PornoLab

A Subversive Spirit Cannot be Killed

Every once in a while, the internet produces something that shakes the very foundation of certain institutions. Whether it is a regular website, a porn site, or a whole new way of interacting with one another and the world, it is impossible to overstate the importance of and the influence that the web has had on human development. Bitcoin, for example, decentralized monetary transactions – revolutionizing the way in which people value currency and threatening to overthrow the very power of fiat currency systems all over the world. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter came along and completely altered social interaction, monetizing consumers through their data and providing an entirely new paradigm of social motivation. And Wikipedia re-envisioned knowledge; it functions on the noble assumption that information should be free and open, and that people will peer-review facts, pro bono, merely in the service of propagating truth. Torrenting, too, has had a similarly radical effect on the ways in which we consume media, as well as what constitutes ownership. The very notion of torrenting presupposes a sort of liberation of art, says that the free and open spread of media content is more important than the monolithic ownership and profit potential of it. And as every aspect of the world becomes increasingly bought and sold, benefited most by those who already have massive levels of wealth and power while the overwhelming majority is kept in the middle and lower classes, torrent sites have the potential, like Bitcoin, to destabilize the class divide. Which is why, especially in particularly authoritarian regimes like that of the Russian empire, such subversive technologies are so ardently quelled by governments. When you add the illusory ‘moral threat’ of pornography into the mix, power mongers act even more ferociously in an attempt to make sites like Porno Lab disappear.

The Most Resilient Porn Torrent Site in History?

Porno Lab – the largest Bit Torrent tracker site in Runet (the Russian internet) – began operating on the 5th of July 2008. It started out by transferring porn videos and photos from the torrent site, Torrents.ru (which can now be found at rutracker.org) to a separate server. Why, you might be wondering, would Porno Lab be interested in merely funneling all of the porn from one already popular Runet porn site to their own? Well, Porno Lab wished to combat one large problem that Torrents.ru seemed to have when it came to their xxx torrents: there were not enough users seeding files – specifically the pornographic files – and, therefore, much of the content was unavailable for download. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the innerworkings of how torrent trackers work, Pornsites.com is happy to break it down for you (while, hopefully, not boring you to death). Torrents depend, in a very basic sense, on two groups of active participants: seeders and leechers. Seeders are those who are already in possession of a given file. They are expected, in order to be responsible members of their torrenting community, to “seed” those files. In other words, keep them actively uploading to their torrent site of choice. Leechers, on the other hand, are users who are downloading a file at a given time through their torrent client of choice (Bit Torrent, U Torrent, etc.). If there are less seeders than there are leechers, a complete download will not be possible. The key is to have many more seeders than leechers at any one time. This is because when a torrent is being downloaded, it is being downloaded in fragments (or, “bits) from hundreds or thousands of different people, all at once; each person (or seeder) providing a different piece of the whole file, one second to the next. The fewer seeders of a file there are, the slower the process. And if there aren’t enough seeders … well, you get the picture. On August 20th, 2010 Porno Lab was met with their first challenge posed by the establishment. A number of popular and widely used email services (Hotmail, Mail.ru, Pochta, and others) began auto filtering known torrent site email addresses into users’ spam folders. This resulted in would-be users potentially not being able to find confirmation emails to complete site registration, as well as existent users’ password recover emails not showing up in their inboxes. Porno Lab’s response, however, was swift and simple: they advised users to use Gmail to register. From there, the government began their attack on Porno Lab. In 2011, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine seized Porno Lab’s servers. And a criminal case was opened – not under copywrite laws, actually, but under article 301, which outlawed “Distribution of pornographic content.” From there, Porno Lab went on the lam, an outlaw torrent tracker without a home. Their next stop was Lithuania, but it was eventually disconnected. Next, Germany. Russia officially blocked Porno Lab and its mirrors in 2016. It has since been found on Runet as pornolab.lib. And in parts of the world with a freer internet, Pornolab.net can still be accessed. Clearly one of the more resilient sites of its kind to ever exist, what does this sordid website look like today? Well, let’s take a look, shall we? One can only hope that, amidst so much legal and technical turmoil, the site’s greatest assets – its fervent base of dedicated seeders – has not been dissuaded.

Strange Format Garners Mixed Feelings

Well, the first thing that you are likely to notice about Porno Lab (particularly if you are familiar with torrent sites) is the fact that it has taken the format of a forums site. Instead of the typical layout that you will find on a site like The Pirate Bay or 1337x, in which you conduct a search and choose from a list of files (not entirely unlike a search engine for torrents), Porno Lab is broken into discussion sections. This has its benefits, sure, but it also has its disadvantages. Firstly, it is extremely organized, each file archived meticulously by genre (and subgenre), making it very easy to find your corner of the Porno Lab. On the other hand, however, if you are looking for a specific title or actress, you are probably going to have to do a bit of digging, risking the possibility of never finding exactly what you were looking for to begin with. That being said, perhaps Porno Lab is best used for those days where you aren’t quite sure exactly what it is that you’re looking for. If you are a browser, a porn hunter, Porno Lab will be a priceless resource. Digging for new videos and girls within your preferred categories has never been easier on a torrent tracker.

Size Matters

Where Porno Lab really shines is in its data. Hop over to the section of site marked “Tracker Statistics” to see a breakdown of the site. As of January 2nd, 2018, Porno Lab boasts nearly 3.3 million registered users; 613,449 unique distributions; and a grand total of 1.84 billion downloads. These numbers are beyond impressive. How often can you say that you’ve stumbled upon a site with close to literally one million pornos to choose from? That site is Porno Lab. One thing about the site, though, that seems a little counterintuitive (as well as counterproductive) is the fact that the seeder to leecher ratio does not appear to be listed anywhere. Most torrent sites will provide this data alongside the file name on the list before you click into it. Porno Lab does not include this information for some reason, making it impossible for you to know if your torrent ever will download, or to gauge the speed you can expect it to arrive with. This also makes it difficult for Porn Sites to assess how effective the site is as a whole, as it depends so much on that ratio. One thing that Porn Sites can comment on, however, is the fact that a thread is pinned on the front page that reads, “Seeding urgently needed!” There is no date, however, to accompany this plea – so, for all we know, it could be dated. Another asset of a solid porn torrent site is the inclusion of screenshots. Especially when it comes to a porn torrent site that relies so heavily on browsing as the main method by which to enjoy it fully. Do Porno Lab torrent files come with accompanying screen captures? Well, it is hit or miss. Some do, some don’t. Much is left a mystery on Porno Lab, it seems. All in all, is Porno Lab still the behemoth of porn torrenting that they were before war was waged upon them by powerful institutions and governments? Well, unfortunately, it would appear as if the battle scars can still be felt … however, there is no denying the fact that Porno Lab’s number of available titles dwarfs most other xxx torrent sites, easily. And the community seems to not be too deterred – comments abound on most of the torrents, helping each other through the process. This site will never truly die.