Maybe, it’s definitely a possibility. What’s weird is the original uploader (https://1337x.to/user/VitaminX/) remains unaffected and users were reporting this up to 3 days before it was taken down with very compelling evidence - the miner was barely hidden and only when it blew up on Reddit was any action taken.

Absolutely. It took a bit of digging, but I found an archive with some of the comments: https://web.archive.org/web/20230805153327/https://www.1337x.to/torrent/5753101/Baldurs-Gate-3-GOG-Digital-Deluxe-Edition-Multi13-Baldur-s/

It only goes up to yesterday, so some of the recent comments (especially from mods) are missing - but this should provide sufficient evidence. Mods’ combative and defensive comments from today were widely viewed (just look at Reddit), their authenticity is not under question. That being said, comments from Ex0duS5150 are present, proving mods were aware of the listing early on.

User comments provide proof that malware was uploaded (and 1337x mods themselves admitted it was malware in the Reddit response), yet VitaminX remains unaffected on the site: https://1337x.to/user/VitaminX/

Also, to be clear, there is no evidence one way or the other that 1337x mods took a share of the money - not what anyone here really cares about anyways. What’s being put under scrutiny is the fact that they defended a listing which was clearly malware only until it gained attention on Reddit and similar.

You replied to this comment:

I think there’s been comments calling out the malware that have been deleted, possibly by the admins. In addition the infected torrentes stayed up for a long while (not sure if they still are or not)

… with this reply:

Haven’t seen any evidence of either of those things though…

Can you see how I would misunderstand what you were talking about here?

They admit the listing existed in that statement, and there are easily accessible records of 1337x mods defending the listing prior to its deletion (such as the comment I had also provided in my post). You may need to re-read it?

I can provide additional sources if necessary.

See my reply to Whiskey Pickle for the evidence.

See my reply to Whiskey Pickle for the evidence.

1337x mod response on Reddit, seemingly confirming the existence of the torrent: https://i.imgur.com/ij4CXIm.png

They appear to be implying that it was only checked, verified to be malware and deleted… after the listing was vigorously defended by mods and users complaining that it was malware were banned. Very odd.

EDIT: Found an archived copy of the listing before it was taken down by 1337x mods. Includes some comments (up to yesterday).

https://web.archive.org/web/20230805153327/https://www.1337x.to/torrent/5753101/Baldurs-Gate-3-GOG-Digital-Deluxe-Edition-Multi13-Baldur-s/

User comments provide proof that malware was uploaded (and 1337x mods themselves admitted it was malware in the Reddit response), yet VitaminX remains unaffected on the site: https://1337x.to/user/VitaminX/

There are preserved comments from the 1337x mods, such as:

Ex0duS5150: the next user posting, “Trojan found” is getting the ban hammer. Stop it with the n00bishness. this torrent is not dirty if you dont know what your doing stop DLing torrents.

reply:

IGGGAMESCOM: @Ex0duS5150: thank you so much for this reassurance buddy, now I can breathe a sigh of relief instead of having to “fight” with those guys, lol.

deleted by creator

If the admins endorse malware, it’s best to assume the entire site is compromised.

I love RedReader, but I know that the accessibility exemption is temporary. It could end whenever.

It just makes more sense to move to Lemmy regardless.

I have since learned that it doesn’t access their onion service anyways, it apparently just goes back out to the clearweb

Using anything other than the official Tor Browser to access onion sites is sketchy and drastically reduces your anonymity (speaking as a former entry and exit node operator.) Is it open source?

improving.duckduckgo.com is not something they try to hide, you can easily disable it in your search engine settings. DDG was launched in 2008 and has a pretty solid track record - I think we can forgive the Names DB thing at this point.

I just installed using a different OS (Debian) and it works. Not sure why, but I’ll take it. Posting from my new instance!