User Black List feature

[dekgozinia]

Fake files are posted more and more often.
The same user will post 30 new popular titles that somehow have a high Leech and Seed count.
Not sure how they do this, but would be great to have an opt-in feature to prevent black-listed user from showing up.

The feature should have some smarts to black list only users that have more than # complaints.
Furthermore, this same idea can be applied to that specific file not just the user.

I'm sure admins are managing this manually and having this feature will help everyone across the board.

[dolly_cat]

Or, if you see such a user, you can simply report it to "Report Torrents/Comments". He will eventally recieve ban and the torrents will be deleted.

[314r]

I suggest that you put a limit of one or two uploaded torrents per one or two hours or more. Or a limit of one torrents/day if you are not trusted. If it's possible.

[dolly_cat]

I suggest that you put a limit of one or two uploaded torrents per one or two hours or more. Or a limit of one torrents/day if you are not trusted. If it's possible.

It is not a very good method as it will prevent many good torrents from being uploaded and good will users from receiving skulls more earlier.
The best way is to report spammers in these forums.

[hypno-potamous]

I just rarely ever download anything from a user without a skull of some color. I usually browse TV shows and see what you are talking about, but rarely do what these goofballs ever upload lasts very long. If they upload lots of popular content all at once, and have no skull, its probably a fake.

Does not mean I never download from a user with no skull, it depends on what the content is and its rarity and then I am very careful with it, just to be sure.

But, this is just me, what do I know?

[LZA]

Why would someone do this??? For fake kudos that will eventually be discovered and the malefactor banned???

[hypno-potamous]

Why would someone do this??? For fake kudos that will eventually be discovered and the malefactor banned???

1.  Because they are sick pooches.
2.  Because they believe they are causing problems for others
3.  They are unable to share anything others want so they pretend
4.  They have valid IDs for just a little while and can
5    ...

[Your_Insider2]

I suggest that any new account be allowed only somewhere between 5-10 new post in one day.  While they could circumvent this it would take them more time to set up new accounts. All new accounts should be this way until they have proven to be reliable. 

It has gotten to the point that I don't even look at the recent files anymore, as it seems most are fakes.

[Spud17]

Fake files are posted more and more often.

That simply isn't true, and unless you have some behind-the-scenes stats, or more importantly, TPB Crew experience to back such a claim up, it'd be wise to refrain from posting simplistic comments. The truth is, there have always been people posting fakes on tpb (and elsewhere), and there are no more today than there were a few months (or even years) ago.

would be great to have an opt-in feature to prevent black-listed user from showing up

We don't blacklist malicious uploaders, we ban them. Once a person has been banned, you won't see them or their torrents.

The feature should have some smarts to black list only users that have more than # complaints.

We don't have a Complaints Department. What we do have however, as dolly cat has mentioned, is a forum specifically for the purpose of reporting fakes/spammers - it's called the Report Torrents/Comments forum.

having this feature will help everyone across the board.

No it wouldn't, and for me to explain exactly why would mean I'd have to divulge some of the finer points of our operations, so take it from me, your feature would not only not 'help everyone across the board,' it's unworkable in the first place.

I suggest that any new account be allowed only somewhere between 5-10 new post in one day

We don't see why we should set limitations upon legitimate uploaders just because of a few bad apples.

While they could circumvent this it would take them more time to set up new accounts. All new accounts should be this way until they have proven to be reliable.

It doesn't take long for a dedicated trojan uploader to register multiple accounts, and takes no longer than if they only registered one account.

The issue here I think is one of personal responsibility.

Downloaders need to exercise some common sense and sound judgement before downloading something. They should know what they are downloading and should make the effort to search whether the movie/game they're about to download has even been released. They should have some basic knowledge of different file types (see the links in our FAQ) so they know what to expect, and if they don't - then they should learn.

