How to get the full IP list of peers from a tracker?

[ShadowTek]

How does a person go about getting the full list of peer IPs from the tracker? I tried the Torrent Spy utility, but I didn't see a function for that.

I'm just curious to understand how people get the IP list from a tracker without actually connecting to each peer, and to know what utilities there are that do that.

[thelittlefire]

You don't. Well, you can, sort of... but you need to repeatedly request a large number of peers from the tracker. Most tracker software has some protections against such hammering. If you're wondering about http://mafiaa.org tactics use google. . .

Due to the "independent" nature of investigation there is no way to "know" what inestigative agencies use for "data collection", but presumably it's some sort of modded client.

Torrentspy? You mean http://torrentspy.sf.net ?

[ShadowTek]

Yeah, I was just wondering if people simply have to connect to large numbers of peers in a "normal" manner as a means of generating IP lists, or if there was a more direct method of doing things.

Yeah, that's the utility that I was referring to. I remember using it years ago, but it looks like it's been about that long since it's been updated.

[Switeck]

Trackers hand out probably 1-50 ip addresses per update. Some may hand out as much as 200 ip addresses. Each update may contain repeated ips. But if the torrent contains 1000+ peers+seeds, then it may be IMPOSSIBLE to get a complete list. A seed may disappear and have its ip removed from the tracker before the tracker hands out its ip to everyone.

[Ultima]

When you contact the tracker, the tracker adds your IP to its peer list and hands back a portion of its entire peers list. You can only connect to those peers until you find more sources for peers -- like PEX, DHT, LPD, or another tracker announce.