Thread: Pass the popcorn - pass the buck?

by JustJenna



Shock waves rocked the torrenting community this morning when the founder and sysop of Passthepopcorn, known simply as "Pham", was publicly accused of donation theft and money laundering. In a stunning and unprecedented move, the PTP staff launched a hostile takeover, moving the site to a new domain and effectively "stealing" the tracker out from under it's founder.

In the wee hours of May 10th, 2010, PTP staff published a lengthy tell-all on the front page of the site, accusing founder Pham of stealing from donations and using the money to pad his bank account, all while ignoring the needs of the tracker. Promising full disclosure, they explained that recent donation drives were used for Pham's personal needs and that upon learning of the deception, steps were immediately taken to move the site to a new server and preserve the integrity of PTP. However, despite the current staff's indignant promises to reveal all, some questions still remain unanswered. How long has Pham allegedly been skimming money? When (and how) did staff discover the deception? How much money does the site require to pay it's monthly bills? What additional costs, if any, are associated with running a tracker of this size? What proof exists? And the most burning question of all: If these allegations are true, exactly how much money did Pham steal from member donations? As of yet, exact financial details regarding the trackers costs have not been revealed.

It seems that the news of his hi-jacked site blindsided Pham, who (according to his post on the now defunct passthepopcorn.org) is now looking for a new staff, made up of "dedicated and nonsensical" team players. His post, which claimed the site would live on, was viewable on passthepopcorn.org at the time of this writing. The site has since been taken down, but the post has been preserved here. Attempts to load passthepopcorn.org lead to a message informing members that the site has moved domains. In light of this, it is unclear whether Pham intends to rebuild his fallen tracker. Emails to the sys op have gone unanswered.

This is not the first time drama has plagued PTP. Accusations of perversion and pedophilia led site administrator Azazel to spear-head an Internet protest, demanding that the tracker take responsibility for the actions of the staffer who posted links to child pornography during a staff meeting. PTP removed the staff member from his position, while adamantly reminding the member base that no child porn was hosted anywhere on passthepopcorn and that they did not condone such vile activity.

The future of passthepopcorn is uncertain. Staff members at the new ptp.me domain are urging members to change both passwords and IRC keys, as well as reset passkeys. While passwords are hashed and unavailable even to the site owner, one can never be too safe. Currently, ptp.me has only $200 USD in it's account and needs at least $450 to pay server fees. Calls for donations have been responded to positively, although some members are not certain who to trust. It's an unstable time for the tracker and only time will reveal whether they can weather this storm.

You can read the original post by passthepopcorn staff at the following:
Part 1
Part 2

5/10/2010 © JustJenna

Well i suppose that another big name will bite the dust because of human greed. I mean how the hell, how greedy can you be :|,filling your pockets when people try to make a stable community.

well that's some sad news indeed...I am sure many of your love PTP..it's a gr8 tracker and I am always surprised to see these things happening with all the tracker we trust most.... :( indeed sad news....

A real sad news for PTP fans, yes including myself. I hope the tracker will pass the troubled waters like it did before.

Well there are always 2 sides to every story. I personally am not a member at PTP, but have heard its a great movie tracker, and definitely a loss for the torrenting community if it were to go down permanently.
If the crew that has taken over the site is legit, hopefully they will get enough donations to get through the next few months, which will be the make or break period for this tracker.
Although it's terribly sad to see such things happening in the torrenting world, we should all be thankful that sites like these do exist.

I'm not a member of PTP but I know it is ( or it has been ) a pretty good tracker with a good community... I think that it speaks for itself when, every once in a while, some T-I member ask for an invite to PTP... unfortunately, I think it's gonna change, not just because of tracker structural changes but also because people have lost their trust in the people who ran that place... and they are totally right ! it's pretty pathetic to steal the money from donations and use it for your own purposes like some corrupted politician... simply, it's lame... this and other similar actions, taken from the people who should be trustworthy and moral, bring down the whole torrent community... lucky, this things don't happen often but still...

Nooooooooo! How could this happen???? Why is he sooo greeeedy!!! Another great site fail... so sad.

Edit: Do you guys think it's wrong for the staff to take the site from underneath him? Even though he was pocketing the $$.

The point i cant understand is how can only one person control and see the donations.Do this same for other trackers ? I'm still confused about this drama and still couldnt understand what is going on of course there is some other things behind this that we wont be able to know.But something is obvious that they are losing trust.

Originally Posted by superbad09

Do you guys think it's wrong for the staff to take the site from underneath him? Even though he was pocketing the $$.

That's a difficult question. Am I glad the site is up and running? Absolutely. But I'm not sure if I think what they did is ethical. And as one of the people from whom Pham allegedly stole from, I am livid that my money was not being used for the purposes that I gave. So I am glad they managed to save a site I help to keep alive but at the same time Pham did build it. It's a complex, ethical question, that's for certain. One thing I do know is that the member base deserves to know the full truth before we can make any decisions about whom we support in this.