Just this morning I was talking to a guy on IRC who was complaining (rather than simply reporting) about a user who had uploaded around 3 pages of fake PC Games, and had tried to download one of them. The uploader had managed to upload 80-odd torrents within the space of a minute so common sense should have told this guy that the uploader was obviously a faker. Common sense should have told him that torrents shouldn't have 4000+ seeders after being uploaded 5 minutes previous. Common sense, basic knowledge of what he's downloading, and patience, should have told this guy that the game he tried to download isn't due for release until late 2016. Common sense should have prevented this guy from downloading, but it didn't, and instead of taking some self-responsibilty for his own actions, he blamed TPB and the crew.

We can only do so much at our end. Our staff and crew volunteer their time for free and deal with queries/reports as and when they can. TPB has never had 24/7 mod coverage (so there will always be fakes on tpb at some point) and we rely heavily on the army of ordinary users who use TPB every day who report the fakers to us, here on the forum, or on our IRC chan (#thepiratebay.org), and work with us, to keep TPB as clean as possible. It's a never-ending battle between us and the bad guys: they upload fakes/malware, we ban them, another faker comes along and uploads fakes, and so on. That will no doubt continue, so it's essential to know what you're downloading, and for a site with millions of users, I think crew do a pretty good job of nuking the shite that gets uploaded every day.

[tmg]

Fake files are posted more and more often.

That simply isn't true, and unless you have some behind-the-scenes stats, or more importantly, TPB Crew experience to back such a claim up, it'd be wise to refrain from posting simplistic comments. The truth is, there have always been people posting fakes on tpb (and elsewhere), and there are no more today than there were a few months (or even years) ago.

...

It doesn't take long for a dedicated trojan uploader to register multiple accounts, and takes no longer than if they only registered one account.

The issue here I think is one of personal responsibility.

Downloaders need to exercise some common sense and sound judgement before downloading something. They should know what they are downloading and should make the effort to search whether the movie/game they're about to download has even been released. They should have some basic knowledge of different file types (see the links in our FAQ) so they know what to expect, and if they don't - then they should learn.

Whilst I have no idea about the numbers of fakes posted over time, I think that what dekgozinia may be noticing that there are more fakes with very high seeder/leecher numbers these days. I suppose there is some script kiddie toolkit floating about that is making it easy to fake high downloader counts.

They are quite easy to spot if you know what you are looking for, as pointed out, there might be 30+ new torrents within a few minutes, same username, different titles but the same size. At the time of posting, the entire first page of movies sorted by seeders offers 30 different movies, each with a file size of exactly 710.03MiB. The other telltale is that the torrent description generally ends in 50 or 60 blank lines, I guess this is to push the first comment 'below the fold'.

The reason, I believe, for this is that the fakes (movies/tv) that I have downloaded by accident (by not paying enough attention, my fault) contain '.wmv' files that exploit an old trick manipulating windows media player into visiting a potentially malicious url.

http://security.stackexchange.com/questi...dia-player

Whilst I agree with Spud17 - the issue is definitely the responsibility of the downloader, I think it's a shame that I can no longer say to my less tech savvy friends and family - "oh, just search for it on piratebay, sort by the numbers, and pick the top one", as using the site now needs an awareness beyond what I'd expect of a novice, and the downside of downloading a malicious torrent and then trying to open it in media player could be quite severe. 

If the distribution of content becomes effectively limited to those with enough IT awareness to know what is dangerous or not, it seems to me like a step backwards toward the days when the only people who benefited from sharing were those that knew enough to find and navigate hidden directories on undersecured ftp sites.

As for a solution, I admit that I don't have much to offer, my first thought would be that in the case of differently titled uploads with identical content, perhaps it might be possible to somehow 'bulk flag' an entire batch of suspect torrents rather than reporting them individually.

I want to reiterate that I am not criticising TPB - just lamenting the fact that these toxic uploads are taking advantage of those with least knowledge, and arguably making the site less useful for those that need it most.

I would also like to point out that my opinions relate to movie/tv content, I have less sympathy for those downloading and running an unknown executable than for folk that just want to watch the latest Game of Thrones episode.