Suprnova.org
From Free net encyclopedia
Suprnova.org, deemed a Universal BitTorrent source, was a website which distributed descriptor files for various music and video files, computer programs and games. Many of these torrents described could potentially have been used for copyright infringement. At one time considered the most popular BitTorrent search engine, Suprnova.org closed after legal threats. The site operators supported the development of the eXeem BitTorrent client software, deeming a fixed website too difficult to operate in the present legal climate.
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Overview
Suprnova did not host any of the shared files, nor did it operate any BitTorrent trackers for long. It offered the ".torrent" meta files which would tell a BitTorrent client where it could find the BitTorrent tracker. The client could then go to the tracker to find peers from which the file could be obtained. Suprnova would connect to the tracker periodically to obtain statistics for display on its web pages, so visitors could determine how popular a file was, and how likely it was that they could obtain a complete copy of it. The two important statistics were "seeds" and "peers". "Peers" was the number of participants currently uploading and downloading the file. "Seeds" was the number of participants who had the complete file available for download. The number of seeds was important, as if there are no seeds left or the last seed leaves the network, all other participants would have most likely been unable to finish the file.
As well as the torrent files themselves, there was a set of forums for visitors, where people talked about various subjects, and requested different files that they'd like to see people upload. This resulted in a greater sense of community spirit than on the self-contained networks such as FastTrack and Gnutella.
Suprnova.org had a problem with two similarly named scam sites, Suprnova.com and Suprnova.net. These sites have the same layout as Suprnova.org but require a usage fee (Suprnova.org did not).
Legal action and closure
As of late November 2004 a French company, RetSpan, has been seeking legal action against SuprNova. [1]
On December 19, 2004, a message was displayed on Suprnova's front page stating it had officially closed down. Some speculated it was due to its poor server and constant downtime, but others noted that Suprnova had been receiving legal warnings. Later, Sloncek revealed on Suprnova's IRC channel that he and the other administrators were not willing to continue fighting the legal warnings which they have received. The Suprnova page reappeared encouraging visitors to visit the eXeem project webpage.
On September 13th, 2005, Suprnova.org reopened as a filesharing news site.
The truth about why SuprNova.org shut down
On December 19, 2005, exactly one year on since Suprnova.org officially shut down, the admin of Suprnova.org; "Sloncek", posted this message [sic]:
- "For a year now, there have been many rumors why SuprNova.org has been taken offline. Some have said that it was because of legal issues, some sad it was because I sold out to eXeem project, or because I became a millionaire and did not want to bother with the site anymore, and the rumors go on.
- Today, on the exact day, when SuprNova.org went offline, I decided that it is time for everybody to know the truth and that it is time for me to stop pretending like nothing ever happened.
- On November 2004, I received a call from my ISP saying that all of my servers have been raided by the police. I received nothing from the police before or after the raid, nobody told me what was going on.
- In early December, Reuters did an article on me, and many Slovenian newspapers jumped on the story. So I ended up reading about myself in Slovenian newspapers. And right about that time, I had a feeling something was wrong. I do not really know what the feeling was or where it was comming from, but I decided it was time to take SuprNova.org offline.
- About a month later, after SuprNova.org has been taken offline, there was a door bell at 6:30 in the morning, saying it's the police. Actually I was not expecting anything anymore, since SuprNova.org has been taken offline long before that. They showed me a court order to search my place and they did so. They took as far as I remember, two of my computers and lots of documents.
- About a month or so later, I was called to the police, so that we or actually they, did a list of all the files that were on all of the computers that they took from my home and from the ISP.
- Another month later, I was called to the police for my hearing. I and my lawyer decided, we wont answer any questions. After this was over, the police told us they will give this to the prosecutor and he will continue the procedure. My lawyer told me, that I should expect a letter from the prosecutor after the summer holidays.
- And that was true, nothing happened during the summer holidays and I had quite a wonderful time. Very relaxed.
- And just when I was hoping that the prosecutor would forget about my case I received another letter. When I received the paper, that I have to go pick up the envelope at the post, I became completely depressed and sad. But anyway, I went to the post and picked up the document. It was from the prosecutor, saying by the law blah blah and blah blah?. the denunciation against Andrej Preston has been dropped. And I received all the CD's and computers that they took from me. This happened on 18th October 2005.
- Since then nothing happened, and I hope it stays that way. This has been a huge pressure on me and I think it left some permanent marks on me. I hope none of you will ever have to go through something like this.
- What is written above is just a short story of everything that went on during last year. I also do not want to give out too much information, since it wouldn't be wise.
- Thanks to all of the friends that knew about this and supported me as much as they could! Its been a hard year for all of us."
eXeem
The admin of Suprnova.org, "Sloncek" ("little elephant", in Slovenian) gave his support for the creation of eXeem.[2] This was initially the subject of much debate and excitement on the internet, but upon the release turned out to be a disappointment - eXeem contained the Cydoor adware, like software such as Kazaa, and escaping this adware was the reason for many's use of Suprnova in the first place. A hacked version of the program, eXeem Lite, was released afterward, and upon realising the effect of this program, the adware was eventually removed from eXeem.
Suprnova.org Reincarnation
The original Suprnova.org, has been reincarnated on Newnova.org using the code of Suprnova.org, but slightly modified, running on a new website. [3] The news was announced on October 6 2005. [4]
Contrary to popular belief, mininova.org has no relation to suprnova, other than that they are both large torrent indexing sites. The original operators of Suprnova.org did not start mininova.org after the demise of suprnova.org.