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Comment by boomboomsubban | Hacker News Reader

I'm unfamiliar with BitTorrent Barnyard, despite knowing of both SA and BitTorrent for nearly twenty years, and a search just gives me torrents for a 2006 movie. Someone mind telling me what it was? Guessing a tracker?

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When the forums went paid and semi private, a few boards were created for sharing music, porn, and torrents. AFAIK you could never see they existed without a paid account. The last time I logged in with a paid account was more than 15 years ago though so I can't say how it evolved.

The mods/admins shut them down after year or two, before there were any real legal consequences. As a result of that, there were a number of private spin-off sites dedicated solely to piracy, some of which continue today.

I think a lot more happened there than just piracy. Just based on what I heard, I certainly never had an account on any of the sites... . Perhaps over time, more will be known publically. SA lead to 4chan and 8chan, many conspiracies started on these sites as memes. Look at 8kun for example. Behind the scenes of sites like SA existed a large collection of questionable groups. Just imagine the bandwidth needed and the kinds of political connections required to keep it off of the radar. Also consider how the whole Warez scene operates in general. Experienced programmers writing cracks, leaked movies and tv shows, drugs, etc.

Kind of like the silk road before the darkweb.

Hopefully more will be known over time because there are some crazy stories.

Not that I would know anything about any of it

> I think a lot more happened there than just piracy.

The comment you are replying to is referring to the sites dedicated solely to piracy. You have a pretty fantastical idea of what happens there.

Yeah, I think you're right. You can't believe everything you hear.

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