Archive for December, 2004

Movable Type was just updated to the latest 3.14. I don’t there there are any noticable changes.

To escape the Christmas holiday I’ll be taking a trip down to New Zealand on the 25th. Damn early morning flight at 5am but its all business class, so thats cool

Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to keep up with the latest news and blog over there, but it may be doubtful finding a reasonable place for internet over there…

Until the early morning of the 25th expect to find me online and possibly this blog will be updated with some tech news of the week.

-DJ

Well, Suprnova is dead – may it be back? Possibly, but not in the torrent serving website form that we know today…

Could they return with eXeem, or is it dead? Who knows.

eXeem was deveolped by the Suprnova crew that would revolutionise the BitTorrent protocol. This tool would make everyone a tracker, making it impossible to crack down on websites and make sharing a lot easier. However, It was in beta for a few months and now it is un-usable because Suprnova is down. These betas are EXTREMELY rare and it is why I have decided to post them.

Leaked eXeem Betas (0.08 to 0.14 Latest)

NOTE: Remember people, these won’t actually work anymore because it is unable to connect to the Suprnova master server, maybe in the future, probally not.

The offical BitTorrent client was updated this week to 3.9.0 Beta

* All new queue-based user interface
* Remembers what it was doing across restarts
* Includes an improved .torrent maker with the regular install
* Single port: launchmany can seed many files from a single port and thread
* Better performance
* completedir no longer exists, use btmaketorrentgui or btmaketorrent
* License has changed to the BitTorrent Open Source License
* Torrent fields are correctly created and interpreted as utf8
* BitTorrent packets are marked as bulk data to make traffic shaping easier
* Too many little things to list

OF COURSE, I do not recommend this client, call me a leecher if you wish, but I recommend either the Azuerus or BitTornado no upload mod

BitTorrent 3.9.0 Beta
BitTornado 0.3.9a MOD by rrtn
Azureus 2.2.0.2 MOD by Smasher

The famous reader for reading Adobe PDF documents has been upgraded from 6 to 7. I’m not sure what happens about the full version yet, I don’t believe its been annouced yet.

Download @ Adobe

After the long awaited Half Life 2, the demo decided to appear. Apparently this is 11 CHAPTERS LONG (the game is only 14 including 1 chapter for the credits). I’m sure if people knew this the game would never sell and only the wannabes would have grabbed it.

For those that haven’t experience the Half Life 2 feel yet, go grab it at ATI

ATI Download

Whirlpool has an interesting article up on how to get Telstra to replace the old RIMs that prevents people to get ADSL. Here is a “How to get Broadband” list:

1. Make sure your exchange is ADSL enabled.
2. Start talking to God.
3. Ask God for a large (but not TOO large) gust of wind.
4. Ask God to send that gust of wind straight into the tree which stands next to your local RIM unit.
5. Ensure that God’s aim is good.
6. Voila! One big tree, one ex-RIM, one new CMUX!!
7. Send thanks … or beer.

Whirlpool has pictures and more on the article

Peter Torr in his weblog decided to create a flame war about Firefox. Even though I’m very fond of Firefox and do recomend it over IE and other browsers, its an interesting read. Somethings are just about user stupidity but oh well…

View Peter Torr’s Blog Entry

On December 17, 2004, Microsoft announced the acquisition of an anti-spyware company, surprising many in the industry. The acquisition is notable for two reasons. First, Microsoft had already revealed its intention to get into the anti-spyware market. Second, the company it purchased, Giant Software Company, was largely an unknown in the industry. Largely, that is, except for me. In a rare moment of luck, I’d actually been a fan, customer, and advocate of Giant AntiSpyware, as their anti-spyware solution is logically named, for several months. In fact, I’ve found it to be far more effective than the industry darlings, Ad-aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. And I’ve been recommending it to friends and family ever since.

But wait, the luck doesn’t end there. While months of experience with Giant Antispyware gives me a unique perspective of this product, I was also lucky enough to interview Giant co-founder Andrew Newman just days before his company was purchased by Microsoft. Newman discussed with me Giant’s plans for future versions of the product, including a centrally-managed enterprise version (Figure) that, I suspect, played a large part in Microsoft’s interest. Newman explained to me why Giant’s approach to tackling spyware is superior to that of the competition, and provided some valuable insight into how spyware can be confronted and defeated.

More at Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows

BREAKING NEWS – SUPRNOVA.ORG HAS SHUT DOWN

AS OF THE SUPRNOVA.ORG PAGE:

Greetings everybody,

As you have probably noticed, we have often had downtimes. This was because it was so hard to keep this site up!
But now we are sorry to inform you all, that SuprNova is closing down for good in the way that we all know it.
We do not know if SuprNova is going to return, but it is certainly not going to be hosting any more torrent links.
We are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything.

Thank you all that helped us, by donating mirrors or something else, by uploading and seeding files, by helping people out on IRC and on forum, by spreading the word about SuprNova.org.
It is a sad day for all of us!

Please visit SuprNova.org every once in a while to get the latest news on what is happening and if there is anything new to report on.

