Monday, November 5, 2007

Waffles.fm vs. What.cd vs. Libble vs. Stmusic Vs. Funkytorrents

So we're almost 2 weeks into the Post OiNK Internet.

Let's check in with our favorite trackers and take a look at stats, Shall we?

Waffles.fm
Registered users 2,262
Torrents 13,566

STMusic.org
Registered users 42,455
Torrents 23,971

FunkyTorrents.com
Registered users 12,500
Torrents 10,016

What.cd
Registered users 8,584
Torrents 14,739

Libble.com
Registered users 5,473
Torrents 9,976

So as you can see Waffles.fm has the highest torrent to user ratio which bodes well for a community. You need some really dedicated users to bring in the casual users that don't upload torrents but are happy to seed the stuff the download.

Libble had the smallest gain from last week. Here are the numbers from the last time we checked in:

What.cd 5,458 users 9,997 torrents

Libble.com 5,566 users 9,028 torrents

stmusic.org 33,686 users 19,834 torrents

Funkytorrents.com 12,500 users 9,669 torrents

What's crazy is all the hype around Waffles where as STMusic still has it's torrent count beat by almost double. But if Waffles gained 13k torrents in less than a week with only a fraction of the users STMusic has this could bode well for them.

Stay tuned....

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Wired Article on Waffles.fm Causes Mod To Leave

Since cooperating with Wired on an article on Waffles.fm the mod "dead1" has since left waffles.fm

his post on the waffles.fm forum:

Well, sorry everyone. But I will be leaving Waffles. Apparently, my effort's of trying to clear up any misinformation in the first Wired article, has made the staff here at Waffles upset. I guess we should have not cared if one of the largest technology magazines in the country had an article on the web that contained wrong info, and that could have been easily corrected, which it was by my interview with them. If said interview had not taken place, they would have no doubt continued posting more misinformation to there readers, and to the web. I apologise to any that think I am an elitist, or "power hungry". I will agree, that a few of my past actions were unnecessary, including a private message to a non-staff member of what.cd, of which I merely attempted to defend Beau, when his private information was posted publicly, but the work I have put into Waffles surpasses that, ten fold. I thank the remaining staff for allowing me to try and bring waffles to a new level, unfortunately my efforts went unrecognized.


Once again, I thank all of you whom I invited, and whom I have just recently met, you are all wonderful individuals. Please continue helping Waffles.fm grow, and show your support by merely remaining a community member. Take care everyone.


-dead1


and the wired article


Oink Wannabe -- Waffles.fm -- Scrambling to Fill Membership Orders; Feeding Frenzy Underway
By David Kravets EmailNovember 02, 2007 | 4:39:31 PMCategories: BitTorrent

Wafflelogoturntablelogo4

The site moderator of waffles.fm, the invite-only replacement to OiNK, on Friday tells THREAT LEVEL that the illicit music-sharing site already has some 1,700 exclusive members in less than 24 hours of sporadic operation.

Thousands of invitees are waiting in the wings, as registration is tentatively closed because of server capacity, says site moderator Dead1, who in an exclusive interview with THREAT LEVEL spoke on condition that his real name not be published. "We've closed invites due to the extreme amount of traffic," Dead1 says.

Many of those invited were former members of OiNK, he says, and thousands of torrents are being uploaded and seeded.

"We were getting upwards of 100 torrents a minute uploaded," Dead1 says.

The site, running on servers in Amsterdam's Ripe Network Data Center, was the subject of a denial of service attack following its initial launch Thursday, says Dead1. The DoS attack was at 90MB/s per second, he says.

"That's pretty big. Whoever did it was pretty pissed off, to put it politely," Dead1 says. "They said they were upset they weren't sent an invite."

The response to waffles from the BitTorrent community has been overwhelming, he says. When the site went live Thursday, it crashed after its servers were clogged by a barrage of 300 registration requests a minute. "It's unbelievable," Dead1 says.

The music-sharing-only site, launched nearly two weeks after British authorities raided and shuttered its predecessor OiNK, is a non-profit operation run by a network of 10 people in their twenties or younger, Dead1 says. "It's purely a hobby," he says. "It's for fun."

"Most of the staff is in Europe. A couple are in America. A few are in Canada," he adds. "They're scattered everywhere."

Dead1 says waffles will attempt to follow in OiNK's footsteps and is not affiliated with any other torrent-tracking site.

"When the link went down, everybody was pretty pissed," he says.

The site is looking to upgrade its servers again, Dead1 says. For now, the site runs off two server boxes, each with 3 gigahertz, dual core Pentium processors, and 4 GBs of RAM, he says.

"We're not doing this for the pirated material. You can get that anywhere," Dead1 says. "We're doing it to increase the popularity of artists everywhere no matter who they are."

Saturday, November 3, 2007

Waffles is starting to seem pathetic - by Anonymous

This was submitted as a comment. I thought it made some very valid points so I decided to post it.

Waffles is starting to seem pathetic.... First this article:

http://enjoys.it/2007/11/01/what-against-waffles/

now one on facebook that among other things is summarized in this part of it:

I may not be Sherlock Holmes, but I keep my ear to the ground and I like to think that I'm not entirely oblivious to what I hear...and right now, I dunno about anyone else, but my instincts are screaming bloody murder. This all seems a little expensive for some bratty 17 year old porn site admin in Ireland, not to mention requiring a little more depth of character to set up.
Even if it is all kosher, something in here isn't quite adding up:
#1. This kid's obviously intelligent enough to set up Waffles - it does exist, after all...nobody's denying that.
#2. And yet, he's dumb enough that all of his private information - full (real) name, address, phone number, high school, etc - are easily found through an online search.
#3. But even if he really is that dumb, he should at least be wealthy enough to pay someone who does know how to do these things to do it for him - switching servers like that costs money, and as pointed out above, it's certainly not money he's afraid to spend.
#4. How on earth does a bratty 17 year old porn site admin have that much cash, and where on earth is he getting it from?
#5. It states on the Wikichan that one of the major reasons for his porno site shutting down was his parents finding out about it. What happens when they find out about this? After all, if he's not intelligent enough to hide his info from me, he's certainly not intelligent enough to hide it from his parents. And while porno may be unarguably legal, however morally objectionable it is, the legal status of filesharing is anything but clear right now, and I doubt his conservative Roman Catholic parents would want their son taking part in such a thing, let alone orchestrating it.
#6. Why all the location changes? Why not just base the bloody thing in Sweden to begin with and avoid all the hassle?

I dunno. I'm almost certain that something's not right here...keep your eyes peeled, and if you're not a member already, I certainly wouldn't recommend becoming one.

and then this added on:

http://85.17.19.102/

http://ripe.net/whois?form_type=simple&full_query_string=&searchtext=85.17.19.102&do_search=Search

Its in NL.

Only after being based in (in order) Canada, the Netherlands, and the United States. Why all the moving...especially through countries with notoriously draconian copyright laws?

Thursday, November 1, 2007

OiNK.cd updated! OiNK looking for work, uses one of our images

OiNK.cd has been updated with the following message:


Since this whole thing has cost me my employment, I'm currently job-seeking.
If you think my PHP/MySQL/memcached/general optimisation expertise or programming skills can help your business, drop me an email: alan.ellis.jobhunting@googlemail.com.
I didn't work for Virgin Media as has been wrongly reported in the media (along with all the other inaccuracies). I worked for a large, multi-national chemical company.


We wish you luck little buddy.

Edit: Why are people freaking out over the "little buddy" comment? It's what the Skipper called Gilligan. It's a term of endearment.

If you check the top of the page you'll notice that he used one of the images we posted during the "OiNK Memorial logo Competition". Don't get us wrong. We're not complaining. We're happy to have provided something OiNK approves of. The image was made by a loyal OiNK user for the competition. Sadly we can not remember that user's name to give proper credit. If you're out there and want a link to your site please drop us a line via AIM to oinkmemorial.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Waffles.fm Being DDoS'ed to it knees?


