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Topic: BitCoinTorrentz.com - Torrent Download Service - page 20. (Read 57198 times)

donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
I am going to have to increase the price of this service considering the recent drop of 25% in the exchange rate. I have not raised prices all the way down from $5. While I am willing to subsidize the fiat costs for the benefit of users, I am not willing to run this business at a loss for an extended period of time.

I am thinking of a base rate of around 0.08 btc/GB.
Could shareholders and users weigh in with their opinions on what a reasonable price would be?

Anyone who has already purchased bandwidth will not be affected by this price rise.

Even 0.1 BTC/GB is reasonable in my mind. 0.099 is stupid. I don't know how you came up with 0.08 BTC/GB, but it seems pretty much exactly right.
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
I am going to have to increase the price of this service considering the recent drop of 25% in the exchange rate. I have not raised prices all the way down from $5. While I am willing to subsidize the fiat costs for the benefit of users, I am not willing to run this business at a loss for an extended period of time.

I am thinking of a base rate of around 0.08 btc/GB.
Could shareholders and users weigh in with their opinions on what a reasonable price would be?

Anyone who has already purchased bandwidth will not be affected by this price rise.
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
@molecular: I double checked my bitcoin conf file and you are correct, it was set to pregenerate 100 addresses. Yet I can still only see a few in the address book from the bitcoin GUI. Does the client set them aside for later use, when I initiate the getnewaddress rpc?
I wonder if I increased this number up to, 500, for example - then restarted the client, would it pregenerate 400 additional new addresses and add them into the wallet?

Again, I'm assuming that's what would happen.

If you want, I can verify these assumed behaviors using pywallet... I've been wanting to check that out anyways for importing/exporting keys (e.g. for casascius key import)
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
@molecular: I double checked my bitcoin conf file and you are correct, it was set to pregenerate 100 addresses. Yet I can still only see a few in the address book from the bitcoin GUI. Does the client set them aside for later use, when I initiate the getnewaddress rpc? I wonder if I increased this number up to, 500, for example - then restarted the client, would it pregenerate 400 additional new addresses and add them into the wallet? You'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge on the subject, I am still getting to grips with the ins and outs of the protocol.

Also, just want to thank whoever it was who sent the very kind donation earlier. It is very much appreciated! Wink
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
One thing: I think the javascript alert confirming the payment appeared twice. I'm not sure what the first one said, cause I clicked OK too quickly.

I'm not sure what's going on. Might be nothing or a major bug Wink Here's what happened (idkey=6xvv4lma7t):

my suspicion: when I downloaded the files, they were not really completely dled by the torrent client. When he downloaded them, they were "more complete".

Just had a look, and it seems that you submitted the torrent twice somehow. The idkey of the first one is ieruqyd32m, the second one is the key you mentioned which was submitted 1 second later - you said that you saw the javascript popup twice? The website saw the previous torrent of the same name in the database, assumed it was finished and served up the files even though the torrent was not complete.

I checked out the process a few times again with a couple of torrents and I can't seem to replicate the behavior. Very odd. I'll keep looking into it, but I think this was some sort of exception.


It's entirely possible I submittet the torrent link twice. I think I even slightly remember doing that (/me scratches head)

On the next small download I do I will try to replicate the bug. Until then, we can probably file it under "some extremely unlikely unknown crap happened when the user behaved unpredictibly".

Of course, should users report broken files, alarms should go off in our heads.

How many keys did you pre-generate before making the wallet copy? The default of 100 should be used up pretty quickly and bitcoind will generate new batches, right?

I didn't pregenerate any addresses other than the default amount created by the client. I plan to regularly download the wallet file from the server over an encrypted sftp connection, to ensure that the wallet is kept updated with any new addresses created.


Actually I think you did implicitly pre-generate 100 addresses. Bitcoind fills the wallet with a certain amount of addresses initially. Default 100.

there's a switch for bitcoind:

IMG removed
Hahaha! Cheesy 0.00003 btc - less than 1mb. Didn't plan for torrent's that small! rofl

Probably no need to fix this Wink
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
One thing: I think the javascript alert confirming the payment appeared twice. I'm not sure what the first one said, cause I clicked OK too quickly.

I'm not sure what's going on. Might be nothing or a major bug Wink Here's what happened (idkey=6xvv4lma7t):

my suspicion: when I downloaded the files, they were not really completely dled by the torrent client. When he downloaded them, they were "more complete".

Just had a look, and it seems that you submitted the torrent twice somehow. The idkey of the first one is ieruqyd32m, the second one is the key you mentioned which was submitted 1 second later - you said that you saw the javascript popup twice? The website saw the previous torrent of the same name in the database, assumed it was finished and served up the files even though the torrent was not complete.

