Slashback: Taplight, Handheld, Samba

Slashback is packed tonight with updates and clarifications on several fronts: read on below for, among other things, BitTorrent download stats after the recent Red Hat 9 release, the BSA's questionable statistical methods when it comes to calculating incentives and losses in the source-secret software world, and (can you believe?) yet another way to assemble an eerie pulsing light fixture.

Click on through for some impressive graphs ... . bramcohen writes "Since RedHat 9 got /.'ed last week there have been over ten thousand complete downloads using BitTorrent. Initial traffic got very high, transferring over a gibibit a second. All throughout the BitTorrent servers, run by volunteers using stock tools, held up just fine. Meanwhile downloads from RedHat Network, only available to subscribers, transferred at a crawl. The third Animatrix also got quite a few downloads. Thanks to everyone who left their downloaders running, and David Stutz and Eike Frost for setting things up."

If you exaggerate enough the first time, subsequent revisions sound like concessions. Russell McOrmond writes "An article in ITBusiness.ca includes references to the methodology of the BSA studies, and how it confuses Free/Libre and Open Source Software with piracy. There are some related articles talking about CAAST/BSA on my work weblog from the past."

Tap, Tap, Tap. feagle814 writes "Recently, I saw a question on Ask Slashdot that intrigued me. The person was asking for ideas relating to building your own glowing and color-changing ball. Being the kind of person to take such a general request for comments and turn it into a personal reason for living, I quickly skimmed the description on ThinkGeek and came up with these requirements for my project:

1. It must meet the generic description of the Ambient Orb,
2. It must cost less than $50 to make,
3. It must be wireless, with at least a 30-foot range, and
4. It must be controllable by home computer.

After much deliberation, I came up with the following solution. I've included pictures and instructions, as well as a recounting of my experiences."

Not just a simulation. Olmy's Jart writes "This is a followup to yesterday's article on "Samba Exploit Discovered, Fixed". Digital Defense has posted an apology to the Samba Team for posting a complete live working exploit (not even a mere "proof of concept", but a zero day rooter) on their site for this vulnerability. The exploit has been taken down, for what that's worth now. This is being reported in an article on ZDNet AU. Digital Defense now claims that this was done without the approval of their management."

Funny, CompUSA is finally selling duplicators, too. Unominous Coward writes "According to this article, the man who planned to install CD copying machines around Australia has withdrawn from the idea. Not surprisingly, this was after a lawsuit by the music industry."

Anyone who would like to buy me one is free to do so. prostoalex writes "Sharp Zaurus deal is back at Home Shopping Network. Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 is $199, but a coupon code HSN4897 knocks the price down by 15%. With standard shipping the order comes to around $173."

We need both more Korean food and more Korean electronics. Jo "directhex" Shields writes "HEXUS.net has completed its extensive messing around with GamePark's GP32 Handheld, which recieved a mention a couple of days ago on Slashdot (and recieved the usual thrashing from members too busy to read the article but not too busy to post trashy ill-informed comments about it).

It should help to clear up a few myths about what the unit is, what it tries to do, and what it succeeds at doing. Read the review, and pass mighty Slashdot Judgement."

Comments

sad

[sixdotoh]

sad that cd duplicators are "illegal" even though this is in australia (where i happen to have been born), could this be the beginning of the end?

hopefully this will never spread to america, even for debate.

Alternative etailer

[bstadil]

FYI, You can get the Zaurus over at TigerDirect for $199. It is recertified and Tiger has kind of a dubious image although I have bought from them a few times with no problem.

Re:Never mind...

[mmol_6453]

Never mind the fact that the tinkerer's version is more flexible. The Ambient Orb version supports 125 unique color combinations(5^3), while the tinkerer's version supports 729 (9^3).

Quite a neat way he did it, too. He pulses the LEDs instead of setting a constant current. That way, he doesn't need a DAC to get widely variable levels of brightness.