From the Oink Memorial Forum

We've been trying to log in via SSH all night but the server doesn't respond. Since domain has been redirected to a temporary static page, there should be no announces or similar that could cause this slowdown. All that's left is DDoS really.

The guy who's responsible for the hosting is not at home but he gave us all details needed...at least that's what we thought. We can't reboot the server so we'll have to wait for him to return.

We are sorry, we never expected this. Maybe we were a bit naive but we'll have a new server tomorrow which we will protect better.

Thank you for being patient.


What? The guy that hosts your server is a sleep? That's not very leet, guys..I mean no ill will but the image I have in my head is hilarious. I see some mustached Dane falling asleep in his chair while eating sausages and Vienna fingers while his Miami Vice Motorolla cell phone with a 10 character display is going off on his night stand. All the while he snores away while the TV belts out some obnoxious foreign comedy show. He needs to wake up to a breakfast of 1337 cereal.

Waffles.fm wheezing :( What.cd closed for invites

Image from Macfly on the oink memorial forums




I've been asked literally 100 times what the deal is with waffles.fm and what.cd invites/server status. Here are some answers:

From the oink memorial forum:

We intend to invite all of you - All oink members and potential contributers. Waffles.fm will not have a usercap, ultimately... or, not a reasonably reachable one at least.

Our server is wheezing and panting already from the flood of uploads we received in the past 12 hours. We have hit 1,500 members, the invite system is working.

We have yet to even send out invites for those that prooved they were oink members with screenshots
Our initial invites have been confirmed power users and seedboxers.


So let's make this clear. Waffles has not yet sent out invites to those that emailed. I think your best bet is to wait it out. At least a week if not a month. If you're smart and intrepid you will get in. We will do our best to help you. You'll just have to wait until these sites get set up properly. OiNK took 3 years to get where it was. These guys have had a week and they still have to move the servers over to Sweden. FRANKIE SAYS, "RELAX...".

Now over to What.cd.

It's down at the moment. When we checked in at 2pm EST the message was that invites are closed.

EDIT: What.cd is up but invites are still closed.

Music trivia for Invites: A Success!


If you one of the lucky few to get in to the chat room you missed a rousing game of Music Trivia for waffles.fm invites.

An invite was given away with the promise that who ever won would come back and give away an invite to the winner of the music trivia question they chose. Here are some of the questions asked:

ok.. for a waffles.fm invite.. what is the second line in the song "i was born a unicorn" by the unicorns?

What is Matthew Pryor's (ex-Get Up Kids) band that plays children's music called?

Please give me the name of the punk rock band that only plays cover songs of songs from the last couple of decades?

From what two other bands do the members of The Postal Service hail?


This would have continued on and on except the waffles.fm server stopped responding and thus no invites could be created.

We'd like to reschedule this for another time. Any Waffles.fm admins wanna hook us up with a few invites to give out for next time?

Invite Swamp Meet Today at 4pm EST



Today at 4pm EST will be an OiNKer to OiNKer invite swamp meet.

To connect join the oinkmemorial chatroom on AIM. We're there now but we won't be very active until 4pm.

Edit: The room is currently full. Try oinkmemorial1 and oinkmemorial2

Here's a link for those that have AIM installed : aim:gochat?roomname=oinkmemorial

Every user will have their own criteria on who to give invites.

Bring your what.cd/stmusic/libble/funkytorrent/waffles/ihop/whatever invites wrapped neatly in a bow.

In the spirit of OiNK we suggest asking questions like "what artist did you happen to come find on OiNk that you hadn't heard before that blew your feeble mind".

Hope to see you all there.

EDIT: I personally have no more invites to give out. So please don't ask. :)

What.cd ups user limit to 8000 users -150k invites sent out so far!

From the what.cd front page (post login):


Show/Hide ∼ Updates - New database server, and PLEASE DOWNLOAD ∼ posted on Oct-31-07 by What

We got our new database server in, and it's working great! There was a bit of downtime earlier, as we moved the database and tracker over, but now everything is working normally again.

Due to this change, we've been able to raise the maximum number of users to 8,000 (after this point, people who have received invites will still be able to use them, but no more can be sent). However, we did a total of the number of invites earlier, and found that we had 150,742 invitations. As a result of this, one of our admins reset the number of invites - now each user only has five. We will eventually implement an invitation-handout policy, but it isn't that urgent right now as we still have over 25,000 unused invites in the database.

Also, we have another problem: Too many users are uploading, and not enough are downloading. Uploading torrents is great, and is what is going to make this place stand out - however, for the torrent economy to work, we need users to download things as well! The vast majority of users has built up a very nice buffer, so it's time to use that buffer and download things. The tracker will go to hell if you don't. So head over to the browse page and the requests section, and download things!


This sounds pretty awesome so far. We like the idea of too many torrent to download. So far what.cd is lookin' goooood. Still can't get into waffles. Any of you folks have a report to send in?

Waffles.fm - We're in!

EDIT: AS OF 2PM EST - FREE LEECH ON WAFFLES.FM!

So let's start with stats:

As of 1:15 pm EST:
Users: 906
Torrent: 2,575

They have an uploading system that will allow users to upload their old OiNK torrents.

Top 10 Most Active Torrents:
1 Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 in D Minor - Opus 125 - Von Karajan and Berlin Philharmonic [1977/MP3/V0(VBR)]
2 Taking Back Sunday - Notes From The Past [2007/MP3/218(VBR)] (Scene)
3 Air - Pocket Symphony [2007/FLAC/Lossless]
4 In Flames - Whoracle [1997/FLAC/Lossless]
5 Kanye West - Graduation [2007/MP3/192(VBR)]
6 Angels & Airwaves - I-Empire [2007/MP3/APS] (Scene)
7 Coil - Loves Secret Domain [1991/MP3/V0(VBR)[LOG]]
8 In Flames - Come Clarity [2006/MP3/230(VBR)] (Scene)
9 Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace [2007/FLAC/Lossless[LOG]]
10 Anguilla Project - From The Sea [2007/MP3/320] (Scene)

So far there's lots of stuff but no one is downloading. I guess we need more leechers.

Categories: just music, no apps, ebooks, music apps, mac apps, learning videos....

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Trent Reznor is a former OiNKer!

from: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/10/trent_reznor_and_saul_williams.html


What do you think about OiNK being shut down?
Trent: I'll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world's greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted. If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn't the equivalent of that in the retail space right now. iTunes kind of feels like Sam Goody to me. I don't feel cool when I go there. I'm tired of seeing John Mayer's face pop up. I feel like I'm being hustled when I visit there, and I don't think their product is that great. DRM, low bit rate, etc. Amazon has potential, but none of them get around the issue of pre-release leaks. And that's what's such a difficult puzzle at the moment. If your favorite band in the world has a leaked record out, do you listen to it or do you not listen to it? People on those boards, they're grateful for the person that uploaded it — they're the hero. They're not stealing it because they're going to make money off of it; they're stealing it because they love the band. I'm not saying that I think OiNK is morally correct, but I do know that it existed because it filled a void of what people want.
'

The rest of the article is pretty interesting. I've already signed up to listen to the record they're promoting Trent Reznor and Saul Williams: "The Inevitable Rise and Fall of Niggy Tardust".


AH YEAH.... The spammers sent this one in. Will you guys stop posting? Pretty please? You've got enough links from this site. And thanks for the link.

Poll: Based on hype alone: Who do you think will replace OiNK?

Vote to your right there, Jerky.

Name Registered Users Torrents

What.cd 5,458 users 9,997 torrents

Waffles.fm unknown (200 was reported)

Libble.com 5,566 users 9,028 torrents

stmusic.org 33,686 users 19,834 torrents

Funkytorrents.com 12,500 users 9,669 torrents

other (leave comment)


As you can see Funky has the highest torrent to user ratio. But stmusic has highest amount of users and torrents. It will be interesting. We should take a look at these stats by the end of the week and see what's changed.

