.

Software pirate groups you are talking about have very little overlap with people who were doing TV releases.

> They have, but it’s just not interesting. Similar to how the p2p scene doesn’t give a damn about software DRM.

But doing HDTV caps was interesting?

it is 'Widevine'

EPSiLON, SiQ

It’s pretty late, so I might be missing something. However, neither of those groups seems to be releasing netflix content?

The first does bluray remuxes on HDB (a private tracker). I don’t think they directly release anything on public trackers.

The other did a bunch of 360p porn uploads in 2019.

They might mean SiGMA not SiG, SiGMA releases on PrivateHD. EPSiLON used to also, but there was some issues between them and PHD and they are currently releasing on TorrentLeech I believe. SiGMA does Amazon/Netflix WebDLs, but EPSiLON only does BD remuxes.

> it's a violation of "piracy spirit"

wouldn't private trackers be more aligned with the original piracy spirit? They are just a group of people who knew each other and shared stuff.

Public trackers are actually more against the spirit of piracy imho - which has turned into publicly broadcasting content without the expectation of reciprocity.

Different people have different understanding of what the spirit should be like. With this said..

> just a group of people who knew each other and shared stuff.

I wish! The thing is, private trackers are not like that, at least not anymore. It's more like a bunch of people trying to show who has the biggest e-penis (ratio, highest upload, etc.); and they're definitely not "friends" or know each other. I was heavily involved in the PT scene for a while 15 years ago, and really hated how big the egos and how many the dramas were there. Now I just lurk.

To me, the best way, or the "spirit", is that you either share it with your friends only (which is what I typically do nowadays if I buy the stuff myself), or just publish it publicly (ideally anonymously), than only to some condescending pricks which somehow think being able to download "exclusive" content others share is a bragging right.

FWIW, this is basically how eMule and most Japanese P2P softwares worked, so it influenced me a lot. There is zero gatekeeping; once you share, the files are no longer "yours". People can't even tell who published them.

But again, that's just my value, and I keep it to myself. I totally see how this is not enough incentive for others to "share" their stuff.

> It's more like a bunch of people trying to show who has the biggest e-penis (ratio, highest upload, etc.

Literally nobody cares about that stuff anymore, most members have been on these sites for so long that things like ratios have become utterly meaningless.

Lurkers of course mostly just silently download without causing drama. But there are enough people stirring shit especially among "elite" uploaders and mods.

From my perspective as a torrent user not in "the scene", scene releases are usually trash tier and stuck in the '00s. Poorer visual quality encodes, and rules that dictate ludicrous behaviour like making the files a multi-part RAR then putting each part inside a ZIP.

Yeah I agree "the scene" is already an outdated model. Just that there was a way before PT.

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