Death of the P2P net Predicted! Film at 11!

87C751 writes "Cnet has a preachy, whiny piece bemoaning the peer to peer "phenomenon" and its lack of commercialization potential. The humor comes when they claim that bandwidth limitations will ultimately doom P2P (as though bits that traverse through a server somehow take less bandwidth than bits sent from one box directly to another). " Alright, I'm a little softer then the submittor, although I agree with some points. The area that I do question is how much is actually shared - most of the people I see out there are taking, not contributing to the Gnutella and the like.

Comments

I admit, I do it..

[BilldaCat]

when I suck stuff down, I usually block/disable uploads, because I need that bandwidth.

I should probably turn it on at night when I'm not using the machine to give back, but I haven't bothered.. there's no penalty if I don't do it, so why should I? I know I'm not alone in that line of thinking, though it may be wrong.

Re:I admit, I do it..

[ToLu the Happy Furby]

When I use Napster, I only share about half my MP3s (still over 2 GB, and generally my more interesting stuff), because if I share them all it takes abominably long to log in.

When I use Gnutella, I often don't share at all, because my CPU utilization goes very high when I do, and then I can't listen to the new MP3s I'm getting without skips. (I assume this is due to my computer needing to check every search string that comes through against my list of shared files.)

Both of these problems are fixable with increased bandwidth and computing power. (Or maybe I just have a buggy version of Gnutella.) I'm very enthusiastic about the possibilities of P2P, and I genuinely try to share as much as possible. While I realize not everyone on Gnutella or Napster is as idealistic, I have a feeling the percentage who are is a good bit higher than the 2% (or whatever) reported. Of course you can't blame CNet for taking the "corporate whore" view of human nature, but in my experience people like to share with each other, and will especially do so whenever it is easy and doesn't have noticable drawbacks.

Aggregate bandwidth

[hey!]

as though bits that traverse through a server somehow take less bandwidth than bits sent from one box directly to another

The aggregate bandwidth needed for file transfers won't change; it's the bandwidth required for meta-information -- catalogs, searches and search responses, that goes up.

Has anybody done any theoretical research here? I'd guess that in a P2P network the bandwidth required to carry meta-information would go up O(N^2) -- that is you want to have a network of information distributing nodes that is some fraction of a complete graph. The Napster architecture, while introducing a single point of failure (at least from a legal standpoint), seems closer to optimal from a purely technical standpoint -- it centralizes meta information allowing O(N) growth of query bandwidth in nodes, and decentralizes data transfer.

Re:Aggregate bandwidth

[speek]

It depends on how you design your p2p architecture. If you design it like Gnutella, with communication done via multicast, then yes, your bandwidth usage can go up O(N^2). If, however, you're a bit smarter, and do things like, say, Freenet, then you avoid a lot of that problem. If you want more information about how Freenet works, then go there.

Essentially, the problem comes down to how do you find each other, and how do you find stuff. Finding each other is generally done with centralized services (eg DNS). But, there are other options, including limited multicast, expanding spheres of knowledge (ie you learn about 1 other node, and it tells you the nodes it knows, and they tell you the nodes they know, and so on - this is similar to Freenet). But, once you've found a node to talk to, bandwidth is the same as a non P2P network.

Finding stuff is a different matter, and I suspect part of the solution here is to learn to accept imperfection by design. No, you can't search everything because that would involve going to every node and querying it, which would be impractical. However, you can spider out through the nearest nodes, and they should be able to point your query in the most promising directions, and you could configure your search to be as far-reaching (and slow) or as near-sighted (and quick) as you like.

Another point to make is that there is the potential for our bandwidth capabilities to go through the roof in the relatively near future. With fiber, optical switching technology, we could easily see bandwidth essentially being removed as a bottleneck - perhaps in the next 5 -10 years.

S.S.D.P.

[EnderWiggnz]

Same Shiite, DIfferent Protocol.

i remember talking with my father in 1992 about this whole "internet" thing. he thought that no one would be able to make money on it, and that there is no compelling reason for it to be used.

and then came the web and all hell broke loose in 1994.

now we've got a different protocol, one that keeps true to the original intenet of the internet, and allows "Peer to Peer" sharing.

geez, the internet has always been peer to peer sharing, this is just allowing us to go back to this philosophy, and allow everyone to truly contribute back, instead of only those with large amounts of cash needed to generate hits.

so, all of a sudden, we will be back to the model that allows anyone to communicate with anyone else.

We're taking the power back with P2P. Using the internet what its meant to do - communicate, not make a buck...
tagline

Ratios...

[don_carnage]

It's been said before and I'll say it again: the best way to get this whole deal to work is with ratios. Just like in the good old BBS days.

Oh yeah...then we'll just have some jackass uploading Britney Spears mp3's renamed just to get download points...*sigh*

--

maybe on Gnutella....

[rainbowfyre]

I think that alot of people don't share on Gnutella, because they honestly don't know how. Once, they do, they never really get around to it anyone, because the current setup works for them.