Interview with what.cd and waffles.fm admins

From: http://torrentfreak.com/what-waffles-hydra-071030/


What Waffles? The Hydra Lives On
Written by Ben Jones on October 30, 2007

With the demise of oink, many music aficionados were left with little in the way of similar sites. However, true to the hydra phenomenon, a week later and several new sites have sprung up to replace it. We asked the admins of two of these sites for their future plans.

What Waffles? The Hydra Lives OnBoth what.cd and waffles.fm are set to continue from where oink left off, with the same rules and requirements. Each of them aiming to provide music lovers with a place to both share and discuss music.

What.cd (currently offline at time of publication) was founded the day of the OiNK takedown. “I felt sick to my stomach all morning” was how ‘What’, co-founder of what.cd described the day OiNK got raided. “We plan to grow into a large tracker - probably not as large as oink, and not as open, but eventually, I would like to support at least a hundred thousand users,” he adds

Waffles.fm on the other hand, doesn’t open for another few hours (12:01AM PST on October 31st). “In principle we’re filling a gap in the market - a lot of people just don’t get on with open / lenient trackers. In restoring that we’re also bringing back the community OiNK had, which is a big part of it,” is how waffles co-founder ‘Barney’ put his site to TorrentFreak. He is also not being as openly ambitious at first as “What” either “We’re looking at inviting perhaps 200 or less people on the opening day. We’ll gradually invite more people as things progress.”

Neither of the admins showed much enthusiasm for BOiNK, the project that is in development by the guys behind The Pirate Bay. Their main concerns were in the overall quality, and longevity of torrents on a public tracker. Somewhat ironically, however, both sites are aiming on moving to take up permanent hosting at the PRQ datacenter, as soon as upgrades there are complete. “The electricians started their work of installing another 3×200A feed yesterday” a PRQ source told TorrentFreak today.

And the reaction of the old OiNK staffers? Paine, currently the public voice of the old OiNK team, had no real comment on them, beyond hoping they both do well, and reiterating that neither is an ‘official’ replacement for OiNK.


So waffles.fm will have only 200 users at first? What?!?! Jeez, all this huffing an puffing for nuttin...

On another note: The what.cd folks I spoke to really want the word to get out.

At least a few folks in the irc chat room wanted this story to be dugg:

http://www.digg.com/tech_news/what_cd_Possible_successor_to_Oink

Paine asks for server space for OiNK.cd

from Paines site: http://tehpaine.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Got a spare server?

OiNK.cd, the number 1 site in the world for waffle recipies, is looking for a new home to host a simple website.

You'll need to be able to provide name servers, hosting and bandwidth, as well as remote administration capabilities for these.

What's in it for you? A warm fuzzy feeling.

If you're able to help, make a comment and leave an email address. Start your post with [DNP] if you don't want the comment published.


Heh. I don't know what to say. Nothing exiting really. I'd guess that a torrent new site would end up there, or maybe a chance to by more OiNK merch. Any thoughts my fellow OiNKers?

More Waffles.fm Screenshots: Is real?

More waffles.fm hype!

LOLZZZZZLLLAA!!>!1111!!!!

tHANKS aNONYMOUS! KISSEZ XOXOXoxoXOXOX


What.cd Screenshot / Allows you to upload old OiNK torrents



We just got into what.cd (oddly located at the domain name http://incegmbh.com/).

And we're greeted with this message:



Well one of the newest and most commonly unknown features of this tracker is that you can simply upload a .torrent file from OiNK and this tracker will automatically change the announce URL.

Feel free to test it out, but be sure not to upload any dupes


That is what we call AWESOME.

Stats:

Maximum users 5200
Registered users 5,429
Pending users 0
Torrents 9,394
Peers 18394
Seeders 17481
Leechers 913
Seeder/leecher ratio 19.15

Soo.. I like the design. It's pretty. Over all it seems like they did a good job.

However, the search feature isn't the greatest. Try searching for something and quotes and you won't get what you expect.

Waffles.fm screenshot! we're giddy!

Found here: http://waffles.fm/Picture%202.png


I have no idea why I am so excited over this whole waffles.fm thing.

It's pretty silly when you think about it. But they've obviously got a great marketing dept. over there ;)

The whole "premiere" thing they're doing tonight at midnight PST gets my maple syrup loving tongue drippin' wet.

How do you guys feel about the design?

I was hoping for something a little spiffier. And before You flame me, yes. I do think design is important. Steve Jobs would agree. I hear he's all over waffles.fm too.

Minor OiNK related news

You've probably already seen this @ http://torrentfreak.com/oink-releasing-talent-enhances-other-trackers-071029/


OiNK Releasing Talent Enhances Other Trackers


Great BitTorrent releasers are a comparatively rare breed and until recently, a huge collection of them were safely locked inside a fenced Pink Palace. Now, thanks to the IFPI, trackers around the world and greater numbers of people than ever before are starting to benefit from an influx of talented OiNK refugees.

FlyingPig

OiNK was considered by many to be the finest BitTorrent music tracker the world has ever seen. Tracking only the finest recordings from virtually every musical genre, beautifully labeled and cataloged releases were its trademark, created by people who thrived under some of the harshest releasing rules the torrent community had ever seen. Nothing less than the highest quality was good enough for OiNK.

Then the IFPI huffed and puffed and blew down the little pigs home and they had ‘won’.

Not quite. Did the entire OiNK indexed music library disappear? Did the releasers all see the error of their ways and stop releasing there and then? Did all the ex-members give up sharing? No, of course not.

OiNK didn’t carry any content, its users did. Taking out the OiNK site didn’t remove a single song from any of OiNK’s users libraries and they are taking their collections with them as they migrate to other sites, ready to share another day.

TorrentFreak has been listening to some interesting comments from some specialist music trackers (such as those on this list) who are not only getting record numbers of signups in the last few days but are also delighted to welcome talented OiNK releasers who seem really keen to share.

One admin told us: “Since the shutdown of OiNK we’re getting a spike in new memberships, at least 6 times more. Normally some of these can be bad members who do not share or are making trouble in the forum but I am happy to say that many come from OiNK and they are behaving like gentlemen (and ladies!)”

He continued: “We have an uploader application form on our tracker and we ask a few questions to the guy, then we make a decision if he is reliable etc before we give him releasing rights. On a regular day that list has many applications from novices with no experience (which can be trouble!). Now we get many OiNK members asking to release in this one week. They have amazing collections and make a 100% perfect release each time. It’s a great boost for our community.”

TorrentFreak spoke with the admins of three genre-dedicated music trackers who all confirmed that they picked up lots of ex-OiNK members and offers to release this week. This could be the tip of a very, very large iceberg - OiNK covered just about every genre imaginable and all of those sharers were made homeless after the raid - many of them for up to 10 minutes - but immediately settled in elsewhere, ready to share again.

The Pink Palace may be closed, but the beats go on and on as some of the best sharers in the world spread their wings to trackers far and wide. Maybe pigs can fly after all.

Waffles.fm entry process seems like a pain in the ass

From http://waffles.fm/faq.php:

Q: How do I get invited to Waffles?
A: There are currently NO invites to give out to waffles.fm. They will not even exist until October 31st. Then, users will recieve invites based on uploading.



When the time comes that invites are given out, those members that signed up on the mailing lists will be notified. After that, those that have already provided VALID proof that they were members at OiNK prior to the incident will also receive an email.

PLEASE NOTE:
A significant number of invites will be given to each member upon opening. Chances are invites will find you.