Slashback: Ecosystem, Social Networks, TiVo

[Michael.Forman]

Every once in a while, I'm really motivated by a Slashdot post, and explore the problem further with some quick and light research and writing. By the time I've finished, most readers and moderators have long since left the post for fresher news and I'm left with a relatively small audience. In the spirit of Slashback I thought I could reincarnate those old posts for a second viewing.

While risking my Karma for something that could be seen as off topic, I do think it adds value to Slashdot and really doesn't fit anywhere else.

Ecosystem and Economy: In response to the standard environmentalist-versus-economist arguments that were flying about in a previous Slashdot post in reference to a Daily Telegraph article, I sought out a fresh viewpoint based on reductionism and the conservation of energy.

Social Network Theory: A Slashdot post led to a Register article, which was steeped in an unusual amount conspiracy theory. Suggesting that Google was gamed by a group of A-list bloggers, perhaps it is all simply just a result of social networks. This is a new topic to me, so if you know anything about social network theory, I'd love it if someone could take me to school.

First-Generation TiVo: In a discussion concerning second-generation TiVos I thought I'd whip up a quick script that would allow people to see what I'm currently watching as proof that my house wields the mighty sword of TiVo modding.

Mystery Treasure: I also put a not-so-well hidden page on my site to see if anyone would gravitate towards it, but it as of yet remains undiscovered. Hint: MSIE users will not get far. Consider it pay back for not doing PNG transparency. :P

Michael.

Bit Torrent questions

[mcrbids]

I've yet to see an actual answer to these questions:

1) Let's say I have a 500 MB file that gets slashdotted, and 10,000 people want to download it. Normally, that would be 500*10,000 MB or 5,000,000 MB (which is a !!@# of alot of bandwidth) of network capacity. Given an "ideal" scene, what would an expected bandwidth usage be if I ran a BitTorrent tracker and a see file? Could this conceivably be done on a T1, since the clients are (in theory) providing most of the upload bandwidth?

2) How much overhead does Bit Torrent add to connections that aren't all that busy? If 1 guy downloads that 500 MB file, how much more bandwidth would he use because of the BitTorrent protocol stuff?

I've yet to find a decent answer to these two questions anywhere.

-Ben

Re:Bit Torrent questions

[v1]

I looked at the specs for Bittorrent (thanks to the author who provides full specs!) and from that and what I saw when downloading Animatrix, it's easy to see what happens.

The system is designed to talk with other peers trying to download the same torrent file, and checks around to establish a list of best (fastest) providers. He's got a lot of nice adjustments in the protocol to favor swapping of parts too, which is a nice touch. (I'll give you block 25 if you give me block 18)

If the mesh has enough people that have already downloaded some blocks, (should happen almost immediately?) then the host basically does nothing besides help hook new downloaders into the mesh. This is why the host doesn't get /.'d at the start. (I'm assuming each BT client tries to download segments in random order)

As for the client's view of things... I was quite impressed with Bittorrent's ability to saturate my line as soon as it got moving. (it took a couple minutes to get its bearings in the mesh before it started) Once it was on its feet, it had my 768kbit line doing a solid 80+k/sec download. Very nice.

NOTE, there is a penalty. Iirc, Bittorrent forms up to 20 connections (download) at a time. This effect was very apparent in that two other file transfers that I had going at the time got the rug pulled out from under them. Instead of my "three" downloads getting an even split at say 25,25,25 k/sec, it was more like 80,3,2 k/sec. Bittorrent's use of many pipes, combined with the network and OS "sharing" the bandwidth between the pipes (instead of the applications) caused some nasty starvation on my other non-BT downloads.

Overall, I like it. I wish more big things were available via BT. I left Animatrix up for about six hours after it completed, and the mesh was only drawing between 0-4 k/sec from me during that time. Surely a fair trade! The author has a paypal link at his site, think about tossing him a couple bucks and lets see this evolve even farther.