I checked out the process a few times again with a couple of torrents and I can't seem to replicate the behavior. Very odd. I'll keep looking into it, but I think this was some sort of exception.

How many keys did you pre-generate before making the wallet copy? The default of 100 should be used up pretty quickly and bitcoind will generate new batches, right?

I didn't pregenerate any addresses other than the default amount created by the client. I plan to regularly download the wallet file from the server over an encrypted sftp connection, to ensure that the wallet is kept updated with any new addresses created.



Hahaha! Cheesy 0.00003 btc - less than 1mb. Didn't plan for torrent's that small! rofl
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
I'm not sure what's going on. Might be nothing or a major bug Wink Here's what happened (idkey=6xvv4lma7t):

I downloaded a torrent with quite a few .mp3 files (legal ones, of course) in it. It downloaded to the server in a very short time (like 3-5 seconds after I got to the status page it was finished).

I then downloaded all the files using "wget -r".

The first mp3 plays, but the other are screwed. mplayer reports errors like crazy and even shows part of some movie (!!) when playing one of them.

Either that torrent is screwed in the first place or (wild suspicion here), your download was assumed finished before it really was and the files are filled with leftovers from other downloads or whatever is was on the harddrive before. Is that possible???

EDIT: It get's better:

a friend downloaded all the files a little later. He sent me one (number 26 on disc 2) and I compared the md5 sums:

his: 32ec3b0d1055d665f32d956fcc632806
mine: 9f484155d5b68740a7c2bcbcd52eb95c

my suspicion: when I downloaded the files, they were not really completely dled by the torrent client. When he downloaded them, they were "more complete".

EDIT2: I'm re-downloading the files to confirm/reject my suspicion...

md5sum of same file "26...": a4577bcbfd8a00cb3e9508a3aa33462e (yet another one)

=> suspicion more likely
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
The site has now been fully transitioned to the new payment system. There have been no changes to the fronted of the site, but the whole payment code has been rehauled and is much simpler than it was before.

You are one of the most dedicated and productive persons I know of!

The server will now generate a unique wallet payment address for each transaction. It will be generated as soon as the payment popup appears (this might delay the popup a few seconds). Once you send payment to the provided address, the server will poll bitcoind every 5 seconds to check if it has been received.

It all works in the exact same way as before, but is much more stable and secure with a lower chance of payment-dropping, as we are not not relying on third party payment processors for payment notifications.

Just went through the process (normal dl, no top-up stuff). Worked like a charm.

One thing: I think the javascript alert confirming the payment appeared twice. I'm not sure what the first one said, cause I clicked OK too quickly.

The one problem is the fact that the wallet has to be stored on the server, but I have put some thought into the best way to secure the earnings from attack. I have encrypted the wallet using a very strong password, and I will not enter the password into the server at any time (to combat keyloggers). I will keep a local copy of the wallet on my home computer that I will use to regularly remove any earnings into another, offline wallet. I don't envision any problems with this setup, as even if the wallet does get stolen, there will be no way for any attackers to decrypt - and therefore steal - any of the coin.

How many keys did you pre-generate before making the wallet copy? The default of 100 should be used up pretty quickly and bitcoind will generate new batches, right?

I'm delighted with the current setup of the site now.
I have been meaning to do this since day one, but have not gotten around to it until now.

Very nice!

sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
Whoops, caught a tiny error in the bandwidth related payment code.
Thanks for the error report TTBit! Everything should be fine now.

EDIT: if you were still waiting on the payment screen while I was fixing the bug, it would have went through once I corrected the bug.
legendary
Activity: 1136
Merit: 1001
Bought a package yesterday, can't download. I click on 'Download Now', nothing happens. I have plenty of credit.

EDIT: I don't think I waited the 5 seconds! Works.
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
Thanks for all the suggestions molecular! You are a great shareholder, and a very resourceful and intelligent guy. I have considered all of the options you put forward, and decided to go ahead with running a local bitcoind on the server.

The site has now been fully transitioned to the new payment system. There have been no changes to the fronted of the site, but the whole payment code has been rehauled and is much simpler than it was before.

The server will now generate a unique wallet payment address for each transaction. It will be generated as soon as the payment popup appears (this might delay the popup a few seconds). Once you send payment to the provided address, the server will poll bitcoind every 5 seconds to check if it has been received.

It all works in the exact same way as before, but is much more stable and secure with a lower chance of payment-dropping, as we are not not relying on third party payment processors for payment notifications.

