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Resurrecting a dead torrent tracker and finding 3M peers

(kianbradley.com)
655 points k-ian | 8 comments | 17 Jun 25 17:40 UTC | HN request time: 1.019s | source | bottom
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diggan ◴[17 Jun 25 18:17 UTC] No.44302108[source]▶
> Is this legal?

Why wouldn't it be? You're not actually hosting a tracker in this case, only looking at incoming connections. And even if you do run a tracker, hard to make the case that the tracker itself is illega. Hosting something like opentrackr is like hosting a search engine, how they respond to legal takedown requests is where the crux is at, and whatever infra sits around the tracker, so police and courts can see/assume the intent. But trackers are pretty stupid coordination server software, would be crazy if they became illegal.

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jekwoooooe ◴[17 Jun 25 18:19 UTC] No.44302128[source]▶
Is this legal isn’t a useful question. The better question is how likely are you to get sued? With civil lawsuits it doesn’t matter if it’s legal you can be sued and harassed by lawyers if you get on their radar.
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1. chaboud ◴[18 Jun 25 08:53 UTC] No.44308001[source]▶
This is definitely the right pragmatic take. A lawyer friend of mine once laid it out for me: "in litigation, if you go to court, even if you win, you lose". The reality is that court sucks, and getting sued sucks for all but the ultra-wealthy (who can absorb the cost). For those of us with less than $100MM, court is a universe to be avoided.
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2. FirmwareBurner ◴[18 Jun 25 10:28 UTC] No.44308537[source]▶
>A lawyer friend of mine once laid it out for me: "in litigation, if you go to court, even if you win, you lose"

In my country we have a phrase for this exact scenario: "the punishment is the process".

When the government or a powerful person wants to fuck with you, all they have to do is drag you endlessly through the court system, even knowing they'll loose. Because the experience will be 100x more painful for you to win than it is for them to loose.

It's what the UK government did to the postal workers in the Fujitsu scandal.

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3. koakuma-chan ◴[18 Jun 25 10:38 UTC] No.44308621[source]▶
Is there a limit how many concurrent lawsuits can be thrown at one person?
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4. tristor ◴[18 Jun 25 14:17 UTC] No.44310120{3}[source]▶
No, not technically, however in the US there are the SLAPP statutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
5. busterarm ◴[18 Jun 25 15:12 UTC] No.44310609[source]▶
Don't underestimate this.

My family members sued each other over a small inheritance. 5 kids fighting over a couple million dollars. Case has dragged out across almost 4 decades. Lawyer fees dwarfed the size of what was being fought over several times over. Some family spent time in jail for contempt of court... Family members then put up all their personal assets to keep fighting. Then they lost and were faced with a judgment that left them destitute well into their retirement years with no way to earn new money. Some family members are still appealing and fighting adjacent court battles (property seizure, etc). This process has consumed the last decades of their lives and everything they worked their whole lives for.

Not only would I say never end up in court, I'll extend you one further. Never get the government involved in your personal relationships.

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6. thmsths ◴[18 Jun 25 15:40 UTC] No.44310853[source]▶
Which is why, ideally your access to the court system should NOT be dependent on your wealth.
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7. gruez ◴[18 Jun 25 19:08 UTC] No.44312500[source]▶
Access to it isn't. You can theoretically sue in federal court with a few hundred dollars in filing fees. It's not cheap, but not exorbitantly expensive either. It's representation that's expensive.
8. andai ◴[20 Jun 25 15:16 UTC] No.44328532[source]▶
Well, that seems a bit silly!

>Never get the government involved in your personal relationships.

Amen! You can't tax friendship.