this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 193 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Response from the admins

From where I'm sitting it looks like classic overconfidence. I would say keep your eyes open in the future but don't pick up the pitchforks just yet.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 64 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks. This community needed your logical input. I've been following this over the past few days and it seems like a blatent Reddit-type pitchfork situation. Based on the mods response and the absolute lack of proof surrounding the mods profiting from the crypto miner (honestly who the actual fuck even came up with this?), I think we need to all take a beat.

Also I don't follow cracked games but this Emperess person seems like a fucking psychopath and the fact that literally anyone here believes a word she says is absolutely astonishing.

I am asking this community to PLEASE STOP REPOSTING THIS. Don't let this community follow the ways of Reddit, please. We are better than that.

[–] Sanrasxz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I agree, this entire thing looks very blown out of proportion to me. It's not the first time and not the last time there will be malware in a brand new game torrent on 1337x.

This exact situation has happened before with a new game torrent that had malware, torrent eventually got taken down, and nobody raised a huge fuss other than not to download that torrent.

[–] FeelzGoodMan420@eviltoast.org 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I feel like this community and the reddit one are made up of 14 year olds who figured out how to torrent 2 weeks ago and are freaking out over the prospect that downloading exe files isn't safe....who would have thought!

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[–] Navarian@lemm.ee 188 points 1 year ago (4 children)

You know it's bad when the almost constantly unhinged 'Empress' is the one speaking sense.

[–] Sharkwellington@lemmy.one 93 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] Emerald@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

Image Transcription:

Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point

February 5, 2018

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[–] SilentStorms@lemmy.ca 30 points 1 year ago

Something something broken clock

[–] totallynotfbi@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, except EMPRESS was just complaining that her own torrents got deleted, not that others were unsafe

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[–] DonnieDarkmode@lemm.ee 157 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’ll translate: “I find actions of the 1337x admins disappointing. Deleting my torrents causes confusion for the user base, and these actions reflect poorly on your character, suggesting pusillanimity and insufficient discretion when selecting a sexual partner.”

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[–] p1mrx@lemmy.world 105 points 1 year ago (14 children)

I haven't had the courage to run executable code from P2P networks since the early 2000s. Even then it was probably a bad idea.

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[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 77 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I don’t know why, but I think calling people “pathetic cowardly whores” in this specific situation is hilarious.

What, exactly, does one have to do when moderating a torrent site to earn the title of “whore”?

[–] Repossess6855@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

If I were to wager a guess, empress is not a first language English speaker, and to her , it’s just a preferred general severe insult.

[–] 00@kbin.social 36 points 1 year ago

combined with her being completely unhinged lol

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[–] Digester@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Fuck Empress, however she's right on this specific matter.

[–] PoliticalAgitator@lemm.ee 42 points 1 year ago

I guess if you lash out at absolutely everybody, eventually one of them will do something to deserve it.

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[–] Meganium97@lemmy.blahaj.zone 51 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Empress, though an interesting individual herself, is at least correct this time.

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[–] arc@lemm.ee 51 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I wouldn't trust anything from a P2P site that purports to be:

  1. A cracked game / application for desktop and mobile platforms. Maybe it's legit but assume it is malware.
  2. A serial number generator. If you absolutely must run one of these do it from a throwaway VM, or via WINE emulation to mitigate what it might do.
  3. An encrypted archive with a README. It's a scam designed to make people sign up to other scams to release a non-existent password.
  4. A movie / audio with an extension such as .scr, .wma, .com, .exe etc. It's malware.

Movies, audio & books are generally safe providing they use a recognized extension - mp3, mp4, pdf, mkv, aac, flac, epub etc. Stuff that runs under emulation like console games is generally safe. I say "generally" because an exploit could still be crafted to escape a popular media player or emulator and cause actual harm to your computer.

All the ads and 3rd party scripts should be considered malicious too and should be erased with an adblocker, or even better use Tor.

