Simply seeding doesn't feel enough anymore... I'd like to contribute by running a magnet link aggregator, a public or private tracker or whatever. Anybody got any tips on how to do it without revealing PII? Even if I were to set things up on a VPS instead of my own hardware, it still would require me to pay with payment methods that give away my name and banking info, right?

[–] far_university1990@reddthat.com 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

https://kycnot.me/

[–] SexualPolytope 12 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

Not always. You can pay by crypto at many places e.g. https://kyun.sh/

Also, many of the providers don't really validate anything so you can get away with providing random information, and paying with a prepaid debit card.

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Sorry for spamming. Got any insight into what specs I could manage with? I'm thinking, if I only want to mirror and/or aggregate some magnet links sites, I could make do with the bare minimum, right? Like a single core, two gig RAM setup + however much space a webserver serving text files would need? Ah, but then there would be considerable lag because of scheduling whenever more than one person tried to navigate the site? 🤔

[–] SexualPolytope 4 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 26 minutes ago) (1 children)

I think that should be enough. Maybe try two vCPUs if you wanna host other stuff too. But for just some mirrors/aggregators, one vCPU is probably enough. I don't think you really need to worry about RAM or storage either.

Computers are plenty fast these days. I think you'll only start to see actual performance issues when handling hundreds of simultaneous users.

In any case, you shouldn't be spending over $10/month. You can get much lower. Take a look at this. I don't know how reliable or secure they are, but they're very cheap. I've used their VPS in the past, and it seemed pretty okay.

Edit: You can also do what I do for heavier stuff like Jellyfin or Immich, and simply use the VPS as a relay. The actual stuff runs on my home server, connects to the VPS via Wireguard, which then masks its IP.

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 2 points 7 hours ago

Thanks for all the great advice! :) I'm reading Kyun's pages for now, then I'll check out this other one.

[–] emotional_soup_88@programming.dev 3 points 8 hours ago

Thanks for the tips about crypto and prepaid debit! We don't have prepaid debit in my country, unfortunately, but maybe I could by some XMR and pay with that. I'll read up on it! :)