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Finally Real P2P With Brains

Posted by timothy on from the single-counterexample dept.

dfelznic writes: "The mp3 archives of CodeCon are now availble, which is news in itself. But what makes this real interesting is that they are being distributed by BitTorrent. BitTorrent allows users to download a file from multiple different people. Instead of everyone nailing one server, users get the file from other users. Furthurnet uses a similar technology to distribute legal bootlegs of concerts. The archive is available at the BitTorrent demo downloads page. As soon as I started downloading (cable modem) at around 300k I got a request for the file and began uploading at 40k. This could be the answer to the slashdot effect;) Now, who is going to be the first to complain about the use of mp3s instead of oggs?"

3 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Will not help the slashdot effect by Xenopax · · Score: 2, Offtopic

    Ok people, I know we all have this dream of distributed web serving, but as a web developer I feel I must explain why this will not work now:

    1) Response Time

    To make this work you need more than a fancy P2P network. Remember site like slashdot are database backed and update very quickly. Sure slashdot caches pages, but many things like user preferences and comments are updated way to quickly for a P2P network too distribute it.

    2) Security

    Yes you can encypt, but who other than a hobbist is going to put the content that represents them on several machine at once and expose themselves to someone breaking it. If someone was successful they could do things like change the slashdot homepage for those they are distributing to. You cannot be a credible source and distribute yourself like that.

    3) Slashcode (yeah I know, slashdot specific)

    Have any of you actually read slashcode? I'll tell you what, it is damn complicated. There is no way a simple patch is going to make a site like this distributable. The entire thing would need redesigned, which is no small job. I'd say that this would be the case for any database backed site as well.

    4) Databases

    Since I mentioned a few times already, I think I'll point out the flaw here. Name one database system that is able to handle and organic network of servers (ie constantly going up and down), keep all the data available, keep all the data available on a resonable connection (not behind 56k lines), give the response time you need, doesn't take up huge amounts of systems resources, and can easily be set up on one of the P2P nodes by even a reasonably competent user. Oh that's right none, and you have to have that in order to have a dynamic site on a P2P network, which is a huge portion of the web at this point.

    Well, that's all I can think off right now on this, but I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons why this isn't feasible in the near future.

    Cheers

  2. Re:Nice. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    http://furthurnet.com

  3. DNA Lounge by apirkle · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    Interesting tidbit, CodeCon was hosted at the DNA Lounge, the nightclub in San Francisco that was recently bought, remodeled, and reopened by JWZ (also known as Jamie Zawinski), the "retired" programmer of Netscape fame.


    Pics from the con are also available on the club's website.