BitCoinTorrentz.com - Torrent Download Service

[bitfoo]

I have fully implemented cookie tracking for referral idkeys.

Your key will bring you commission for up to 10 years after the user clicked your referral link. it is not possible to set a cookie that persists indefinitely, but 10 years is probably longer than the average computer lasts these days. And in 10 years, I suspect cookies will no longer be relevant anyway! Haha.

One thing however, if a user you have referred to the site clicks a subsequent link with a new idkey, your existing key will be replaced for the new one. I'm not quite sure if this is a good policy or not, but I suppose it is probably the fairest way of doing it. What do you think?

Also, if users have certain browser options that block cookies, or delete them each time their browser closes, there is nothing much I can do to work around this fact. The majority of us though accept all cookies except those from 3rd parties, so I think we're good.

Since use of the service is anonymous, it seems like there's nothing that prevents a user from simply using his/her own referral link to get a permanent 20% rebate on the service, instead of crediting the 20% to someone else.

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[mjcmurfy]

Since use of the service is anonymous, it seems like there's nothing that prevents a user from simply using his/her own referral link to get a permanent 20% rebate on the service, instead of crediting the 20% to someone else.

I have already reflected on this. I considered just allowing this exception to occur, because to be honest, as long as people are using the service, I don't really mind if they do it by getting a 20% rebate each time. It's still revenue at the end of the day, and it still leaves 80% for me. It makes sense to have a smaller share of a big pie, than a big share of a smaller pie.

But in saying that, I have actually implemented methods to prevent it.
It is stated in the referral control panel that using your own referral link will not gain you any credits.

The service is 100% anonymous for end-users, but to ensure that the scenario you have alluded to does not occur, the IP address of those who sign up for referral accounts is recorded and checked against if they try to use their own referral link. I do not see the problem with this considering they also have to provide their email address.

Referrers are not breaking the law by pointing people to a website for legitimate use.
They are not responsible for how the service is used by third parties.
So they need not worry about their IP or email address being stored.

It remains that no IP information, or any other means of identification, is recorded for those who download torrents.
Even if a referrer downloads a torrent, they cannot be linked to the download, and can therefore be assured of privacy.

I may transition to a cookie-based method of identifying this type of behavior in the future however to ameliorate the need to record the IP address of those who sign up for referral accounts.

[Ricochet]

It also helps that you're limiting it to only a single layer of referral bonuses.  There would be more room for abuse if, say, someone got 5% of what his referral's referral spent. 

[mjcmurfy]

I tested this with a rather large file, using a download manager that allowed me to dynamically change the number of concurrent connections (up to 10, though I think this time it stopped at 9 for some reason).  Each additional concurrent connection got me another 100-120 KB/s, so in the end I maxed out at 1.3 MB/s.  Not bad for being in the US, and my hard drive was probably getting to be the bottleneck by that point anyway.

I am a bit concerned about the "common Bitcoin address" problem, not because I think someone will steal my download, but for privacy reasons.  If someone knew the filesize of what I was downloading, and monitored the address and saw a payment that corresponded to it, the two could be linked together.

That said, I think this is a fantastic idea.  Thanks for the effort in putting it together so far, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it progresses.

Regarding the multiple-files thing, if you're using Firefox there are a number of extensions that will allow you to download all the links on a page at once (or queue them up one at a time, if you prefer).  Personally I'm using the FlashGot extension, and even if you don't install the FlashGet download manager it's made to complement, you can still use it with Firefox's built-in download manager as far as I know.

Thank you for your feedback. It is greatly appreciated.

Out of interest, what is your normal maximum download speed? The maximum my server can upload is on the order of 10mb/s. So unless you have 100mbit home broadband, it should max out the average user's connection, given the right circumstances.

And with regards to the single address issue, I am working to transition to a unique address payment system. But for the present, I think the small possibility of government or rights agencies querying the bitcoin blockchain is quite remote, meaning that this system is still miles ahead (in terms of privacy and liability) than downloading the torrent yourself.

[Ricochet]

Well, I'm on a university connection, so it should be pretty fast.  Interestingly, the speed tests I just tried all showed speeds a lot slower than I was expecting.  I'm getting anywhere between 6 Mbps (lowercase b) and 14 Mbps, depending on the server I choose to test with.  Combined with the international link, my 1.3 MB/s (10.4 Mbps) is probably correct.

