Demonoid |
 Demonoid logo and screenshot of homepage. |
| URL | www.demonoid.me[dead link] |
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| Commercial? | No |
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| Type of site | Torrent index, magnet links provider |
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| Registration | Optional |
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| Available language(s) | English |
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| Created by | Deimos (retired) |
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| Launched | April 21, 2003; 9 years ago (2003-04-21) |
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| Revenue | Advertisements (banners), donations |
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| Current status | Offline |
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| Part of a series on |
| File sharing |
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| Development and societal aspects |
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| Non-public file sharing |
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| File sharing networks and services |
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Demonoid was a BitTorrent tracker and website which included file-sharing-related discussion forums and a searchable index for the tracker. Demonoid.com was ranked the 538th most popular website overall in December 2010, according to Alexa.[1] Demonoid's torrent tracker had an estimated three million peers in September 2007.[2]
Location
Demonoid frequently changed its location in the past. Its last ISP was located in Ukraine until Demonoid's service ended on August 7, 2012. Four months later, the demonoid.me domain began pointing to servers in Hong Kong.[3][4] However, the servers offered no web service, and except for a brief period of tracker activity in November 2012, no evidence has surfaced to support the assumption that Demonoid even partially exists there, or that the domain and servers are under the control of Demonoid's administrators.
Features and policies
Demonoid featured RSS with different feeds for each of its torrent categories and their sub-categories. It tracked and displayed users' upload/download ratios, but, except in its early years, took no action against users with low ratios (members who take more than they share).[5] Demonoid previously banned users with low ratios, but stopped doing so due to the ratio system being inaccurate for some users, such as those with dynamic IP addresses.[6]
Demonoid prohibited linking to torrents containing pornographic material and malicious software.
In addition to forums on the Demonoid web site, an IRC channel, #demonoid at P2P-Network, supported discussion among users.
History
Legal issues
In a 2007 study, Slyck.com found twelve cease and desist letters to users of Demonoid.[7]
On September 25, 2007, the Demonoid website, forums and trackers went offline.[8][9] They came back four days later with the exception of the website, which came back the day after. Over the next few days, the website continued experiencing intermittent downtime[10] until October 2, 2007. The explanation as widely speculated[11] was that they had received a letter from a lawyer for the Canadian Recording Industry Association threatening legal action.[10] Demonoid began blocking Canadian traffic,[12] a strategy similar to that taken by isoHunt and TorrentSpy in blocking American traffic to avoid RIAA complaints.[10][13] Visitors from Canadian-based IPs would be redirected to the downtime version of the website, which contained an explanation of the legal threats. However, it was still possible for Canadians to visit the website at that time using proxy servers. Additionally, while the website may have been blocked in Canada at the time, the tracker was still readily accepting Canadian IP addresses.
The threats are in spite of the open question of the legality of music file sharing in Canada.[12][14] The CRIA has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement despite Demonoid's claims.[15]
On November 9, 2007, the site again went offline, reportedly due to legal threats to their service provider from the Canadian Recording Industry Association. A placeholder page stated, "The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding." According to the IRC channel, the trackers themselves were not affected.[12] Six days later, the placeholder page was updated with a link to a new forum, unrelated to file sharing, for the community. On November 29, 2007, Deimos posted on that forum a problem preventing the site from coming back up:
"Money is an issue, but the real problem at the moment is finding a suitable place to host the website. There has been no luck there. And there's some personal stuff I need to take care of that takes most of my time at the moment, and that does not help."
The site then came back online on April 11, 2008. The homepage announced that the site had a new administrator, and that the old one (Deimos) had left for personal reasons.
Administration adjustment
On April 10, 2008, Deimos stepped down as the administrator of Demonoid, citing a number of reasons and "distraction with real-world issues"[16] as the cause. He also stated that he has "handed the reins over to a new administrator" – "a close friend of [his]", whom they trust completely and has the knowledge and time to take care of the site. Over the course of the next few days, RSS feeds for the site came back online and by April 16, 2008 a mass email was sent out to all Demonoid users informing that the site was "finally back online."
The official explanation stated:
A few months ago, the site administrator (known as Deimos), lacked the time necessary to maintain this website. For personal reasons, Deimos decided to resign his position as a member of the site staff. Before leaving, Deimos picked a new site administrator from among his friends. The old moderator team remained unchanged and will continue helping with the site. The Demonoid team will try to keep everything running just as it always has been. The trackers and website seem to be working properly, and should any issues arise, they will be taken care of as soon as possible. If we work on any problems over the next few days, the site might be going on and offline. We apologize in advance if this should happen. Welcome back and enjoy!
—Umlauf, Demonoid site admin
Website downtime
Demonoid experienced a prolonged downtime in late 2009 due to hardware failure. On September 14, 2009, Demonoid's torrent tracker went down after it was reported that they had experienced a number of hardware problems stemming from power outages.[17] The tracker returned to service on November 5,[18] and the main site returned on December 13. A message was posted on the homepage stating that "We might have to shut down everything to fix and prevent further damage," and that it could be "days maybe, until we can change the power circuit."[19] During the downtime that followed, several new messages appeared, mostly providing updates on the repair status and promising that the site would return soon. On November 4, 2009, the tracker, which communicates with a BitTorrent client, began responding to some torrents, and returned to full operation on November 17. The main site, however, did not become operational until December 13, 2009.
On April 26, 2010, Demonoid.com, started experiencing downtime or extreme slowness. A message was posted on the site that it was due to a denial-of-service attack, which has subsided as of July 2010.[20] The site temporarily banned Taiwanese and Chinese IP ranges.[21]
On July 24, 2012, Demonoid.me suffered another denial-of-service attack, bringing the site down for an indeterminate amount of time.[22] The following week, its hosting provider, ColoCall, terminated its contract with Demonoid. An anonymous ColoCall source reported that the Ukrainian police had raided the hosting provider and seized Demonoid's data.[23] However, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Ukraine, the termination occurred without police intervention.[24] No explanation has been given for the prolonged downtime, nor has there been any word about the site's possible return.
On November 12, 2012, demonoid.me began resolving to an IP address based in Hong Kong, where a tracker was operating.[25] The tracker did not accept new torrents, but honored existing ones. However, the website and forums remained offline. The tracker went offline on December 15, 2012, first actively refusing all connections, and then becoming unreachable when demonoid.me's DNS servers went down.[26]
Domain name changes
On December 2, 2010, Demonoid changed its domain from .com to a .me address, to avoid US government seizure.[27]
In July 2011, demonoid.me became the most popular .me web site.[28]
On April 27, 2012, Demonoid changed its domain to a .ph TLD, and started an open beta of the new site on Demonoid.me.[29]
On June 15, 2012, Demonoid reverted to its previous .me domain, but returned to the .ph domain a week later.[citation needed]
References