Q: But I didn't join the mailing list!
A: That's okay. You can still get an invite to waffles.fm. You can send reasonable proof of your OiNK membership to waffles@beau.ws

Q: What constitutes reasonable proof?
Here are some things that will be accepted as proof:
1. A screen shot of your Oink Profile, Header, Snatch List etc. 2. Screen shots and/or forwards of any emails received from Oink, including but not limited to: your invite email, a receipt of your paypal donation (please remove transaction IDs and/or bank account numbers), or oink torrents left on your machine with full urls


If you're like me you deleted all of your OiNK torrents because you no longer had a use for them. Who keeps screen shots of your OiNK ratio? Isn't it easy to photoshop the stuff they're looking for?

I was a member at OiNK for a few years. I did not save my invitation email as I never thought I would need it again.

I understand where they are coming from but this is kind of dumb.

I think your best bet is to lurk in the irc channel (#waffles.fm #waffles.fm-chat on irc.p2p-network.net) and wait until someone offers an invite.


Q: How do we know you're not the cops?
A: Well, honestly - you don't. If you don't feel comfortable joining, the best advice I can give you is - don't join.

Q: What about users' security?
A: Every form of security will be md5 encrypted.

Q: Where are the servers going to be located?
A: For the first month they will be in the Netherlands. After that we will be moving them to Sweden.

What.cd

So let's see.... What should we start off with today?

The what.cd thing is looking interesting.

I broke character and contacted one of the admins to see if they'd like a link from the blog. They said "Sho' nuff". I missed the chance to use an invite and check it out myself. A commenter posted that there were 7k torrents already.

Not much to speak of considering OiNK's huge list, but a nice start. Remember kids: It will take a while for any of these new sites to gain the momentum they need to become a one stop for all things music.

I suggest becoming a member to as many as you can to see for yourself.

Monday, October 29, 2007

waffles.fm

I'm pretty excited... are you?

In all honesty this could turn out to be another 5k member IHOP.

They claim the code is based on OiNK. So if the design is there and the features are just as good I'll totally make it my home.

From http://waffles.fm/

Waffles.fm is a new torrent tracker, based off of OiNK's Pink Palace. The tracker will be 100% private, unlike newer alternatives. Registration will be invite-only from day one.

Why? An open tracker or one without ratio requirements has less selection, less quality (e.g. flac), and less community. There are torrents on The Pirate Bay that have been snatches upwards of ten thousand times, with only a couple of people seeding

This was never the case with OiNK, may it rest in peace, and it will not be the case with waffles.fm. It's going to be a bit slow at first, but we're aiming to be the community that OiNK's Pink Palace was, with the same selection of high quality music.

Important notes on the opening:

We're opening on Wednesday, October 31st (Halloween) at midnight GMT. You will need an invite to get in. All members will receive a surplus of invites during the beginning of the website.

You are highly encouraged and will be rewarded for inviting as many ex-oinker's as you know of as well as uploading your entire oink torrents collection. There will be special competitions during the beginning to make this process even more rewarding - although the greatest is available to everyone: having the best damn music tracker on the net back!

Talk to us at #waffles.fm-chat on irc.p2p-network.net - News in #waffles.fm


After reading the intro I'm pretty psyched. The tone is friendly and forward. I'm just getting great vibes from it already. It could be false hopes, like the time I found my moms vibrator before Christmas. I told my friends I was going to get a cool light saber for a week straight. Instead I had to go to the dentist to fix my chipped teeth.

News...

What news is there to report on OiNK?

Nothing important really. Paine (the alleged former mod) has been posting links to OiNK t-shirts on his blog. He's got as little to report as we do.

If the pirate bay does bring it back that would be news. But who knows when and if that will ever really happen. If it did I'd post it.

The rest of the crap that I've found is pretty useless. There's a bunch of scam sites and those dues are posting here regularly. They've mounted a pretty great offensive in promoting their site through the comments.

I haven't deleted them because I don't want to stifle the honest tone of this blog.

If you are dumb enough to send someone you don't know your money for a service you haven't even used then I can't protect you nor is it my job to.

There are a bunch of sites that have sprung up as a successor to OiNK or an OiNK alternative. These haven't launched yet.

If you're looking for other sites to use check this article. Which is pretty old news now.

This site got 48k page views in the first 6 hours it launched and over 100k by the end of the second day.

If you're curious how much I made from adsense (which was much more of an experiment rather than opportunism) it amounts to $140 in the week its been around. Not much at all. Considering the amount of time I've put into this I've lost a good chunk of change blogging.

So here's my big announcement.

I'm only going to update interesting and substantial OiNK related news. The fan art stuff is getting to be boring to me but others seems to like it so send it in.

In other developments if you want to submit stuff or just call me a Gay Cock Waffle you can reach me by aim as oink memorial.

New OinK tribute song from Stationary Hund

Saturday, October 27, 2007

OiNK Graffiti



Found here

OiNK2 Looks Good. Is Real?

http://oink2.no-ip.org/ has a got a screenshot up of what they claim is a closed beta of "OiNK2".

They claim to be able to be up in about a week. This is not an OiNK sanctioned tracker. As for me I'll use it only because I like the design.

Fan Art Updates and Other Links

A massive collection of wallpapers related to OiNK http://oink.elrellano.com/wallpapers.php

OiNK for Dummies

Wired wrote an article saying nothing new really: Linky

OiNK.cd - Now the number one site int the world for waffle recipies!

Check out OiNK.cd for yourself:

The name servers have also been transfered over to The Pirate Bay....

Hmmmm, what could this mean?

Friday, October 26, 2007

F.Art #11 - Song and Video Tribute to OiNK

This is what we were hoping for when we set this site up. People puttin' the time in to making OiNK inspired art. Not to knock any of the other entries. They've all be part of the grieving process for us and we appreciate the work put into them even if they are cruel at times.

I hope this inspires more of you to do stuff like this.

Here's the video and song by Fourth Grade Gladiators. Check out their site. They do cool indie music for podcasts and commercials.


OiNK.cd Tribute Song and Video from Fourth Grade Gladiators on Vimeo.

Update: One more video tribute found on You Tube:

Twee.se gets cute with a fake "take down page" - Exact copy of OiNKs

If you check twee.se you'll see the same exact page as is found on OiNK.cd.

Fear not the site is still active. Just hit http://tracker.twee.se/login.php? to log in.

myspleen.com ups security measures in wake of OiNK Shutdown

Posted on the MySpleen.com front page:


We are going to get rid of all email addresses and IP addresses associated with individual user accounts in ONE WEEK.

As of right now, your email address and IP address is not used for anything on the tracker. They still exist in the database, however, so that we have a chance to fix any issues that arise from the changes in the tracker code and revert to the previous code if necessary. In one week, that data will be gone.

Q: Why do I need to know this?
A: If you happen to forget your password, we won't be able to email it to you. We've come up with a new solution for this: Security Questions. When you need to recover your password, you will be asked a question that you defined. You will then input the answer you defined, that (hopefully) ONLY YOU know. This should be treated like a second backup password. If you answer it correctly, your password will be reset. This is very similar to online banking systems' security questions (What's your mother's maiden name? What was your first pet's name? etc), except that you get to come up with your own question.

Please take a moment to edit your Profile with your Security Question and Answer. Remember, YOU define the level of security to your account. Make it a good question, and use a good secure password.

IF YOU DO NOT enter a Security Question, you WILL NOT be able to recover your password if you forget it. You might think that's even more secure (it probably is), but if you decide not to enter one, or to enter random gibberish, don't come complaining when you can't login.

If you think one question is not secure enough, you have 255 characters of question space and 40 characters of answer space. Feel free to use it all up with multiple questions and answers.


This seems like a great idea to us. All BT sites should use a measure like this. As long as we can create our own security question. All of the ones we're forced to answer are just hard to answer definitively. As a music fan "who is your favorite singer" is the most annoying.

If you haven't been to my spleen it's great. It's the only place you can get "The Sound of Young America" torrents for the entire podcast series. You can also find really rare VHS rips from the 70's-90's. My faves are VHS rips of MTV from the 80s.

