[Pirate Bay, gdgt, Techcrunch]

On The Pirate Bay’s blog, the decision is pitched as a step forward, away from centralised trackers to newer, decentralised systems like DHT and PEX:

Now that the decentralised system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It’s the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date. We have put a server in a museum already, and now the tracking can be put there as well.

Which is all well and good, but DHT support isn’t in all torrent clients yet, and many cheaper routers choke on the added connection load. It remains to be seen how smoothly the transition will go — the main site is still up and searches still work, so you can go judge for yourself — but there’s little doubt that The Pirate Bay, as precariously positioned as they are as a company (read: owned by a bunch of incredible sketchballs), was under external pressure to get rid of that giant, 25 million+ torrent liability of theirs.

And because we’re all People On The Internet here: Godspeed, I guess. [TorrentFreak via Lifehacker]

While the Mini NAS truly is small, it’s got plenty of features in that 0.45kg package. It supports both SMB (Server Message Block) and open-source Samba network protocols, provides FTP access for up to eight simultaneous users, and can be used as a Bittorrent downloading appliance or as an iTunes media server. Not bad for $US70. [Addonics]

The other major bit they’re missing — where to get torrents where the policies are a little, um, flexible — we’ve got you covered. If you’ve got more tips, shower the comments with ‘em. [Maximum PC]

[Lifehacker]

“uTP measures the time a packet takes to get sent from peer A to peer B, so in theory uTP will detect congestion anywhere on that path, although in practice the congestion most often happens somewhere on the first-mile uplink connection.”

So won’t that affect seeding — the very concept torrenting is based on? What if you’re throttling yourself while everyone else is downloading like mad with a non-uTP client? TorrentFreak says that beta testers haven’t reported any significant issues, and suggests that a more efficient use of the network may actually boost download speeds. uTorrent has a massive user base, and if all those users switched over, maybe that could happen.

If you’re with an ISP who slows you down when you use too much bandwidth, or any provider that slows down when it’s congested, uTP could actually be a very positive thing.

These days, µTorrent is developed by BitTorrent itself, and they’ve been looking to extend an olive branch in the whole net neutrality debate for a while now:

This will have a huge impact on ISP networks according to Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management. “If uTP is successful it should result in a multi-billion dollar windfall in terms of savings for ISPs,” Morris told TorrentFreak

Cool…but I can’t really see this making ISPs who shape torrent traffic suddenly go changing their mind. But I’m all for something being tried, and I’d love to hear your impressions of the beta if you’ve been using it for a while. Detailed background at: [TorrentFreak]

It kind of sucks that even a monitoring app got banned. But, according to Apple:

…this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights. We have chosen to not publish this type of application to the App Store.

So no torrent apps, at all, period. Right then.

Instructions on how to install µMonitor on a Jailbroken iPhone can be found here: [µMonitor via TorrentFreak]

Bram Cohen, known as the dude who allowed you to download cams of shit movies you don’t want to pay for, has created Bram’s Cube. It’s basically like a Rubik’s Cube, but it has gears inside that add another layer of difficulty. So much difficulty that I wouldn’t even want to attempt this thing. It just looks too frustrating for words. But hey, if you’re a glutton for punishment and feel the need to be taken down a peg or two, go for it. [Shapeways via Today's Big Thing]

With two major torrent sites all but snuffed out in the last few weeks, there are only a few decent alternatives left. Although if you’re of a hardier type, there’s always Usenet. [Torrentfreak]

*Spoiler: It’s B.