

The Pirate Bay is counting down - tpbtpb
http://178.175.135.122/

======
eps
... and it immediately opened a popup with some sleazy ad. Same old,
repackaged. So exciting.

~~~
zo1
I didn't see any ads.

~~~
siteshwar
I see an ad if I click on the page.

~~~
expose
Get with the times:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/%C2%B5block/cjpalh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/%C2%B5block/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm?hl=en)

~~~
aktau
I can heartily recommend µBlock as well, it's low on resource usage (much
lower than abp) and blocks nearly everything. I do tend to combine it with
ghostery/disconnect to be extra sure (not that ghostery is developed by an ads
firm, though they say their opt-out options is legit).

~~~
purzlbaum
Don't use abp. You should read this trough Google Translate maybe:
[http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-
einblicke-...](http://www.mobilegeeks.de/adblock-plus-undercover-einblicke-in-
ein-mafioeses-werbenetzwerk/)

~~~
nathanb
Is there any evidence that they're doing anything sleazy? This seems like a
crackpot conspiracy theory, not actual news.

~~~
purzlbaum
No it's really like that. Advertisers habe the possibility to get white
listed. But they have to pay for it.

~~~
zo1
And this feature can be disabled in the extension:

Tools->AddOns->AdblocPlus Options->Filter Preferences->Allow some non-
intrusive advertising

You can untick it, and right next to it are two links. One is to a link
describing the non-intrusive ads and the other is to the actual white-list:

[https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-
ads](https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads) [https://easylist-
downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.tx...](https://easylist-
downloads.adblockplus.org/exceptionrules.txt)

I didn't realize this was on for me. But to tell you the truth, I have _never_
seen any of these advertisements. So either they were so unnoticeable/rare or
they really were completely non-intrusive.

I personally have no problem with this. As long as they keep the ads non-
intrusive as it appears they have up until now, I will continue to allow it as
it has made my web browsing completely annoyance-free from ads.

------
mike-cardwell
Where is the proof that this random IP has anything to do with The Pirate Bay?

~~~
tomp
The IP is what "thepiratebay.se" resolves to. I assume the submitter used the
IP address in order to get around DNS-level censorship.

~~~
jonnyscholes
According to torrentfreak it hasn't propagated for everyone yet. It looks like
so the media are linking directly to the ip address.

------
sasas
Automatically downloaded a file called MPlayerX.dmg when clicking the link.

Beware ?

~~~
eloisant
That's an adware, don't install it.

------
binaryanomaly
What is actually
"JyO7wNzc8xht47QKWohfDVj6Sc2qH+X5tBCT+uetocIJcjQnp/2f1ViEBR+tyOCz"?

In the html source the file it is named aes.png

Is it an aes key for something? Does anybody know?

~~~
jarnix
It's the key to add in BitTorrent Sync. In this software, click settings,
"enter a key" and then you will have some torrents that people share, but to
my experience it was sh*t and not organized in folders etc. Maybe now it's
better.

~~~
eddyb
No, that has been refuted to death (on reddit, mostly) - the BitTorrent Sync
folder was created much later by random people making the same faulty
assumption.

~~~
binaryanomaly
Ok so if it was not intended to be that - what is it?

It's 64 chars and likely AES as this is the name of the picture?

[http://www.reddit.com/r/thepiratebay/comments/2q23mm/the_key...](http://www.reddit.com/r/thepiratebay/comments/2q23mm/the_key_is_an_aes_key/)

------
yummybear
I wonder what's been taking so long. The architecture was supposedly raid-
proof as I understood.

~~~
bad_user
Alternatives exist anyway, including this one -
[https://oldpiratebay.org/](https://oldpiratebay.org/)

~~~
eloisant
There are much better alternatives actually, all the torrent sites that
already existed before the Pirate Bay went down and don't try to surf on the
"Pirate Bay" brand to serve old, static content.

~~~
SiVal
Any that you recommend?

