How safe is it to download from Pirate Bay? Any spyware or worse? How would freerepublic use it to communicate?
How safe is it to download from Pirate Bay? Any spyware or worse? How would freerepublic use it to communicate?
It's not the actual servers on Pirate Bay that are the problems. All they have is a "link" which gets you started to downloading at other people's computers. The "material" (that you download) is as good as the person who first puts it up there. See the BitTorrent protocol ...
But, with Free Republic and our own members, you'll know and recognize who is putting it up (you sign-up and you get an account name and that particular account name will be the one who first has the original material available, and they are the ones who will be the first "uploaders", so you are trusting a "FReeper" for that). So, you'll be getting the material from a "known source" -- that is, someone on Free Republic.
In addition to that, if something is detected and something is wrong (i.e., some virus or problem; let's say that a user was infected, unkknowingly himself and inadvertently was uploading bad material), that material can be deleted immediately, because that "link" has "comments" on it. The first few people who have downloaded it can do a "check" for viruses or worms and can "verify" it for all the others (that's what happens already there). So, again, it's very difficult for something like that to get going on Pirate Bay.
In regards to how Free Republic would use it to communicate ... it's like I said earlier -- it's "not a board" ... it's for files -- like documents, lists, video, audio, even entire websites. That's what it's for. And for that purpose, if you have to disseminate material to FReepers that it's impossible to get any other or -- or else -- it's being blocked by the government -- this is the way you can bypass all "blocks" and get it disseminated through the Pirate Bay ... :-)