However, when I only let it download a single stream, it came through at 120 KB/s, so after a minute I increased the number of connections to bring it up to that max speed, as I mentioned.

EDIT:  When you say your upload maximum is 10 "mb/s" do you mean megaBits or megaBytes?  It's probably megaBits, and if that's the case, then I was indeed maxing out your upload.  10/8 = 1.25 MBytes/s, which is about the speed I was pulling.

[mjcmurfy]

No, I meant megaBYTES. So you were only pulling about 1/10th of the capability of the server. I am downloading from it now at 2.6mb/s. My broadband connection is 30mbit. It may be due to the fact that the server is located in europe.

I am already in the process of obtaining a US based gigabit server to run this service on, along with some other non-resource intensive websites. So that should ensure maximum speeds every time. I need to raise some capital however to pay for a dedicated server with Gbit speeds, so I will let the service run on the current 100mbit server until it's capacity has been exceeded, or users begin to complain of slow download speeds.

[Ricochet]

Ah, gotcha.  Even still, 1.3 MBytes/s is a heckofa lot faster than I'd get from a torrent, so I'm not complaining by any means.  And this computer is 7 years old (and my router's even older), so it could have been any number of factors - slow hard drive, bottlenecked CPU, screwed up router configuration, etc.  I wouldn't worry too much about it for now.

[molecular]

Ah, gotcha.  Even still, 1.3 MBytes/s is a heckofa lot faster than I'd get from a torrent, so I'm not complaining by any means.

Really? Strange, bittorrent usually maxes out my download pipe within a minute after I start dl. Even for unpopular stuff it usually downloads quite fast after it's connected to some peers. Maybe you should open the port to the outside?

[mjcmurfy]

Just a quick update to inform users that the status page has now been updated with detailed information on the torrent download statistics. The page will update every 5 seconds until the download has completed, at which point you will get the download link. See the screenshot below for a better idea of what it looks like:

I would like to invite as many people as possible to try out the service. I need to earn enough to be able to pay my server costs, which are quite significant. So if you find it useful, please USE it, in order to keep the bitcointorrentz service alive into the future.

And if you don't need this service, but would like to support it, donations of any size are greatly appreciated:
1CCa9ps1tp6DdxrUfmnbvBqLKgkr638hWs

[bitfoo]

Just a quick update to inform users that the status page has now been updated with detailed information on the torrent download statistics. The page will update every 5 seconds until the download has completed, at which point you will get the download link. See the screenshot below for a better idea of what it looks like:

Wow, that looks great! Kudos for putting out updates so quckly.

[mjcmurfy]

Just a quick update to inform users that the status page has now been updated with detailed information on the torrent download statistics. The page will update every 5 seconds until the download has completed, at which point you will get the download link. See the screenshot below for a better idea of what it looks like:

Wow, that looks great! Kudos for putting out updates so quckly.

Thanks and no problem!
Next thing on my to-do list is to sort out the unique wallet address system.
That may take a little longer to do however.

[terrytibbs]

Just a quick update to inform users that the status page has now been updated with detailed information on the torrent download statistics. The page will update every 5 seconds until the download has completed, at which point you will get the download link. See the screenshot below for a better idea of what it looks like:

I would like to invite as many people as possible to try out the service. I need to earn enough to be able to pay my server costs, which are quite significant. So if you find it useful, please USE it, in order to keep the bitcointorrentz service alive into the future.

And if you don't need this service, but would like to support it, donations of any size are greatly appreciated:
1CCa9ps1tp6DdxrUfmnbvBqLKgkr638hWs

image

Beautiful - keep it up.

[Ricochet]

Ah, gotcha.  Even still, 1.3 MBytes/s is a heckofa lot faster than I'd get from a torrent, so I'm not complaining by any means.

Really? Strange, bittorrent usually maxes out my download pipe within a minute after I start dl. Even for unpopular stuff it usually downloads quite fast after it's connected to some peers. Maybe you should open the port to the outside?

Eh, I think in the past I had port/firewall issues, even after opting out of the campus-wide firewall service (aka port blocking, which I leave to my router instead).  Maybe a misconfiguration in uTorrent itself, I dunno.  I investigated it long ago, but after lots of tinkering with no improvement I just lived with crappy speeds for the few files I was trying to get.  I haven't really torrented anything in a few years, so maybe things have changed, but I haven't looked into it.

