Torrent site acquires Russian town, gives it free Internet
By Wilson • Aug 10th, 2010 • Category: Lead Story
- Photo: Stock.Xchng
The Internet is such a wonderful place. Really, it is. Where else would you hear of a large torrent service claiming to have bought a town so as to rename it and give its inhabitants free Internet access? Well, that’s pretty much exactly what TorrentReactor claims to have done. Funny thing is, the story only gets better.
Free Internet for the religious
TorrentReactor, the torrent service in the spotlight here, says it purchased Gar, a Russian town, for 4.5 million rubles (about £94,600). The community was set up by a religious group and it has a mere 214 inhabitants, with three computers amongst them all and one dial-up connection.
In all its ‘benevolence’, TorrentReactor wants to give the entire town broadband Internet access.
It’s true, no it’s not, it’s true!
Naturally who is going to believe a story about a torrent site purchasing a town, for crying out loud? TechRadar claims its Russian sources in the area say that the whole thing is made up, whereas TorrentReactor is insistent it purchased the town. The crew at ‘Reactor went so far as contacting all-things-bit-torrent TorrentFreak to state the legitimacy of its case, and even putting up a profile of the mint village online.
Helping villages
TechRadar managed to even source a comment from a spokesperson. ‘We realise it’s just a drop in the ocean comparing to the amount of money needed to help thousands of other villages. But we at least do something to support complete strangers.’ Again, oh so benevolent. ‘We are proud that we are able to do so and hope we will be proud of this in the future,’ said the spokesperson.
This sounds like a very elaborate 4chan joke taken to the nth degree. And it probably is. Which is why, all piracy issues aside, you gotta love the humour of torrent services, yet more importantly, you have to marvel at the majesty of the Internet. It truly is a wonderful place. How awesome it would be if this story was true, though!
Tags for this article: broadband Internet, Internet access, torrent service, torrent site, TorrentReactor