So basically use some common sense and if you really want some game or app, just buy the damned thing or wait for it to go on sale.

[–] kuberoot@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

WINE is not safe to run malware in, it's not a secure sandbox. AFAIK, anything expecting it can do anything a Linux binary can. (Also, not an emulator, it's in the original name - WINE Is Not an Emulator)

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[–] Morgikan@lemm.ee 47 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What evidence has been found that links the crypto-mining wallets with the 1337X admins?

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[–] CheshireSnake@iusearchlinux.fyi 46 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I see Empress is still subtle and classy as always.

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[–] moosetwin@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I hate empress but even I have to agree sometimes.

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[–] zahel@cosmere.xyz 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

For those asking “private trackers what’s that?”

/r/trackers (on the bad site I know) has a lot of info

For those who may be interested in getting into private trackers, you should start with Myanonamouse.net in my opinion. They do an interview on the irc which is easy and you can join that way https://www.myanonamouse.net/inviteapp.php

It is a tracker for ebooks/audiobooks/comics that is easy to maintain a ratio on (via their generous bonus point system) as long as you are a decent seeder.

Once you’re on the site for a few months you can access the invite forum which can get you access to other private trackers. Think of it like a ladder.

Torrentleech (a general private tracker) occasionally has open signups throughout the year.

[–] Yendor@reddthat.com 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I’m on multiple private trackers, and they all hosted the infected version (they’ve been taken down now). Private doesn’t make it safe, especially when people are using automated tools to be the first to upload a torrent.

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[–] PrivateNoob@sopuli.xyz 43 points 1 year ago (15 children)

Cool, then what will be the 1337x alternative?

[–] CrypticFawn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I learned about https://torrentgalaxy.to/ recently. I'm not positive it's a good alternative though.

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[–] dingus@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (17 children)

private trackers are the only truly safe option left

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[–] dataprolet@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's one torrent that's not safe. That doesn't make the entirety of the website unsafe!

[–] aranym@lemmy.name 64 points 1 year ago

If the admins endorse malware, it's best to assume the entire site is compromised.

[–] Odusei@lemmy.world 40 points 1 year ago (10 children)

If the admin are in cahoots with the crypto mining douchebag, then no part of the site is safe.

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[–] Hyperreality@kbin.social 32 points 1 year ago (8 children)

At the risk of asking an incredibly stupid question, but if I only download video/audio, scan everything I download, and only ever use a recently updated version of vlc, what's the risk?

I remember getting viruses in ye olden days, but afaik it's all malware now.

[–] TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 42 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Risk is practically nothing in your case, because you're being careful, and know what you're doing. You won't run a binary when you were expecting the Barbie movie, for example.

If you were downloading binaries, then your risk is significant, but even then, unless you're downloading new releases immediately, it's likely that your antivirus will catch the new popular ransomware after a few days, when a few thousands of people have become infected. Governments won't employ valuable zero-days on any rando who just wants to see their new isekai episode.

[–] Serinus@lemmy.ml 24 points 1 year ago

If you're using Windows, just make sure file extensions are visible and that your file isn't named Movie.mp4.exe

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[–] rebelappliance@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 year ago

It's a screenshot of a tweet so you know it's true

[–] CummandoX@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know this is probably obvious to many people, but if a charitable soul could explain to me what a miner is and why the admins are involved in it, it would be very much appreciated. Also, explain like I am 5 if possible

[–] vahtos@programming.dev 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A cryptocurrency miner. It uses your computer to generate currency, which costs you resources (electricity, compute power, etc.).

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[–] dexahtm@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Does this mean we should remove it from the megathread?

[–] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 28 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Meh this is one instance that just keeps getting reposted every couple days. Pirating executable files has always been a risk and brought with it issues like this. There is little risk with music, tv, and movies.

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[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Public trackers have never been safe. Why not find a better tracker for your games or just buy it. Assume anything you have to install is infected

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