Napster, and its near equals like Scour, all have sharing set up by default, and they both encourage you to stay online even if you're not using the program. Yesterday, on Scour, a whole bunch of people figured out that I had some somewhat rare anime videos. Instead of logging out when I was done, I just sent people messages that I wouldn't be there to monitor the transfers, and went to sleep. I think this happens more often than people think.

People love sharing; it makes them feel generous. However, it CAN'T be difficult to do. In Gnutella, it is.

-Rainbowfyre

Tech Articles or Obituaries?

[Luminous]

It seems to me it is becoming more and more common for tech writers to proclaim the death of one thing or another, even when it isn't true. Content, the web, desktop computers, and mp3's have all at one time or another said to have died, yet as far as I can tell, all are still doing quite well.

P2P has just scratched the surface. To say it is dead before it even gets out of the starting gate is a level of eagerness that surpasses morbidity.

There are constraining factors on p2p, but these will actually fade away as more people get broadband. Sharing will become more prevalent when it is made easy and has an obvious level of security (like Napster, where you choose which folder other's get access to). Also, as soon as it is decided what can and cannot be shared, that will open things up. I know I get a bit leary when I see people downloading my Juice Newton tunes, wondering if it is actually Juice's lawyers gearing up to sue me.

P2P may not be the next killer app, but it will become a mainstay of the internet like ftp. So let's stop paying attention to doomsayers who are just trying to be seen as prophets of the internet through Kassandra-like proclamations.

it's like a ripple

[maddogsparky]

I look at P2P as having a ripple effect. Like a ripple in a puddle, each of the water molecules only has an effect on the molecules near to it. It has very little direct influence on molecules far away. However, the laws governing propogation transfer the effect through all the interveining molecules and do effect further molecules.

Okay, enough of the analogy! The point is that long distance bandwidth (influence) is limited. However, short distance bandwidth to a limited number of peers is not a limiting factor. So, peers only need to look in their local "neigborhood". Since each "peer" has a slightly different "neighborhood",

drum roll pleese....

the information on the P2P network will propogate reguardless of bandwith restrictions on long-range connections.

Obvious to anyone that understands how news servers work, but aparently not CNN.

Total ignorant BS?

[jabber01]

First off, I DO understand the concept behind Napster, Gnutella and the like..

However, the whole idea that P2P is at all different than server-to-server is ridiculous. Just TRY to set up a P2P connection on the net without going through an ISP.. If you can, then you ARE and ISP. You are a 'server' - whether you have clients of not is irrelevant. Even major corporations today have to go through an ISP for their connection to the backbones. My little workstation has to make just as many hops to get to Mae West as Sony's data center.

There is no technical difference between gnutella and a couple of buddies running anonymous FTP servers on their home machines. There is no technical difference between that and IRC - except for volume of bits. Bits is bits is bits. The difference, the ONLY difference, is that there isn't a corporation extracting an additional toll on the data that's transmitted. There lies the 'problem' with P2P.

If Guntella and Napster were used to share vacation photos NOBODY would care. ISP's might jack up their rates based on how much pipe you use, but that's it. If the data transfered wasn't (arguably) someone's 'intellectual property', this would not even be an issue.

People have been running private FTP servers in a P2P fashion since before the WWW made server-to-server the defacto mode of operation. Before ISP's got on the band-wagon, is was all workstation to workstation, account to account, peer-to-peer.

Just because some kid slapped a web interface onto a hack of anonymous FTP doesn't suddenly make it a different technology. Just because he made it distributed doesn't make it anything more than simply 'convenient'. Searchable FTP has existed for a long time, also since before the www. Anyone remember the Archie tool? Indexing, and making it transparent is the next obvious step, not some revolutionary break-through.

P2P is nothing new, and it is nothing 'different' than what has always been done. Servers talk to each other as 'peers' too, don't they?

Just because a bunch of corporate-types label the same technology in two different ways, depending on wether they get a cut of the profits or not, does not make one way doomed and the other saved. Just because somone calls this 'piracy' and that 'a stable business model' does not make the two ways into different technologies.

P2P, S2S, B2B... It's all the same technology. It's the same protocols and algorithms. It's all the same bits. The difference is only in who is in CONTROL of THE DATA. He who controls the INFORMATION, controls the Universe.

As for P2P 'failing' due to low bandwidth at the 'local loop', well, that's just a hot, steaming pile of BS. Ye Olde Bulletin Board Systems (the ORIGINAL P2P networks) thrived on 2400 baud.. They thrived even more on 9600, then, when 14k came, the Internet had started to mature and began to offer more 'value', farther reach and more neat stuff. But the BBS's didn't 'fail'. Not due to poor performance or inequitable sharing of files within the communities they supported. In fact, the only times BBS's were put out of business (except for their owners personal choice) it was due to... (drum roll) PIRACY and kiddie porn.

The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196