Bit-HDTV: News

[SpaceJam]

I'm writing this announcement to serve as an advance notice regarding some significant changes that will be implemented in the next few months.

This is a summary for those who want just the quick info.

A. Changes that will be implanted during the next few months.

1. Updating and changing the requirements for each user class.
2. Applying the inactivity/disable rule to all user classes. (this will affect a lot of Veteran class users)
3. Reducing the inactivity time of certain user classes.
4. Required torrent activity behaviour / Hit & Run type of activity will be more clearly written and described in the rules.

B. Changes currently in discussion which may be implemented in the next few months.

1. Adding / Removing user classes.
2. Adding a Hit and Run (H&R) system and fix / improve the torrent seeding stats monitoring and reporting.


Explanations:

A.1. The requirements for the user classes where fine in 2007, 18-years have passed and in the current Internet data and storage environment, the 2007-era based requirements are a joke.  We need to update the user class requirements to reward more active users with a proper title to reflect their active involvement and dedication to the site.

A.2. There are regularly occurring data breaches on other Internet site which result in stolen credentials.  Unfortunately many users have used the same email address and password on those breached sites for their access to the tracker.  We have a lot of accounts that are inactive but are not disabled due to the user class of the account.  These older accounts tend to not have used good account security practices, these older accounts have been used to sell/trade invites, invite bad actors to the site, etc.  These Bad Actors such as copyright trolls / invite sellers / users with bad intentions have used these older accounts to try to do harm or extract private information from the site.
   
    A couple of example that already happened are:
        - invite seller bought / obtained leaked credentials of inactive account and used the account to sell invitations.
        - Used stolen/leaked credentials to gain to the site and upload torrents that contained malware to the site with the intention that users will get p0wned.
        - random user bought / obtained leaked credentials for an old account and used the account as if they were the original account owner and breaking multiple other site rules.
        - an invite seller obtained leaked credentials and sent Private Messages to all users of the site advertising the selling of invites to other trackers.
       
    Keep in mind we don't know what type of information was harvested by those bad actors, generally these people are after torrent client type and looking for ways to access the private swarm.
   
A.3 Some classes have a period of time that is too long for inactivity, we plan to reduce the period of time which will trigger account disabling due to inactivity.
A.4 See section B.2 below.

Current inactivity period for each user class, all periods below are doubled when an account is parked.

    User - 3 months
    Power User - 6 months
    Elite User - 9 months
    Insane User - 9 months
    Veteran User - inactivity not applicable.

New inactivity periods for each user class, all periods below are doubled when an account is parked.

    User - 2 months
    Power User - 3 months
    Elite User  - 4 months
    Insane User - 6 months
    Veteran User - 9 months
    VIP - 11 months
    Dedicated BHD User - 12 months
    Staff (all levels including Administrator) - 12 months
   
These inactivity periods are long enough for moderate activity and parking the account will double the amount of time that will elapse before an account is automatically disabled by the system.

B.1 We are in discussion to introduce new user classes that also reflect the seeders activity and general activity of users on the site.

B.2 We noticed an increasing number of users that use this tracker more like a public tracker and not in spirit of a private tracker.
We don't have it written down as a hard rule but it's on staff discretion to notify and warn users that repeatedly exhibit this type of behaviour.

There are an increasing number of uses that stop seeding a torrent almost immediately after snatching the torent is completed.  Some users performing this type of activity repeatedly have been notified and warned.

Staff do review torrent snatch activity and decide based on a users' history how a user is torrenting.

Given the wide range of clients, many that send erroneous data and also some errors in site and tracker, we sometimes make mistakes and mark users are bad since stats aren't there.
That's partially why we decided to implement a torrent client allow list, as certain clients intentionally mis-report torrent data, harm our tracker, send erroneous information due to poor client coding and place the user and site at risk.

We intent to fix all the bugs and collect and display a lot more information of seeding activity and when this information is accurate will do a hit and run system along with the introduction of H&R rules and an update to other site rules.

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