Ugly bittorrent ratio needs a facelift

October 1, 2008 5:03 PM

Is there any software of Mac OS X that will protect my bittorrent seed/leech ratio? I'm looking for something like GreedyTorrent, but for mac. Obviously, freeware is preferred but I'm willing to hear any suggestions.

Please don't use this post to encourage me to seed more. I seed as much as I can on one of my computers but my mac just won't do it.

Also, can anyone suggest any reasons that my mac is extremely finicky about seeding any torrents I get from what.cd? I'm using Transmission, if it matters.

Thanks!

posted by alitorbati to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

The up to down ratio is actually sent in the header, it's possible to fake upload by changing info in the actual address bar of the browser. Or, at least it used to be. Depends entirely on the tracker. Some now use a handshake generated by the client ID of your torrent software, but those keys are known for every client. They're not unique to the computer, they're unique to the version of the client. It checks that the client is connecting from the same IP as the one logged into the site...sometimes.

Now, the ratio that's keyed to your account is NOT keyed to your computer, it's set by a session ID from the last computer to LOG INTO the site. Meaning:
If you have have a non-mac, or Parallels or something for your mac, you can use any other computer anywhere to juke your ratio. In fact, on many torrent sites like demonoid you can actually make your ratio never move by logging in on your main computer and setting a cookie, then logging in on a different computer and downloading to the first.

Now, with that said, I'm not going to tell you how to hack your ratio, but I will tell you that greedytorrent is indeed shit, and there are other, better softwares out there to do the same thing, but you really should learn what's happening before you try to use them.

On top of that, depending on your client (I wouldn't touch a Mac if you gave it to me, so I don't know anything about transmission), it's very very very easy to simply turn off the updates to the tracker by changing the tracker address after you're connected to the swarm. Really this is what I recommend because it's much much harder to get caught and because, while it's still stealing (stealing? Torrents? no!), you're not actually faking upload. I know it's easily done in Azureus (now whatever it is) and uTorrent. Can't speak for anything else.

Hope that's some degree of helpful, probably not. It's strange to me that your mac would not want to seed...sounds like a port issue or a throttling issue in the client setup to me.
posted by TomMelee at 6:04 PM on October 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

Oh, and yea---I'm the same TomMelee that wrote the original BitTorrent Bible 1.0 and 1.1, way back in about 05. You've probably never heard of it, and it's semi-largely outdated now, but it still lives on my site. Between there and Demonoid and LokiTorrent and others...it's been download about 10 million times. Wish I had a dime for each one. ;-) Shameless self plug, although relevent. Not posting the link, but I'm sure you can find it...too bad I haven't updated the site in like 2 years, lol.
posted by TomMelee at 6:06 PM on October 1, 2008

I don't think 'protect' is the right word for what you're trying to do.
posted by box at 6:51 PM on October 1, 2008 [4 favorites]

This just sounds odd. Are you sure that all your settings are correct, and that you don't have any sort of cap in Transmission? Did you accidentally hit the Speed Limit button or something? It just doesn't make sense to me that your Mac "just won't do it." My Mac running Transmission seeds just fine, I have a +7.57 ratio on Demonoid. Also, make sure that Transmission has an exception in your firewall (assuming you're running to firewall, cause you should.) I have it running on port 9090. Try that first before 3rd party software.
posted by InsanePenguin at 6:58 PM on October 1, 2008

*Just checking

In transmission, does the port show an open status?
posted by meta87 at 8:10 PM on October 1, 2008

Using GreedyTorrent is a lot like asking to get caught, since it's super easy to detect. What you're looking for, I presume, is something like Azureus Shu Mod, which will likely suit your purpose well. Whether or not it'll work on a Mac is not something I can attest to, so some Googling may benefit you.

Please note that I don't condone ratio cheating, but hey, he asked.
posted by Wasabunchi at 9:09 PM on October 1, 2008

First, it's amusing to me when people get all riled up about truth in ratio with a BT site.

Second, you can add a ratio multiplier to any open source tracker, we used to do it with azu and utorrent, it takes about 20 seconds.

In my opinion using a non-custom modded client (meaning you downloaded it instead of made it) is MORE likely to get you busted because the footprint is the same for each and every one, and because the smarter trackers can intelligently look at how long you've been connected and what you're downloading and say "hmm 35 megs down and 120 megs up in 4 minutes?". Also, almost any modded client for download is packed full of nasty shit you wouldn't want to install on your computer.
posted by TomMelee at 5:11 AM on October 2, 2008