Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard) was notorious for incense he had lit and woven into his enormous beard. The soot from the ashes gave the very dark color but that was not his intent. Edward fully believed that the mystique of smoke added an intimidating factor to his image. The opacity the smoke provided gave an almost…ethereal quality to the image he wanted to project. His ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, had a different take on ethereality. The objective: concealment. Either by stalking a target until a time of day that fog or heavy mist was present, or waiting for high choppy waves, and even going as far as to purposely ignite pyres to produce smoke. The keel line of a ship was at an advantage if it’s true location could not be discerned. For a canon ball to strike just below or at your waterline was of great advantage to the enemy. Too deep underwater and the water would greatly reduce the energy and effect of ammunition. Too high and the penetration would not allow water into the vessel. Pirates have often and long sought after and cherrished highly, the act of concealment. Be it from treasure, to weakness.
There are torrent sites, ports if you will, your ship (computer) can dock, in which all efforts of obscurity have been negated. And thus leaving you and your guns, fully exposed. It is one thing to pirate and plunder, and completely another to pirate…..for profit. When you throw the nasty “profit” element in there, it escalates the issue in every possible sense. The purpose of this article is to help you identify the ports-of-call that may possibly compramise your vessel. The key word used here is “Donation”. This is a required element of sites. No single person is going to operate a torrent site so your candy ass can float in and ride free like god and everybody else owes you a favor. Sites in which you place HEAVY use on should have a few of your coin. It doesn’t take much to help a site go a long way. These site sysops are orchestrators of a community but they are not magicians. They cannot pay the hosting and server fee that a site incurs with ANY thing they pull from their hat. This is where you come in. Out of a dozen sites, there will be that certain one or two that you use alot. They can be either torrent sites like TiT or pirate community sites like TPS. Any amount of coin at all makes a round of ale for all and keeps the oars in the water a bit longer for these sites.
Now lets talk about the bad ones. When a site is boasting membership in six digit figures, thats like pulling your 40 gun galleon into the British Imperial Harbor. You can get the parrot blown off your shoulder with a quickness if something goes wrong. So memberships this large should cause your sharp eye for the next warning sign…the donation plea. Hey, its a site too, it needs money like any other. And you are going to donate because your heart tells you, and the 500 gigs of ratio credit don’t hurt either. Wait, is that “officially” selling warez? Lets pull our patch over both eyes and pretend we didn’t see that. When the site adds toaster ovens and Xboxes as possible prizes in monthly drawings for donations you better have your helmsman spin her hard astern. Any site that can provide monthly prizes that cost hundreds of dollars has surplus coin. A site sysop with a little surplus coin would put it away in case a weak month approached. To have surplus you can hold lotteries is an indication of wealth. Unless you’re the captain of the Good Ship Lollipop, spin her around and back into the fog.
One site I am a member of, in such a way that I am privy to such information, has 110,000 ACTIVE (read that again) active members with 20% of them in monthly contribution at all time. Donation to the site is $20. Is your ear as lame as your peg leg? I said $420,000 a month. Heh, surely there is not sites out there knocking back near half a mil per month, get real. Yeah, you better wake the F up pal. Large numbers can cause small quantities to become large quantities very fast. These sites can attract the wrong attention, and usually allow ANYone in them…anyone
Here at TPS is a dense fog. Those bogus sites are not represented here, I’ve checked the list. When in Rome…… If you do what ranking TPS members do, and pretty much limit your ports to the ports they call home, you’ll always have an invisible keel. And they’ll keep you out of Davy Jones Locker…
-Alysen Ravakk