~~~
waldir
I normally use the torrentz.com meta search engine and go with the torrent
with the most seeds. It then shows me all the sites that have that torrent,
and I pick one whose name I recognize. Works like a charm.

~~~
blablablaat
Same, but you will miss some torrents. Both torrentz.eu and kat.ph are
complying with DMCA requests.

------
cultavix
They should try putting the BTC address in a format which you can copy and
paste.

~~~
sillysaurus3
I wish the myth that people donate to BTC addresses would hurry up and die.
There are few examples of projects that receive significant donations, as far
as I know. I'd love to be proven wrong about that, but when I looked at a
bunch of donation addresses 6-12 months ago, no website or project got more
than spare change from it.

There have been some high-profile donations made using BTC, but that's not the
same thing. Rich people will give large donations regardless of the format. It
wasn't because of BTC, but rather because they wanted to donate.

Some of the donation addresses received huge amounts of BTC. These obviously
weren't from donations. Probably from the account holder shuffling their own
money around.

I wouldn't be surprised if BTC donations were far less frequent than, say,
"likes" on YouTube videos. For the average video with half a million views,
~20,000 likes isn't uncommon. And people only do that because it's free. So
if, for any given "thing that half a million people look at," only about 200
of them actually donate, you can see how pitiful the returns are compared to
ads. But putting up ads to profit from copyright infringement is blatantly
illegal, whereas BTC donations aren't. Yet nobody will take BTC donations
seriously for the same reason no one considers panhandling a sustainable
living.

It probably sounds like I'm bashing Bitcoin, but I'm only trying to point out
a surprising phenomenon. BTC donations seemed to have a lot of potential, yet
fizzled. The reasons why are important to study.

~~~
morsch
Very few people have actual BTC to donate -- this is the big one. Some of
those may be holding BTC as an "investment" and may be unwilling to part with
it. Depending on how they hold their BTC, there may be significant friction
involved in spending it, ie. in almost all cases I expect it's more difficult
than entering PayPal or credit card details.

And as you note, it's not like people are super eager to donate using other
methods. (And while some might say that a site like TPB, which attracts
"freeloaders", is even less likely to get donations, I'm not convinced --
folks might consider TPB both a service worth paying for as well as a cause
worth supporting.)

Of course, the upsides remain. It costs you nothing to post a BTC address on a
site, especially if you're already handling BTC. There is no interaction with
payment providers and all that jazz. There are no immediate fees. Payments are
"anonymous" for both sides, with the usual and serious caveats involved in BTC
transactions[0].

[0] E.g. some dude being able to audit your total donation amount from the
public ledger. :) Did you write up anything from that research? It's an
interesting idea.

~~~
yownie
It's very frictionless to spend it, effectively it acts digitally analogous to
cash.

> in almost all cases I expect it's more difficult than entering PayPal or
> credit card details.

Best way to find out is to try! Generate and post an address here in the next
15-20 and I'd be happy to prove this wrong. (at least from the senders end)

~~~
frabcus
There's lots of friction on spending if it's in an offline wallet.

~~~
yownie
yes, so don't?

we're talking micro tipping level amounts here, 100 Euros or less stored on
any modern smartphone or laptop.

------
h1fra
My only hope is that they have recoded their not so powerfull search engine
and maybe a new design? meeh

------
arcticf0x
What is this supposed to mean?

~~~
bigbugbag
That the pirate bay will resurrect in on february 1st to keep the kopimi
spirit alive.

see: [http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-crew-responds-to-the-
raid...](http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-crew-responds-to-the-raid-copies-
and-the-future-141215/)

[http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-starts-counting-down-
to-f...](http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-starts-counting-down-to-
february-1-150101/)

------
PyroStunts
Is it counting DOWN or is it counting UP. The seconds appear to be going up

~~~
PuffinBlue
No they don't, they're going down.

~~~
jacquesm
Nice illustration of DNS propagation in progress.

------
ricardobeat
Got a MacKeeper adware popup when clicking the logo :/

~~~
bluedino
Forwarded to the App Store, to some Disney app when I opened the link on my
phone

