Can we share torrents magnet links? ( pizzagate )

submitted by belphegorsprime

Many videos are being removed from YouTube for alleged violations, but I have seen some of them and know for a FACT that they were not violations. Fuck YouTube for succumbing to this pressure to censor legitimate discussion. Can we begin the process of circumventing YouTube? Despite what the "authorities" would have you believe, torrenting is legal. If owners of content consent to this model of distribution, we can crowd source the distribution of videos.

I know it's not as convenient as clicking a link and seeing a video in the browser window, but it's not too many extra steps, and I think people here are willing to seed content that is worth seeding. Maybe people could share their videos via torrent by posting magnet links here?

Any thoughts on this?

If people like this idea, or have suggestions on improvement, please comment. Maybe we can curate a list of magnet links that is stickied like some other informative posts.

We do not need their platforms. We do not need their permission. They cannot defeat decentralization. Truth will out.

angryindividual

I would do this.

5PY_HUN73R

I'm down with torrents, and you're right torrenting is completely legal. The only problem though is that even if it is legal, you may still attract unnecessary attention from your ISP due to the extreme fluctuations in bandwidth. Maybe something like soulseek would be better. It's direct peer to peer connection and doesn't consume tons of bandwidth.

belphegorsprime

I think any peer to peer system is going to result in bandwidth fluctuations. That's the nature of transmitting video content in a distributed way. Can you make the case for why soulseek would be a better way to decentralize the sharing of this kind of content? There may be other reasons that I'm not seeing and I don't want to discourage a good idea. I'm just not convinced by the bandwidth argument.

5PY_HUN73R

Basically what I'm saying is this: 1. The Feds keep constant watch on torrents and torrent trackers. So do the ISPs. 2. Torrents are not anonymous. You're IP can and will be tracked unless you're using Tor and/or a VPN. 3. It's not recommened by any means to download torrents over Tor, as it slows down the network for EVERYONE using. << This is important to maintaing the integrity of the network. 4. Torrenting is not quite peer to peer because you're downloading from multiple sources to create one file, thus increasing your digital footprint. 5. SoulSeek bypasses all of this by being true peer to peer, works great with I2P, which is meant for anonymous file sharing. 6. SoulSeek allows you to connect directly to the person you're getting the files or media from with end to end encryption, and also manually lets you throttle your own bandwith, making it look like normal trraffic to you're ISP, thus not raising any flags.

I'm not against torrents. I'm stating that if you plan on staying anonymous, I would look into some other alternative means. I hope this helps.

belphegorsprime

You raise some good points. I want to clarify a few things, in case others read here too.

  1. Feds track all traffic, not just torrents.

  2. Torrents are not anonymous, but AFAIK, Tor is compromised and should not be relied upon for anonymity from state level adversaries. There is a weak point in the protocol itself which basically means that any single exit node being compromised severely reduces any anonymity guarantees. There is a somewhat recent whitepaper detailing a way to improve the protocol such that anonymity can be almost entirely guaranteed unless ALL exit nodes are compromised. But, I don't think this is implemented yet.

  3. Many hacktivists that work on Tor actually want people to use it for any and all types of traffic. The more that people use Tor for everyday traffic, the less likely dissidents in fascist regimes will be outed by their mere use of the technology (needle in a bigger haystack).

  4. Torrent is definitely considered peer to peer. You are correct that files are broken into little pieces, but that is a feature. Consider the following scenario: Alice begins seeding video file. Bob begins downloading file and receives 75% of the pieces. Chris begins downloading file and receives 75% of the pieces. Alice disappears and is never heard from again. Suppose of the 75% Bob downloaded, Chris has less than 50% in common. It is now possible for Bob and Chris to share mutually excluded pieces to complete the file. Bob and Chris can now seed the file fully, even though neither of them had a complete file before the originator (Alice) disappeared. This quality is very robust. It is a major feature to guard against censorship.

  5. Not sure what you mean by "true peer to peer".
  6. End to end encryption is certainly a great advantage. Torrents do not have this feature (although if you trust your VPN, this shouldn't be a huge concern). Most torrent clients allow users to throttle bandwidth as well. If you want to disguise traffic from your ISP for some reason, one can use something like shadowsocks, or something of that nature.

I think it's important to realize that if you are already on a VPN, the anonymity is about as safe as your VPN. State level adversaries already have traffic analysis that makes meta data graphs of all of us. I'm not saying we should not try our best to be as anonymous as we can, but just that we shouldn't lull ourselves into a false sense of security regarding what the state already knows.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I think there is no reason not to have both of these options available. The more the merrier. Can you provide some information as to how one could go about using SoulSeek? Is the technology behind it open? Is it "federated"? Does it rely on a centralized server? How is peer discovery performed? I'm open to new models, and would like to learn more about this if there are advantages that would serve the goals of decentralization and anti-censorship.

PodeezyCheezy

I don't see why not.

Would you like to share a pizza?