[mjcmurfy]

Ah, gotcha.  Even still, 1.3 MBytes/s is a heckofa lot faster than I'd get from a torrent, so I'm not complaining by any means.

Really? Strange, bittorrent usually maxes out my download pipe within a minute after I start dl. Even for unpopular stuff it usually downloads quite fast after it's connected to some peers. Maybe you should open the port to the outside?

Eh, I think in the past I had port/firewall issues, even after opting out of the campus-wide firewall service (aka port blocking, which I leave to my router instead).  Maybe a misconfiguration in uTorrent itself, I dunno.  I investigated it long ago, but after lots of tinkering with no improvement I just lived with crappy speeds for the few files I was trying to get.  I haven't really torrented anything in a few years, so maybe things have changed, but I haven't looked into it.

If you opened the correct port in your router configuration, that would probably increase your speeds. Not being fully connectable means you will never reach decent speeds. However, it is highly unwise to do this and then download torrents from public trackers.

Many rights-organisations, ISP's or other agents monitor pretty much every public tracker for torrents that are copyrighted, and compile lists of IP addresses of those who have downloaded and seeded the file. This can lead to you losing your internet connection, and potentially large fines. I'm sure you have heard of more than a few cases of this. Many people find this too risky, so they don't download illegal movies and copyrighted material using public torrents.

On a completely side note, our service is completely anonymous.
We keep no logs, and the server is located in europe, connected to a high speed internet backbone.

This is starting to turn into a sales pitch I think... meh

Anyway, bitcointorrentz is very useful for people who are blocked behind proxies or firewalls that prevent them from using torrents completely. Others have blocked ports meaning poor connectivity resulting in their download speed being miserable, despite having fast connection. Others may just like the convenience of being able to watch video files within minutes by streaming them directly from the server, without having to wait for a large torrent to complete on a slow home connection. There are plenty of other reasons...

Importantly however, I would like to point out that bitcointorrentz.com and it's owners (i.e. ME), do not condone intellectual property theft in any way. This service is to be used solely for the downloading of legal, open-source and non-copyrighted materials only!

[Ricochet]

Well I'm pretty sure I opened all the correct ports (the standard Bittorrent ports plus the "randomized port" generated by uTorrent) and correctly forwarded them to the specific computer downloading the file, but even then I had issues.  Like I said though, this was several years ago so I don't remember the specifics of what I tried and didn't try. 

As you mentioned, various groups take advantage of the public nature of Bittorrent.  Several of my peers received warnings from the university for copyright violations due to this, which is part of the reason I stopped using torrents for anything but 100% legal files (primarily Knoppix LiveCD images). 

This evening I used BitcoinTorrentz to get a copy of AMV Hell 5, a free video download that would have otherwise taken me hours to download.  Many thanks for the service.

[mjcmurfy]

You are more than welcome Ricochet! I am happy you find it useful.

I would also like to publicly thank and acknowledge the wonderful generosity of Ricochet for his very kind (and substantial) donation to the site. As I already promised, every bitpenny of donations will be invested directly into the site for future development, server costs and advertising.

[Ricochet]

Erm, it was only a single Bitcoin dude ($5 at this point), not exact a "substantial" donation or anything.  I mean I'm happy to take the recognition and all, but even in the US that's less than a single hour of work at minimum wage.  Think of it more as an encouragement, not a sponsorship. 

[mjcmurfy]

That's all it's worth in fiat currency at the moment, yes, but to me it is substantial as I can purchase 20,000 advertisement impressions with it on dailybitcoins, if I wanted to. Anything that is not-zero I consider substantial, and appreciate greatly. Thank you again mate.

[Ricochet]

I suppose that's true.  All I see on DailyBitcoins nowadays is Dragon's Tale, so some variety would be nice.  Of course that depends on the site's visitors not using an ad-blocker, or white-listing the site.

[mjcmurfy]

I suppose that's true.  All I see on DailyBitcoins nowadays is Dragon's Tale, so some variety would be nice.  Of course that depends on the site's visitors not using an ad-blocker, or white-listing the site.

You also have the option of paying for clicks directly, and i could get 100 clicks for 1btc. It's is a more reliable form of advertising, you are always unsure of how many of those impressions will actually convert into visits to the site.