Torrent Paradise Indexing Service Goes Decentralized Through IPFS
- IPFS to close the circle of decentralization in the BitTorrent file-sharing ecosystem.
- Torrent Paradise launched an experimental version of their indexing service as a demonstration of the technology.
- The new method comes with its own sets of pros and cons, but the benefits that stem from using it are fundamental for torrent search engines.
Torrent Paradise is the first torrent indexing website that will take the IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) path to serve people with torrent results while rendering their website completely decentralized. Torrent indexers and search engine services are often called to face takedown problems that disrupt their operation and leads to implementing alternative hosting methods. Proxies are the de-facto way of circumvention, but they are still not immune to subsequent targeting and further beating. One solution to all this would be to have a completely decentralized torrent indexer that relies on a rotating number of users who keep the site online. This would resolve all server targeting and outage problems, as the swarm of people that support its online presence is both unstable and reliable.
The IPFS is an open source peer-to-peer file sharing protocol that binds the shared files with a computing network (users). IPFS follows a content-addressed block storage model with hyperlinks and is immune to DDoS attacks or other forms of targeting. IPFS has already seen limited use in situations where aggressive blocking was the problem, but this is the first time that it will go live on a torrent search engine. Torrent Paradise is following the advice given by Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde three years ago, who suggested that the file-sharing needs to innovate to protect itself and IPFS is a solid way towards that direction.
Advice is not the only thing that Torrent Paradise took from Pirate Bay, as the former used a copy of the latter’s database to kick-start their indexing services. Right now, they are adding about 20000 new torrents each day, but the IPFS version is updated less frequently as this is still an experimental implementation. This raises one of a set of drawbacks that come with IPFS, as people will have to use the IPFS protocol, install it on their systems, configure it, and then access and also contribute to the pinning of the torrent indexing website. There’s a more direct way to access IPFS sites through ISP-provided gateways, but this doesn’t offer pinning/supporting to the target website. Maybe with a rise in the popularity of this file-sharing protocol, we’ll see more automated tools simplifying the process for non-tech-savvy BitTorrent users.
The fact that this is the way to go from now on remains the main point here, as IPFS has the power to complement the completely decentralized file-sharing that goes on through BitTorrent, rendering the vital part of the ecosystem that is torrent search engines immune to shutdowns. Their operators can stay anonymous, and the bandwidth required is minimal. As the operator of Torrent Paradise told TorrentFreak: “Because each update of Torrent Paradise is an IPFS hash, it is impossible for anyone, including me, to take down the site. As long as there’s someone pinning it (the IPFS equivalent of seeding), the site will be available.”
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