Pirate Bay to Bring back OiNK as BOiNK

From http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-to-bring-back-oink-071026/

The Pirate Bay To Bring Back OiNK
Written by Ernesto on October 26, 2007

The Pirate Bay is currently working on an OiNK replacement in an attempt to bring the hundreds of thousands of music albums back online that disappeared during the raid. The replacement will be released within a week and on the BOiNK.cd domain.

BOiNK will be a little different from OiNK. For instance, the tracker will be public and it will start out with a lot less torrents than OiNK had when it was raided. The success of BOiNK will mainly depend on the former OiNK community, who will be asked to upload their old OiNK torrents.

The most important thing about BOiNK is perhaps the message it sends out to the IFPI and the BPI: It shows that that if you stop one tracker, others will pop up days after. It is a hydra. Call it a slap in the face if you want.

BOiNK will probably be ready in a few days. People from the Pirate Bay, Mininova, TorrentFreak and even the recently arrested (and released) OiNK admin are currently at The Oil of the 21st Century conference where they are - among other things - discussing filesharing, culture and copyright related issues.

BOiNK is a Pirate Bay only project, OiNK and other BitTorrent sites are not involved.

In the meantime, please stay away from scam sites that pretend to be related to OiNK. All they will do is take your money and run away. As soon as there’s an approved donation campaign (if there will be any) we will report it here.

oink.cx.la Is back up...

EDIT: Already down.

and another note. We think this is a scam. Of course there is no way to verify any of the information we've posted. No one knows for sure who anyone is on the internet. Keep that in mind.


http://oink.cx.la has become http://oink.we.bs/

http://oink.cx.la/ is KAPUT

If you log on to http://oink.cx.la/ you'll get this message.


Die gewünschte Seite ist nicht erreichbar

Die Website, die Sie besuchen wollen, hat den eingeräumten Leistungsumfang überschritten und ist vorübergehend nicht erreichbar.

Falls Sie der Betreiber dieser Homepage sind und wollen, dass Ihre Homepage
kurzfristig wieder erreichbar ist, klicken Sie bitte hier!

Alle Informationen zu den privaten Homepages bei Arcor.de finden Sie hier!

Ihr Arcor-Team


Another one bites the dust.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

OP ED: Why OiNK worked

Just some simple thoughts:

It had a good design.

Great search features.

A user moderated and created community.

Strict rules to keep it's "products" high quality.

Great branding. It was pegged as elite and hard to get into. Who wants to belong to a club that will have them?

Unique content - Hard to find vinyl rips, out of print records, stuff you couldn't get legally.

Did I miss anything?

oink.cx.la ? I Smell Something Fishy...

anon wrote:

BTW do you have any news about oink.cx.la ? It is confirmed by at least 2 sides now that they really have the OiNK Userdata and will re-open OiNK on Nov 1 on 3 Servers worldwide.

We were aware of this as well.

It's not entirely clear to us exactly what is going on there. But our sensitive scam-dongs have perked up. We smell a rat.

Go over and check it out yourself oink.cx.la

The original words on the site were:


About

* Oinkv2 will be launched on November 1!

We are working 247 on OiNK v2, it will be back in the old form as much as possible including the Forums, the Top100 and everything else that made OiNK the #1 Site on the net before Facebook and Demonoid and Google and other than those OiNK v2 will be legal completely just await what we have in store for you.

All donators will receive automatic special supporter vip status for OiNKv2. All donation money is first used to cover server upgrades in sweden. Use ANONYMOUS email (not your eMail that you used on OiNK) and write your passkey to oinkv2@hush.com we will verify it and send you the url for OiNKv2. If you are one of the team members who we have not yet contacted email us too before Nov 1.

Should OiNK Users be taken to court, the donated funds will be given to them. Else OiNK, TooMuchTime.

Donations will be used only for the best of OiNK and OiNKs Users as before. Donations are always legal you can donate to who you want and we are legal.

We are also in talks with political representitives and journalists to stop the music industry from abusing our police and media that we all pay for with our taxes.

As we have received a lot of email asking us about the older Userdata and Scripts yes we have it all on backup from a third source (not Alan). However we will not give it out but only use it to restore the upload/download ratio, Forum posts Torrent IDs and comments so remember your OiNK login and password you will NOT be able to reset your password with your email as we wiped all email addresses for your security. You must else name the person who invited you to get your old account back but that may take time in the beginning as we expect to get overrun. The OiNKv2 url will be announced here on Nov 1. It is up and running and we are doing final tests with the new team and inviting old users already to beta test.

The OiNKv2 Team is doing everything they can to grant you the best possible experience but we cannot pay everything from our own expenses so please support us if you can even if it`s just 5$ (you will receive the new url before Nov 1!)

LONG LIVE OiNK!

News
As you can see our help is necessary in this sad time.

100,000 friends came together to share their passion for life and music.

Yet 3 fat record industry bosses cannot accept it cos they must buy new mansions and islands in the carrebean and penthouses for $50 Mio in New York City so they want to soak every $ from you by forcing you to buy music cd`s without being able to listen to them before you buy.

Music CDs for that the artists get only a few cents for every copy sold.

Most money gets to the record industry shareholders and bosses who pay their lavish lifestyle by stealing from the children and young people who just want to enjoy music. It is the modern slavery of today in that people with a lot of money can buy the media and the police and spread fake rumorus and lies with the intention to make more money.

Yet they do not realise that not one single OiNK user will buy more CDs now. Most likely less. Not one person in the world will go to ITunes or to a CD Store when a Music Download Site is closed because there are still 100 more sites for downloading music and for every site closed ten new open.

You tried to keep black people enslaved. You tried to keep women from voting. You have failed then and you fail now by trying to keep people from free mp3s. Because people today realise they pay $15 for a record and the Artist gets only $0,20 the other $14,80 go to the store and to the rich. Like Kings kept 100s of familys around their castle starving and low you hord all MP3s from the people who just want to have a good time and you only dig your own grave because you cannot stop this wave that will crush you. You will soon die. Wake.
Stats
Total Donations 1938 €


First of all if I remember correctly there was no Top 100 on OiNK, Top 50 was the max. But that is not an important point. Could just be an honest mistake.

They're asking for your passkey, donations, they claim to speak with political reps?

On second thought this reeks of complete bullshit.

It's just another opportunist website similar to this one. The only difference is we're not asking for your money. Unless you want to send it?

The rant that is now deleted is just so devoid of any valid points that we have no idea where to begin.

Record labels aren't steeling form music buyers. Well maybe the RIAA is via bullshit lawsuits. But I don't recall getting any money taken out of my wallet that one time I was in an elevator with the drummer from The Strokes. I think he just copped a feel.

I just don't know

EDIT: I'm a little embarrassed over this post. I had an emo moment. Blame on the beers I had at band practice tonight. I've left it up to keep some semblance of journalistic integrity. The tone of this blog has been to be honest at all times. If even if it makes my asshat fit so tight I can't get it off.

I just don't know anymore.

Should I keep posting "insider info"?

I mean it's pretty retarded as is. The idea of "outing" websites.

I mean first of all the rule is if it's on the internet then it's not a secret.

WE ALL KNOW THIS.

In some way this helps those that aren't as astute as I and my fellow lurkers.

But how does it help? So you know the latest gossip and happenings?

At this point isn't this blog the same as some retarded celebrity mag?

Don't get me wrong, I like retarded celebrity mags, but only when I take a dump. If I don't have a good crossword US or People will do just fine.

It's a distraction.

Am I helping you with your daily distraction?

Should I even care?

Fan Art #11




Libble.com Hits Max User limit, Reviews of Stmusic.org and Funkytorrents.com

http://www.libble.com/ Has hit it's max user limit of 5200.

We've now tried Libble, Stmusic.org and Funkytorrents.

We like Libbles' search functions the best (still not up to OiNKs quality). The layout is clean and somewhat similar to Oinks. There are also fan made mix tapes that seem pretty cool. The forums were lively as well. As we mentioned before the streaming radio station had some interesting new indie stuff.

