Find private torrent sites accepting users with Trackerchecker

Private torrent trackers are great. If you’re after hard-to-find files that don’t make it to major sites like Piratebay or Mininova, you’ve likely tried to locate them on a private site only to learn that they’re not accepting signups. I still remember what a pain in the butt it was to keep checking in on Demonoid years ago to see when a few more spots would open up.

Trackerchecker does its best to keep you informed about which sites are accepting new user registrations and which ones aren’t. Over 500 trackers are currently supported, and they cover an incredibly wide range of specialties. As you can tell from the screenshot, they’re not all SFW, but then again, you probably shouldn’t be downloading from a private tracker at work anyway.

The code is easy to understand: green means you’re good to go, red means you’re out of luck for now. Sites that don’t respond to Trackerchecker’s queries in a timely manner are given a blue mark. If your desired site is taking signups, click its name to be taken directly to the registration page.

The listings also tell you when the last check was run on each site. Registering at Trackerchecker lets you build a list of favorites, making it easier to monitor only the sites you’re actually interested in joining.

It’s a great tool to add to your P2P bookmarks.

EFF launches tool to monitor ISPs for bad behavior

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is protecting your rights online again, this time with a tool called Switzerland. Switzerland lets you check your ISPs compliance with net neutrality, making sure they’re not trying to shut down specific kinds of traffic, like BitTorrent and VOIP. Naturally, Switzerland is Open Source.

It’s also a command-line tool, and still in alpha, so it’s not necessarily for everyone. If you’re comfortable with this kind of app, and you’re concerned about your ISP’s behavior, definitely give it a go. How exactly does it know whether your ISP is fiddling around with your bandwidth? The EFF says, “It will spot IP packets which are forged or modified between clients, inform you, and give you copies of the modified packets.” It recognizes packets injected or modified by some of the most popular tools ISPs have been using to mess with p2p traffic, including SandVine and AudibleMagic.