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from the how-much-can-you-trust-anyone-online? dept.
Several people have been warning users to avoid The Pirate Bay, due to CloudFlare integration and potential FBI IP bugs. There are even suggestions that the FBI has been involved in the site's somewhat mysterious rebirth.
Nobody knows who really runs The Pirate Bay, but the old moderation team were all removed as part of the relaunch. The Pirate Bay now allows people to 'report' malicious torrents instead of having a moderation team.
Some claim the FBI re-launched The Pirate Bay or had connections to the owners, implanting IP bugs on all torrent’s uploaded for investigation. The Pirate Bay has denied these accusations, claiming CloudFlare is only a temporary measure to help with the influx of traffic on the torrenting site.
CloudFlare is a cloud server provider, but is based in the US. Many privacy advocates claim CloudFlare is not a safe tool, due to the potential warrant-less searches from the FBI and other US agencies. On the topic of working with the FBI, The Pirate Bay has not responded, but TorrentFreak claims the accusations are "complete nonsense" but said that "general security concerns of using a US-based service are legitimate".
What does SoylentNews think? Is it wise to stay away?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday February 12 2015, @04:28PM
FWIW, I've been checking the .cr version and the .se (new) version and all the torrents I've tried resolved to the same files. for the files I have been looking for (not apps! just playable media) they have been fine and not bogus at all.
planting ip bugs in movies and music? I kind of doubt it. its been a long time since you could embed executable code in playable movie/music files (right?).
use a VPN to download and stop living in fear.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."