Stmusic.org was a lot harder to get a vibe of. It seemed like it was music our old roommate would call gay-euro-gayness. But don't take our word for it, because we are most likely completely wrong. We didn't stick around very long. There is no Top 10 torrents feature. We usually use that to get a gauge of what a music torrent site is all about. The forums have not been tested as there is a separate sign in feature.

STmusic has posted this 2007-10-25 - If you have albums to upload and can do so, we urge you to - ultimately the goal is to make the user uploads section very oink-esque to appeal to the influx of new members. If you have any suggestions for the system please post in the forums.

Which is a nice sentiment for former OiNKers as we all know the search functions were one of if not the best out of all torrent sites.

Funkytorrents.com looks interesting as well. There is a top ten feature. As of now the top ten active torrents are:

Top 10 Most Active Torrents
Rank Name Sna. Data Se. Le. To. Ratio
1 Coheed And Cambria - No World For Tomorrow [2007/mp3/APS (VBR)/(scene)]
2 The Color Fred - Bend To Break [2007/MP3/V2 (VBR)/(scene)]
3 Emery - I'm Only A Man [2007/MP3/V2 (VBR)/(scene)]
4 The Hives - The Black and White Album [2007/mp3/V2 (VBR)/(scene)]
5 Seether - Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces [2007/MP3/V2 (VBR)/(scene)]
6 Soilwork - Sworn To A Great Divide [2007/mp3/V2 (VBR)/(scene)]
7 VA - Saw IV [2007/MP3/APS (VBR)/scene]
8 Far-Less - A Toast To Bad Taste [2007/MP3/V2 (VBR)/(scene)]
9 Serj Tankian - Elect The Dead [2007/mp3/V0 (VBR)]
10 The Spill Canvas - No Really, I'm Fine [2007/MP3/V2 (VBR)/(scene)]

The forums are in Russian so we have no idea what the kids are saying overthere but I'm sure they're not surprised a bunch of Americans ahve invaded thier site with no warning.

From The ashes comes O2/Wafflehat? Or is OiNK coming back?

http://wtfsauce.net/wafflehat/index.php?blog=2

First he reports:

Oink is only dead without the community. Myself and other developers have realized this and a new project is underway. This blog will be the primary source of updates. A name is not confirmed but you can consider wafflehat or o2 the codename.

Updates thus far:
- We have decided to use TPB’s host and obtain servers in Sweden.
- We will be using the torrentbits code.
- The site will be nearly identical to the pink palace as far as rules go.


Then he comments:



After speaking to an original administrator it is now apparent to me that the officials may be bringing back the original. Alot of this depends on OiNK himself. More about this will be available weeks into the future.

If not, we are continuing to work on this.


Our Hearts can not take this waffling! We want you back OiNK!

2 New OiNK YTMNDs and Che OiNK

http://wwwoinkcd.ytmnd.com/

We don't get it but who are we to criticize ones grieving process.

How ever the tune in the background is pretty cool.

And another one: http://oink.ytmnd.com/

This give us the creeps that Deliverance and Storytelling did.


Che OiNK

Indietorrents.com has gone covert?

If you attempt to access indietorrents.com now all you'll see is a lighting bolt. And a link to an explination on what torrents are.

fear not the site is still accessible by going to http://www.indietorrents.com/login.php

For those not in the know: Indie Torrents was once a viable OiNK alternative until most people that got booted headed over to OiNK. This was way back in 2005. Remember those days?

Fan Art #6 UPDATE: Now In Hi-Res

correction: p-J has created a hi-res version of previously submitted much loved Oink Fan art.

You can download it here:.

OiNKybank.com sets up defense fund. OiNK mods still say DO NOT DONATE.

http://oinkybank.com/ has been set up to accept donations for OiNK's legal troubles.

While we applaud this user's intentions, donators have no guarantees that the money would reach OiNK. As of this moment the consensus from the OiNK camp says do not donate to any funds at this moment.

Image shot of a possible OiNK replacement?

This image has been batted around as evidence of a possible OiNK replacement. We have no idea who it comes from and what their intentions are.

Any info would be appreciated.

Fan Art #10

http://youshallbemissed.ytmnd.com/

While we appreciate the sentiment we still find Mountain Goats incredibly annoying (refering to the song in the background).

Fan Art #9



from falojazz

Fan Art #8




from zixr

Hidden Message From Authorities Found on OiNK.cd

An astute user in the OiNK chat room found this link: http://oink.cd/index2.html

The message reads:

Pedro,



Many thanks for your assistance with this. Please find attached two logos for IFPI & BPI together with text to be displayed on a new homepage on the 'Oink' website. Can the logos be added to the page:





This site has been closed as a result of a criminal investigation by IFPI, BPI, Cleveland Police and the Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police (FIOD ECD) into suspected illegal music distribution.



A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site's users





Many thanks



Keith

OiNK Interview With the Daily Telegraph

from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/25/ninternet125.xml

Oink founder: We're just like Google

By Paul Stokes
Last Updated: 8:20am BST 25/10/2007

An IT consultant suspected of operating one of the world’s biggest pirate music websites from a Middlesbrough bedsit said he had done nothing wrong.

Alan Ellis, 24, was arrested on Tuesday as part of an Interpol-led operation to shut down a music file sharing website which has attracted around 180,000 members.

Mr Ellis set up the website, called Oink, three and a half years ago.
advertisement

He was detained on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and copyright infringement and has been released on police bail for two months.

Computer equipment and documentation seized from his home, his place of work and his father’s home in Cheshire and are undergoing forensic examination.

But speaking after his arrest he claimed it was no more illegal than search engine sites such as Google which could also direct users to illegal music downloads.

Police and music industry investigators have suggested that hundreds of thousands of pounds a year could be made by the site.

Mr Ellis declined to comment on whether users had made financial “donations” to the site.

Mr Ellis was contracted to work as an IT consultant for Virgin Media’s contact centre in nearby Stockton-on-Tees, but was dismissed on the day of his arrest.

He told The Daily Telegraph: “I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t believe my website breaks the law. They don’t understand how it works.

"The website is very different from how the police are making it out to be. There is no music sold on the site - I am doing nothing wrong.

"When I set up the site I didn’t think I was doing anything illegal and I still don’t. There are 180,000 users and there has been an outcry about what has happened to me.

"People who download music also buy CDs as well. A lot of people download music on the internet to get a taste of it and then later buy the CD.

"But I don’t sell music to people, I just direct them to it. If somebody wants to illegally download music they are going to do it whether my site is there or not.

"If this goes to court it is going to set a huge precedent. It will change the internet as we know it.

"As far as I am aware no-one in Britain has ever been taken to court for running a website like mine. My site is no different to something like Google.

"If Google directed someone to a site they can illegally download music they are doing the same as what I have been accused of. I am not making any Oink users break the law. People don’t pay to use the site.”

Oink, which used a cartoon of a pink pig as its logo, was one of the world’s biggest “peer-to-peer” music download sites, which have been targeted by music publishers and police because they allow users to swap music for free.

Anyone accessing it is met with the message: “This site has been closed as a result of a criminal investigation by IFPI, BPI, Cleveland Police and the Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police into suspected illegal music distribution. A criminal investigation continues into the identities and activities of the site’s users.”

The website’s server, based in Amsterdam, was closed down by Dutch Police last week.

Among allegations being examined are that more than 60 major albums were leaked on an OINK site weeks before the CDs’ were officially released by record companies.

According to users, Oink had a daily throughput the equivalent of five million songs and registered members were able to download around 1,000 songs.

Detectives are thought to be analysing the databases for details of the invitation system and members’ downloads.

Users were offered the chance to buy a range of branded merchandise bearing a pink pig Logo and the slogan: “Music so good it could make your tail curl”.

