FileShareFreak Doesn’t Help Cheaters
FileShareFreak’s Sharky recently reported on a new way to ratio cheat. Several comments on the story questioned Sharky’s decision to essentially “advertise” a new way of cheating. Sharky clearly states in the article that his intentions were to make trackers aware of the system, but several people accuse him of helping others to cheat. Did he make the right choice, to publicly announce a new form of cheating? In this author’s opinion, yes.
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FileShareFreak Doesn’t Help Cheaters
FileShareFreak’s Sharky recently reported on a new way to ratio cheat. Several comments on the story questioned Sharky’s decision to essentially “advertise” a new way of cheating. Sharky clearly states in the article that his intentions were to make trackers aware of the system, but several people accuse Sharky of helping others to cheat. Did he make the right choice, to publicly announce a new form of cheating? In this author’s opinion, yes.
Cheaters are not welcome at our trackers. They do not give back to the community from which their data was wrought. But why give these cheaters another tool with which to work their wicked ways? Simply, Sharky sought a way to inform as many trackers as possible in the shortest amount of time. He decided to make a public service announcement “[t]o bring awareness to private tracker sysops & staff that such a tool is publicly available, and to take appropriate action”
Some of the comments to the article deride Sharky for publishing the information. Ways exist, they say, to inform but a handful of tracker administrators and the remainder shall soon know. Other commentators point out that information is a vital commodity and should not be hoarded. One purported sys op worries that expanded knowledge of this cheating tool will lead to the greater usage and improvement of it. Another states that the bastard program is "VERY detectable. ... One announce from this piece of (crap) site and your account is auto disabled."
Still, you have to imagine that at least some tracker staff read FileShareFreak. It stands to reason that at least some tracker staff had not heard of this program. Now they do. Sure some cheaters now have a new “weapon” in their arsenal. But now there’s an even greater chance of the cheaters getting caught.
In all of the comments, there is one shining beacon of stupidity. “I've just tried this on what.cd and got banned. It doesn’t work.” That’s one more cheater off the books at what. One more selfish child, gone. One less leecher. All in all, isn’t that a good thing?
Last edited by AfterMidnight; 01-07-2010 at 08:56 PM.
I would have to agree, as the old adage goes, security by obscurity is not security at all. If one person found out how to do it, then its quite possible that other people found out how to do it as well. Granted in the short term there may be more people trying to ratio cheat, but I suspect that in the long term, once this method is globally fixed that we will end up with a net of less ratio cheaters.
In any case interesting article AM, thanx for posting it.
Originally Posted by AfterMidnight
I agree people should seriously read things more thoroughly.
It's a vicious cycle isn't it? Ratio cheaters try coming up with new methods to cheat and eventually are caught and then try something else. Don't they get a feeling the whole process is just too much of work? Isn't it simpler to just seed?
BTW the comments on the blog are hilarious. I also discovered that piracy is not theft. What an eye opener! :
I agree with sharky. If there is a hole it should be published and let everyone know on its presence. couple of years back, some online stupid columist express their concern on Firefox by saying "Firefox is a open-source software and its security loop-hole can be obtain easily from net. Thus its not good". See over the time Firefox become one of the widely used browser among tech. people. I stand on information availability and Awareness is vital.
+1 Totally agreed with you
And if we will be aware of that type of ratio cheating then we can prevent it from happening Prevention is better than cure ?? Right ?
So what Sharky did was to warn all the private trackers and all other users that there is this method going on behind people's backs so the trackers block this method not that to promote it for the public to use it .. lol
Damn, not another ratio cheat. I still don't get hot the author said he wanted to let trackers know about the program that allows users to ratio cheat. Im 50% sure this is gonna encourage users to ratio cheat? :'(
Great article AfterMidnight, love reading your work, by the way when is part 3 of the T-I story coming out, it's been a while.
Well i'll be honest, when i first read the article on FSF i thought that it was a stupid idea to post it publicly, but after reading what you wrote and considering it i see that it was a good choice.
First, quickly announcing it and allowing tracker admins and/or sysops to counterattack this problem.
It also made half the torrenters read and know about it and makes us get rid of the half of em that will stupidly use this program and get banned.
Lastly putting the effect of this program into quick destruction as trackers know of it, people fear using it and the ones that use it get banned.
LOL i love this post, it hilarious and sorta true at the same time, thanks for posting Eschaton.BTW the comments on the blog are hilarious. I also discovered that piracy is not theft. What an eye opener! :
Last edited by Majid; 01-08-2010 at 02:19 AM.
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