Thank you all and Goodbye!
sloncek & the rest of the SuprNova Team

———–

Earlier today The Register published an analysis of BitTorrent (available here) This article outlines BitTorrent and explains how just 20 moderators from SuprNova solve the problem of fake files, something that plagues the traditional file sharing networks like Kazaa.

Since this was published SuprNova has shut down, however, the reason is not totally certain. As the notice from the SuprNova team state, it is too hard to keep the site up – this maybe because of the legal action from the MPAA (Movie Protection Ass. of America)’s Hollywood against tracker websites action that bought the site down a few weeks ago for a short period.

RIP SuprNova (hopefully not) It has been a great starting point for the BitTorrent community! SuprNova MAY return but not for hosting torrents. There has been no statements on the eXeem project.

Update 1:
Recently the large TORRENTBITS.ORG tracker has also closed with the message.

Good-bye
Thanks to all users, uploaders, mods and donors for helping create the best torrent site on the net, but this is where the road ends for us.

MaxPuppy a TorrentBits Admin says:

AT LAST!
I’ve got a chance to reply to some of these rumours and wild speculation!
(YES – this is going to be one of the Puppy’s long boring posts,
but if you don’t read it all, don’t bother replying – NO CRIB NOTES AVAILABLE)

Firstly, I have to say,
I am extremely dissapointed with the response from some of the members of the TB community.
Scare-mongering and spreading rumours is not the most helpful thing to do in a situation like this!
I know everyone is unhappy about it, but don’t burn your bridges with insults or by playing the blame game!

Secondly,
I am extremely delighted with the reponse form some of the members of the TB community.
Members like DeeJee, and Warlok, who are trying to keep us all together,
to get the correct information out. There are probably more that I don’t know about yet….
and all those working behind the scenes…. Thanks guys

OK lets get down to it.
A few facts:-
- I am extremely sad to report, that I have just found out that, TB, as we know it, is DEAD.
- The full reason why Rb choose to close down is still not yet known
- Rb was “on holiday” when the site went down, and is in no position to put it back up again,
or explain anything, until he gets back
- There was a Ddos attack – After the site went down!

One more fact:-
Nobody, REPEAT, nobody, except Redbeard knows what Redbeard is planning to do.

Keep watching torrentbits.org for a statement.
It’s the ONLY place to get the full facts

Update 2:
It would seem the SuprNova forums have been trimmed of ALL P2P related information. Either SuprNova have
voluntarily headed off or legal action has taken place.

FROM THE ADMIN OF THE SUPRNOVA FORUM:

Hello all,

To keep this forum alive the admin have decided that we will be removing all torrent related sections immediately.

SFD Hosting is now just the host of these forums and nothing else to do with suprnova, as part of our AUP we do not allow links to P2P programs be they t0rrent or otherwise, anybody breaching these rules will be immediately banned for life. This goes for linking to torrent sites as well.

We understand that this may alarm people but in order to preserve this community we must practice this isolationism at least for the time being.

Thank you for your patience.

Update 3:
Earlier this week I saw UK-Torrents.com go offline shortly saying they were closing down, but they came back up 1 or 2 hours later, maybe this has something to do with it, maybe not at all…

Update 4:
FileList.org has NOT shut down but the admin has stepped down:

Minus has stepped down as Administrator, we would like to thank him for his dedication to FileList and we greatly appreciate the time he has taken to make FL better place.

FileList and EliteTorrents are also somewhat taking a damn lot of traffic at the moment.

Update 5:
This week Youceff torrents was taken offline, and the servers were raided by
French Police. I believe 34 people were arrested in this incident. Also this week ShareConnector a large EDonkey 2000 site was taken offline
after a Dutch raid. It would seem the MPAA (Movie Protection Ass. of America)
has planed a takedown of P2P sort of sites.

Update 6:

ISOHunt.com have been emailed a cease & desist letter from the MPAA, with a “sample” of infringing links. They are in the process of working this out with them (this is from the 15th, but I thaught I should add it.)

FINAL Update:
Slyck has just put up a brief news article on the SuprNova crisis. They explain:

SuprNova.org’s fall comes shortly after the demise of other key BitTorrent and eDonkey2000 link sites. Last week, the MPAA and other world wide copyright organizations began to clamp down on ShareConnector, Youceff Torrents and many others. While SuprNova.org was not forced off line, the administration was definitely feeling the pressure.

Sloncek, the administrator finally commented on the issue saying that “SuprNova.org was more like a hobby that took most of my free time away. And now with current situation, there’s too much pressure and I don’t have the time for it.”

SuprNova.org WAS NOT forced offline by the MPAA OR the RIAA, it went offline voluntarily due to the recents arrests of the ShareConnector crew. He has decided this to continue with other projects without worrying about prosecution.

Alternatives:
http://bi-torrent.com/
http://btefnet.net/
http://isohunt.com
http://torrentspy.com
http://thepiratebay.org
http://uk-torrents.com
http://torrentreactor.net
http://filelist.org
http://newtorrents.info
http://demonoid.com
http://elitetorrents.org
http://lokitorrent.com

PS. Unofficial FAQ at http://www.silentdragz.net/suprfaq

-DJ