A spokesman for Cleveland Police, responsible the Middlesbrough inquiries, said: “It is too early to tell if we will go after individuals, it all depends on what we find.”

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

OiNK Speaks! ..the Truth Comes Out... He Doesn't Eat Meat! Shocking!

from: http://dot-slash-csc.iblogger.org/oinkfaq.html

Shocking! He's alive! and... building websites for the PO PO? Say it ain't so! (It ain't)

Questions & Answers from the #OiNK IRC

smartface: does the paypal account have any funds on it ATM?
OiNK: it had some, and the account has been permanently limited
friggy: you just get bailed for free?
OiNK: yes
smartface: did they actually question you?
OiNK: of course, for hours
sretsof: what was the stupidest wuestion they asked?
OiNK: the police had very limited technical knowledge, which made the interview quite amusing actually.
OiNK: i wasn't willing to teach them how to use a computer
OiNK: they actually wanted me to teach them how to set up a website
OiNK: i just told them to google it.
Xenafor: IS YOUR FATHER OKAY AS WELL?
OiNK: my father is fine.
OiNK: my father was not arrested, though they did take his work laptop
apelure: what does the carges about fraud mean?
OiNK: i've not been charged ...
Xenafor: Are you a vegetarian?
OiNK: yes.
knifeboy: Did they do the good cop/bad cop routine?
OiNK: no
Stormx2: Everyone is first and foremost concerned for you and everything, but at the back of our minds (I think) we're interested in what you think will happen the the pink palace. Obviously you won't have a starring roll, but will the backups be destroyed?
OiNK: why would backups be destroyed?
smartface: have you become a millionarie with our donations?
OiNK: no
j2los: do you think at minimum the forums will be restored as a community for discussing music?
OiNK: i don't know
guildmast: Are there any plans for an official OiNK donations fund we can feel comfortable donating to?
OiNK: not yet
ftdrs: seriously though, what did they accuse you of?
OiNK: conspiracy to defraud and copyright infringements
maxdoubt: do you have/need legal representation?
OiNK: i'm still deciding on legal advice
Kevix: did you have any warning before hand that the knock opn your door was coming? OiNK: no
smartface: are you planned for a trial anytime soon?
OiNK: the earliest date for trial is 26th december - though highly unlikely
Yawg: did you anticipate a raid in the past? Did you take any precautions regarding site design and logs and whatnot to protect the community?
OiNK: the logs we store aren't enough to inciminate users
Gl1mw0rm: are you still the rigtfull owner of the oink.cd domain?
OiNK: unclear
Barth: what about the recent security/privacy changes to the site and the irc? was that a coincidence or did you see something coming?
OiNK: coincidence
j2los: do you think it is absurd that only now that the site has been taken down has it been deemed notable enough for a wikipedia article?
OiNK: i found that amusing, yes
OiNK: i'm glad the article is staying neutral
midnightgt: (without incriminating anyone) is there any copy of the source anywhere? Would you be in support of a second coming of the website? How do you think this reflects on the war on file sharing? (Certainly I do not feel like we are losing) OiNK: sorry, no comment :)
lhnz: Why exactly did the cops want you to make a website for them?:P :D
OiNK: not sure
csc: so, do the cops know you're here?
OiNK: dunno
ATF: did you get fired from work?
OiNK: yes
gleam: do you think you or anyone else will ever hear from tmt again? :)
OiNK: no
MooIsTooWrong: do you think most of the people in this
channel are asking asshat questions?
OiNK: yes
uQ1: What grounds did your work fire you?
OiNK: i'm not going to go into that, sorry.



Thanks to our awesome commenters for jumping on this story while we were away setting up nooses for our latest prank.

OiNK Interviewed by The Daily Telegraph

Former OiNK admin Paine has stated that:

"OiNK has given an interview to The Daily Telegraph."

This information comes from his blog comments located at https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2026147389099332216&postID=1176033912038691841

The interview is not online but will be posted here as soon as it goes live.

New "Official" OiNK IRC channel

Infamous OiNK moderator Paine speaks again!

From: http://tehpaine.blogspot.com/

"Official" OiNK IRC channel

The staff have decided on a location to have an "official" IRC.

irc://irc.xevion.net / #oink

Connect to the server and then register with nickserv before /joining. Vhosts are automatic on this network.

See you there.

Fan Art #7

Libble.com Provides Free Leech in Memory of OiNK, Close to it's Max User Limit

Libble.com has posted this message on its home page:

FREE LEECH R.I.P. Pink Pig

For those not in the know that means you can download with it not affecting your ratio.

Libble is also 125 former OiNKers away from hitting it's user limit of 5000. Right now there seems to be a mixed reaction to former users on the Libble forums.

While the design is no where near as pretty in pink as OiNK the Libble Radio Station is pretty great. Check it out.

Bitmetv.org Cautions Former OiNK Users With New Security Measures

Often called "OiNK for TV", Bit Torrent Tracker Bitmetv.org has posted this warning on it's site.


For weeks and weeks now we have talked about using the same passwords. As many of you are aware of the sad news, Oink.cd was raided early this morning. If you share an email address OR password between our site and Oink's, YOU MUST change you password here as a precautionary measure ASAP.


What this means for users in unclear. We assume it's a precautionary tactic to protect bitmetv from falling on the same sword as OiNK. If you were to assume that authorities can't gain access to sites such as these you are sadly mistaken. Anyone can get in if they figure out the rules.

what are the rules you ask?

Gain access to a popular private tracker that isn't hard to get into like Demonoid. You can even try a public site. Download popular torrents, seed for a week for a good ratio. That ratio becomes proof you're not a leech. Parlay that to access else where via invite channels on torrent sites official chat rooms on IRC.

OiNK Moderator Paine Speaks!

From http://tehpaine.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, 24 October 2007
Sit down, and shut the fuck up.

Right -- This stops now.

I'm Paine. I used to be a moderator at OiNK.cd, until, as you know, we were shut down by the BPI and IFPI.

Now, there are far, FAR too many rumours flying around, and I wanted to set some shit straight.

1. There is no official OiNK IRC right now.

No. The Dalnet IRC is by no means "official". In fact, the staff are point blank refusing to use dalnet. The complete lack of both SSL and vhosts/cloaking makes it a very poor choice. I, personally, am currently on irc://fucknet.wtf.la in #oink, however no other staff (at the time of writing) are, although I am in contact with them.

2. OiNK will _NOT_ be up today, or tomorrow.

We're not magic. None of the moderators have access to the current code and databases right now -- in fact, neither does OiNK himself, as his stuff was confiscated (remember the crap you saw in the plastic bags on the news?). People purporting to be TMT and/or OiNK are, to be frank, lying their fucking asses off.

3. There is currently _NO_ "save oink" fund.

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT give ANY money to ANY of these fake funds you are seeing. They are scams. OiNK will not see a penny of this money, and neither will you.

4. OiNK himself is safe and well.

He's fine and out on bail.

5. There is no "official" OiNK forum right now.

While there may not be an official forum, a lot of our ex-users are flocking to http://www.ohax.com/phpBB2/ -- Some of the users on there are actually staff. However there are also people maliciously using that site to link to scam sites and other various filth.

Anyway, I hope that's settled a lot of shit. If you're in doubt I'm who I say I am, then don't believe me. I encourage you all to exercise extreme caution when people are floating around throwing names about left right and center saying these things. The "TMT" on Dalnet was not our TMT. In fact, nobody has been in contact with him, and I expect it will remain that way for a very long time.

Is Libble.com the Next OiNK?

We deliberately didn't mention Libble in our last post as the vibe we got from the OiNK irc channel was to keep it quiet.

Now that the cat is out of the bag we're eagerly awaiting the chance to get a an invite. However the invite-channel @ irc://irc.rizon.net/libble.com-invites is filled to capacity. Before we got booted there was a queue of 50 people waiting to get interviewed for an invite.

Yes, we said Interviewed.