The one problem is the fact that the wallet has to be stored on the server, but I have put some thought into the best way to secure the earnings from attack. I have encrypted the wallet using a very strong password, and I will not enter the password into the server at any time (to combat keyloggers). I will keep a local copy of the wallet on my home computer that I will use to regularly remove any earnings into another, offline wallet. I don't envision any problems with this setup, as even if the wallet does get stolen, there will be no way for any attackers to decrypt - and therefore steal - any of the coin.

I'm delighted with the current setup of the site now.
I have been meaning to do this since day one, but have not gotten around to it until now.

If anyone has any problems with the new payment system, please do not hesitate to post!
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
I am using bitcoinnotify, which monitors the blockchain and sends POST notifications to my server. I received an email about 15 minutes ago from them that they are shutting down their service. I guess they have been having some server trouble. This is the email I received:

Quote from: bitcoinnotify
Any payment service requires a very careful maintenance and we were doing so responsibly over the recent months.

The service has never suffered any hack or a major technical problem, earning the trust of hundreds of users.

However, we can no longer invest resources necessary to ensure perfectly safe and robust payment processing. And we are not the ones to keep a half-ass service online.

We are sorry for a short notice, this was an urgent decision.

They gave no timeframe for when they would case operation, so I sent an email to their CEO. He said that they can not guarantee any specific time period, and to work on the basis that they are shutting down immediately.

I am going to have to run a bitcoin daemon on the server now instead. Can I use the bitcoin API to monitor the blockchain in general with a php cron or would I have to accept payments directly to that client? Need to do some documentation digging. Since I am doing this, I might as well transition to a randomly generated address based approach for payments.

I will probably have to suspend payments for the time being until this is sorted out.
Luckily, anyone who has already payed for bandwidth should not be affected.

This explains my payment troubles, of course.

I can envision several options to monitor the blockchain/network for transactions.

  • I haven't looked at it, but libbitcoin by genjix of Bitcoin Consultancy sounds cool (a reimplementation of bitcoin functionality as a well-written and -structured library).
  • Another option might be to poll blockexplorer.com/q/getreceivedbyaddress/
    , which will of course only work for transactions that are in blocks, so we'd have to wait for a block (very bad in my mind).
  • Normal bitcoind can be polled via rpc call "getreceivedbyaddress", of course, but unfortunately, that only works for addresses that are in the local wallet, which you might not want (attackable).
  • There are also several python implementations of (parts of) bitcoin, like bitcoin-alt (https://github.com/phantomcircuit/bitcoin-alt)
  • I myself use bitcoin-abe, which reflects the blockchain into a sql database. That also doesn't work for 0 confirmation payments, of course.
  • ...

So basically, if we want to detect 0 confirmation payments and have the private keys off-server, we'd have to either go with one of the alternative bitcoin implementations or use some service (maybe bit-pay.com?)

Just my 0.02 BTC, I'm not an expert.
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
I am using bitcoinnotify, which monitors the blockchain and sends POST notifications to my server. I received an email about 15 minutes ago from them that they are shutting down their service. I guess they have been having some server trouble. This is the email I received:

Quote from: bitcoinnotify
Any payment service requires a very careful maintenance and we were doing so responsibly over the recent months.

The service has never suffered any hack or a major technical problem, earning the trust of hundreds of users.

However, we can no longer invest resources necessary to ensure perfectly safe and robust payment processing. And we are not the ones to keep a half-ass service online.

We are sorry for a short notice, this was an urgent decision.

They gave no timeframe for when they would case operation, so I sent an email to their CEO. He said that they can not guarantee any specific time period, and to work on the basis that they are shutting down immediately.

I am going to have to run a bitcoin daemon on the server now instead. Can I use the bitcoin API to monitor the blockchain in general with a php cron or would I have to accept payments directly to that client? Need to do some documentation digging. Since I am doing this, I might as well transition to a randomly generated address based approach for payments.

I will probably have to suspend payments for the time being until this is sorted out.
Luckily, anyone who has already payed for bandwidth should not be affected.
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
Hi molecular. I have a payment notification received in the database to that address for 0.1545 btc. Is this your payment Everything seems to be fine with the payment system. I'm not quite sure what happened. Perhaps your connection dropped out temporarily? I will refund the bitcoin if you PM me with your payment address.

Nope, that's not it, amount doesn't match.