We're curious as to what the interview process is like.

And one have some tips to share?

Where do we go next?

The question most important to OiNK users now is "where do we go next"? Well maybe not most important, the first one is really, "Am I going to get sued?". We all know there is nothing we can do about that except to stop seeding and to low level format your hard drives.

I'm kidding, don't low level format. Send them to me to destroy the data for you.

Anywho, there have been a few sites mentioned here and there. Most of them are invite only have have anywhere from 2k-5k users. A paltry amount compared to the reports that OiNK had 180k.

It has also been said that the other sites mostly got their content from OiNK to begin with.

I'd love to list these other sites but I have no idea how the site owners feel. Some might want the press and other may be happy with their piddling amount of data throughput.

So rather than be the target of hatred from Bit Torrent site admins I'll let the commenters do it!

Where are you going next?

I'll be a douche and name some other options:
indie torrents has non-riaa music only. If you think OiNKs admins were dicks these guys are exponentially worse.
audionews.ru and proaudiotorrents.org has music appz

OiNK Defense Fund

It has been suggested that we're not fulfilling our duty as the #1 OiNK fan site if we don't have a legal fund set up for our troubled webmaster.

We have not been approached by OiNK or any of the moderators to set up said fund.

We'd love to spearhead the task and reassure our fellow heartbroken downloaders that the cash would make it to him but we have no way of contacting our fallen hero.

We're also obviously not the most responsible when it comes to money. Just look at the amount of updates we've posted in the past 24 hours. We're clearly not working are we?

If OiNK or someone close to him can verify that a fund has been set up and would indeed find it's way in to the hands of his Barrister, we would gladly publicize it as much as we can.

Until then we must wait until the word comes down from on high.

Oink.cd tribute on Youtube

eXXXtreme fan art update #6


Official OiNK Day of Mourning - 10/26

Submitted by Shiny

This Friday (October 26th) will be a worldwide day of mourning. I encourage everyone to dress in pink on this day. If you have a little pink breast cancer awareness ribbon thing... that little pink ribbon now symbolizes OiNK, so please wear it. Also, if you choose to listen to music (which I know is very emotional at a time like this), make it the album "In Case We Die" by Architecture in Helsinki, because that was OiNK's favorite.

At both 10:23 AM and 10:23 PM on Friday, we will recognize a 5 minute silence in honor of the tragedy.

Those Euro-police may take our database, but they will never uncurl these piggy tails.

NEVER FORGET.

-----

We are behind this 100 percent. We already have our outfit picked out. Send in pictures of your pink garb for us to proudly display.

Don't Panic - F.Art #6



This makes us feel a lot better. We kind of want to put on that Coldplay song of the same name. But then again we were kind of over Coldplay around 2001. Where's that Bangers and Cash EP we downloaded before the site went kaput? Oh OiNK, we miss you!

Fan Art or F.Art #5

Fan art #5 - no LolOiNK art yet...



Olive submitted this piece.

I like it it's simplicity. It almost looks like a PETA ad. But where are the LolOiNK images?

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

POLL: Which LOGO do you like better?

Which banner image do you like better?







NY Mag, Idolator Links to Us - Idolator Talks To a Lawyer and Scares What Little Shit There is Left Out of Us

New York Magazine: The Official OiNK Memorial is giving round-the-clock news updates on all things OiNK.

Idolator
: The OiNK.CD Memorial Museum And News looks to already be your one-stop for OiNK-related LOLz, with YTMND links, pics, video, and an interview with a young man spearheading an OiNK suicide pact:


Idolator also posts an interview with some fancy pants lawyer. He basically says any user can potentially be prosecuted against, including PayPal for handling the donation funds.

Dramatic Re-enactment of the Raid

Breaking... OiNK update #2 - He's "OK"

More breaking news coming from the official OiNK-News Chat Room at irc://dalnet/oink-news

OiNK has sent a communication through his Consigliere Borbus:

" feel free to give information that i'm ok and out"

You can chat with other OiNK users at irc://dalnet/oink using the Chatzilla plug-in for Firefox.

Fan art #4



Um... what? I don't get it.

Update from the artist:

"this is the pic I linked in the last post! I think it symbolizes giving, and the fact that we are all connected. Oink is like one leaf on a tree of illegal file sharing, as autumn comes and the leaf falls off, it will be replaced come spring time with a new brighter leaf. "

The staff here aren't so into this hippie shit. But it's a nice sentiment. Kudos to you. Now take a shower.

Really bad fan art update #3



This have taken a turn for the worse. People are submitting just plain crap.

Is it just me or does this poorly represent OiNK user base?

Fan Artwork #2

BREAKING... OiNK released from questioning and is back home.

It has been reported in the official OiNKk chat room that OiNK himself is back home and online at the moment.

Let's hope his Nan has made him some tea and biscuits to soothe his nerves.

"Why We Need OiNK" from Rawking Refuses to Stop

from: http://rawkblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/critical-backlash-why-we-need-oink.html

Critical Backlash: Why We Need OiNK

What a thing to wake up to. Alright, RIAA, think about it for five seconds:

FACT: Like Napster before it, OiNK's database was the most comprehensive, convenient, high-quality source of digital music on the Internet. And if you build it, they will come - the site has thousands upon thousands of users, every one a music lover looking for a great way to find albums new and old. Also like Napster before it, the industry has chosen to completely blow a tremendous opportunity by destroying an obviously successful system rather than simply figuring out a way to monetize it and rake in profits.

FACT: There is no one-stop location on the Internet where you can pay $10 and download a 192+ kbps DRM-free MP3 of any album you want - which you can do on OiNK for free. Essentially, the music industry is asking consumers to ignore the gentleman in the street handing out fresh Hebrew National hot dogs (delicious, amirite) and pretending that the gross chunks of meat that've been simmering in 7-Eleven all week are just as good! Why should anyone pay for an inferior product when what they actually want is just sitting there?

FACT: DRM-laden music doesn't work. Subscription services don't work. Why? The same people who buy the most music are also its biggest promoters, making tapes or burning CDs for their friends and now, passing around MP3s. If you can't do this, it's no fun - how can you convince your friend to go to a show with you? Music is communal. Sites like OiNK are the ultimate example of this. Which leads to...

FACT: Career sales trump one-hit-wonders. Touring and merch trumps album sales. How does this happen? AWARENESS. How do people become aware of bands in a way that inclines them to make a connection and develop loyalty in the iPod era? I'll let you guys figure that one out, but it's not happening on MTV or ClearChannel-owned radio stations.

FACT: A download is not a lost sale. The kids with the most MP3s are hoarding them because they can, not because they're trying to save money on paying for CDs. No one is ever going to go out and buy 5-10 albums a week, but that's about how many a good chunk of us download.

FACT: Promotion costs money. Record companies routinely lose tons of cash on bands that sell 100k and call it a career. During the late '90s heyday, they could offset this with the Backstreet Boys, but that was never going to last.

FACT: Promoting your album by letting people listen to it online so they can go out and buy it or see you on tour, and letting buzz build organically through word of mouth? FREE.

FACT: The audience that pirates albums is often a totally different market than the one that still buys CDs. Downloading is never going to cannibalize CD sales - they're two seperate entities, and the industry should be supplying quality products to both markets, not constraining one while the other dies a miserable death.

In short, fellas, the industry is moving in a direction where bands are going to pull a Radiohead and just sell the shit themselves because the industry seems unwilling or incapable of doing the absolute bare minimum of offering their entire catalogs in a quality file format at a reasonable place in a one-stop shop.

Update: Because there's been some confusion about my intentions with this post, I'll make them perfectly clear: I'm not condoning piracy or even promoting OiNK, really. What I'm saying is, the lack of a legitimate, legal service with the same quality, ease and variety of OiNK is a huge, gaping hole in the music business right now and if anyone wants to make money on a recording ever again, you guys had better fill it the hell up.