Here's the transaction I initiated:

Quote
{
        "account" : "",
        "address" : "13s85qvuAX14Z9ME6mMFF37QVNLr3FXA2f",
        "category" : "send",
        "amount" : -0.01420000,
        "fee" : -0.00050000,
        "confirmations" : 10,
        "txid" : "f419e80bc7dcc85e023f6bd3487d3367b981f9c95cf448bd7651a43a148bd039",
        "time" : 1320964109
    }

The page is still open, here's a screenshot



Are you storing the torrent urls? Dont want to paste the complete link here, but it ends in "1bb4dc5545311d123e84e5800924831/download.torrent".
The md5 of the torrent file is d403a0fb6289969a8ee51dfe9a29258f
Maybe this helps to locate stuff?
sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
Hi molecular. I have a payment notification received in the database to that address for 0.1545 btc. Is this your payment Everything seems to be fine with the payment system. I'm not quite sure what happened. Perhaps your connection dropped out temporarily? I will refund the bitcoin if you PM me with your payment address.
donator
Activity: 2772
Merit: 1019
I'm currently experiencing a problem with a payment not getting accepted. It's to address 13s85qvuAX14Z9ME6mMFF37QVNLr3FXA2f, txid: f419e80bc7dcc85e023f6bd3487d3367b981f9c95cf448bd7651a43a148bd039.

The payment popup is still open and the swirly thingy swirls.

tx now has 2 confirmations

Noteworthy fact: the block the tx finally got in (block 152758, block date: 2011-11-10 22:58:57) took about 30 minutes to be found after I broadcast the tx (2011-11-10 22:28:29). That block was found 42 minutes after the previous one, so I picked a really bad time for a transaction Wink

Now, the fact that the tx wasn't seen directly probably means that the bitcointorrentz bitcoind didn't see the broadcast, right? So it waits for the first block it appears in?

Maybe you have some bitcoind troubles (I myself had some yesterday and the glbse bitcoind also crashed a while ago, for example)


legendary
Activity: 1136
Merit: 1001
Ok, I have fixed the multiple status error. The site now reliably shows the status of simultaneously downloading torrents.

Members can also purchase bandwidth - just visit the members area, and take a look at the column on the right. Once you have topped up your account with a few GB of bandwidth, subsequent downloads will be deducted from this until you have no prepaid balance left. Once you run out, you will go back to having to pay on each use - until you top up your account again.

You are of course free to continue paying per use if you wish, but pre-paying is much faster than sending individual payments and having to wait for the bitcoin network to confirm the transactions each time. As long as you have enough bandwidth credit, the torrent will start immediately after you click download.

Another advantage of prepaying is that sometimes payments can take longer than 5 minutes, so the more individual transactions that you do, the more likely one of them is going to be delayed - which may result in you losing a few bit cents. Prepay means no waiting, no delays and no dropped payments.

Prepaying for the service also minimizes the cost of transaction fees compared with sending multiple transactions.

If anyone has any feedback on this, don't hesitate to post.

I have tested both pre-pay and multiple downloads, both work for me. Excellent work.

sr. member
Activity: 336
Merit: 250
Glad you like it dan.

With regards to the calculation of discount, it's still the same as before. Discounts do not apply until you actually use the bandwidth though. If you buy 20GB for example, your rate will still be the same as before until you use some of the the bandwidth and push your account over the next discount threshold.

Just purchasing bandwidth does not count as "download" until you use it and your "total usage" figure gets incremented. It is only when you use the bandwidth will your rate will come down for subsequent pay-per-use or bandwidth purchases.

Do you think it would be better to include purchased bandwidth immediately in the the discount calculation?
The maths become a little complicated.
hero member
Activity: 955
Merit: 1002
Ok, I have fixed the multiple status error. The site now reliably shows the status of simultaneously downloading torrents.

Members can also purchase bandwidth - just visit the members area, and take a look at the column on the right. Once you have topped up your account with a few GB of bandwidth, subsequent downloads will be subtracted from this until you have no prepaid balance left. Once you run out, you will go back to having to pay on each use - until you top up your account again.

You are of course free to continue paying per use if you wish, but pre-paying is much faster than sending individual payments and having to wait for the bitcoin network to confirm the transactions each time. As long as you have enough bandwidth credit, the download will start immediately after you click download.

Another advantage of prepaying is that sometimes payments can take longer than 5 minutes, so the more individual transactions that you do, the more likely one of them is going to be delayed - which may result in you losing a few bit cents. Prepay means no waiting, no delays and no dropped payments.

Prepaying for the service also minimizes the cost of transaction fees compared with sending multiple transactions.

If anyone has any feedback on this, don't hesitate to post.

Just tried it for the 10gb bundle - very slick.

One question - how are the discounts calculated for each 20gb - will the bandwidth available adjust itself after each 20gb?
If I were to buy the 50gb bundle now, the price is calculated at my current discount level.
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