BitTorrent Guide
An anonymous reader writes "BitTorrent is the new latest/greatest P2P app to come and one of the MP3 rags has published a guide to it. Shareaza has already started to implement support for it, though support is in the early stages. The ruling is blazing fast downloads, but the difficulty of finding .tor files and other issues shows it is still a work in progress with strong niche potential. Information to host files on BT can be found here." It remains to be seen if Bit Torrent can outlive P2Ps bad rep since it is a really useful application.
No, if Bit Torrent can be implemented as a standard protocol for all web browsers *then* it will have real potential.
./ effect!
Potential dissipate the
... a tool to download very big files like iso's. The other case where it really is useful is when links to large files are posted on slashdot. In that case it's already useful for files over a couple of mb.
This is RiverTonic's sig.
you just need to find different sites for your specific needs, for example one site that will have a weekly torrent for that tv show like to watch, another site for the latest films, another for your cds... yeah, it takes a bit more work than other p2p programs, but it's worth it to get around the bogus files and slow download times of other p2p programs. and where do you find these torrent sites? google...
sig.
I wouldn't call it a P2P application in the typical file sharing sense. Isn't it more of a "poor mans Akamai"?
If you're into the whole anime thing, like I am, Bit Torrent is a godsend. BitTorrent is the biggest thing to happen to digital fansubs since DivX.
/.ing away. Something like that will require much thinking however.
Prior to BitTorrent acquiring digital fansubs of anime was extremely difficult. Especially if you weren't at a college campus. The files are 200MB, so dial up users are out. Releases were made on IRC fserves, so propagation was slow. Things made their way slowly onto other p2p networks like WinMX and DC, but you were never able to find anything and everything. And only IRC fanboys could get things guaranteed as soon as they came out.
BitTorrent changed everything. Check out Anime Suki. The fansubbing groups are now setting up torrents of every episode they release. And every day the newest ones are listed as they come out. So anybody who has a fast enough connection, or is willing to wait for 200MB can get fansubs when they come out, guaranteed. The best new stuff is not limited to the fanboys anymore. And you don't have to deal with other p2p networks where people will do "trad3z onli!" or otherwise cancel your download. And no queues either.
The problem with BitTorrent is that when a file is no longer popular, BitTorrent becomes useless. And if a file is small BitTorrent is also useless. You need lots of people downloading and uploading and you need a big file. Prior to BitTorrent putting a video on a web page either meant you were badass or a big company with big ass servers and bandwith. Or nobody visited you and it didn't matter. BitTorrent brings video back to the web. WebMasters no longer need to fear crashing and burning if they host an awesome video.
If only there was something like SiteTorrent that found some way to keep
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
BitTorrent has been used already for quite some time. Any anime fan would know AnimeSuki where torrent links are listed for Unlicensed anime. In short, this is nothing new.
http://www.torrentse.cx/
Has links to warez. I thought slashdot had some policy about not posting links to warez...
I fought the corporate America, and the corporate America bought the law.
Now, my issue is.. why can't I easily help serve that file again? If bittorrent would allow me to select the torrent file and the local file to use, I would be more satisfied. (and no, obscure command-line parameters aren't welcome, if it's for windows, then at least provide a sufficient GUI interface).
Still, if you're looking for something older than a few weeks, you're looking at something like edonkey, but speeds will be far more pathetic.
The problem with BitTorrent is that "advanced"(ie, unofficial) clients are springing up like weeds, and they let you fudge with all sorts of parameters(how many clients you upload to and stuff, for example). If the p2p authors didn't originally let you tweak it, it's probably because you SHOULDN'T tweak it. Edonkey has seen the same problems- you should see the configuration parameter list for mldonkey. It's horrible- more rope for users to hang not themselves, but the network.
Worse, the "advanced" BT clients let you change your upload rate. Part of the reason BT is so absolutely, amazingly fast is that it forces you to use all your upload, which pisses off the kiddie leechers who don't realize you gotta pay(full upload capacity) to play(maxxing out your download.) I noticed right after the "advanced" and 3rd-party tools came out that speeds dropped.
Please help metamoderate.
I can't believe this mentions that torrents are hard to find. Here's how you find torrents.
Pull up google, type in something like this:
"what you're looking for" +bittorrent +download
You should have a list of sites that have links to that torrent. Or, you can read a site that keeps track of torrents and uses trackers. My personal favorite is torrentse.cx, but suprnova.org isn't too bad either. Sure these sites have illegitimate stuff on them, but there's also useful and legal files on there from time to time if that's a concern of yours. Problem is there's far too many people that just close the window after it's finished to "conserve bandwidth." Bittorrent doesn't work if you don't leave that damn window open, you can however set maximum upload rate from the command line, which I highly recommend using if you're on a connection that must be monitored.
Bittorrent is great, the more people using it at any given time makes it even better. Just make sure you read the documentation so you fully understand how it works and that it may take a while to start to download.
rofl, anybody else found that very very funny? gigamegas...lol. mhz of ram....lmao
.. into a more easy to use application is Effusion which is an attempt to embed bittorrent within an irc application to make sharing/downloading a little easier on irc channels. However it is important to note that just because bittorrent is very convenient to share files, it is not designed to replace other p2p sharing apps with dodgy content. The bittorrent developers, and indeed also the Effusion developer (me) stress the LEGAL use of bittorrent technology. Note that it is trivial to obtain the source of files with bittorrent, so do not share anything you don't have the right to.
is this server using bit-torrent to serve html cos id have thought this site would be /.'ed by now, but it still loads up super quick.
Could you serve web content using bittorrent?
AC
For everything else, http://www.torrentse.cx, which has a comment system for each torrent file so people can post up their thoughts. Also they allow people to upload their own torrents. This site has the following sections: Misc, Movies, TV, Music, Porn, Books, Games, Software, Comics, and Anime.
Also, http://www.suprnova.org is good too, but has been having a lot of problems lately. They have: Games, Movies, TV Shows, Music, Apps, Misc, and DVD
http://www.bitetorrent.com has TV Shows, Movies, Music, Apps, Games, Comics, Anime and Misc. Allows people to upload their own torrent and has a tracker as well.
http://torrents.slash0.org/ also includes TV Shows, Movies, Games, and a Misc section.
The following are the best TV-only BitTorrent sites. http://www.marksailes.uklinux.net/bt/ http://www.tvtorrents.com
Anyways, those are the most popular BitTorrent places. And with me posting this now (and perhaps getting modded up =D), they should be even better and faster (if the website doesn't die from the load first).
"My personal favorite is torrentse.cx [torrentse.cx], but suprnova.org [suprnova.org] isn't too bad either. "
Lends new meaning to the phrase:"Let the sun shine in".
No checksums? It uses SHA-1 to verify file integrity. That is pretty reliable!
Resuming with another p2p app? What apps let you do that anyway? When would you want to resume with another app?
Forced to upload? That is what makes downloads so fast. If everyone leeches, nobody gets good download speeds.
My server
BT works well ATM as the current client doesn;t allow/offer any form of throtteling, this is more important when it comes to the upload stream and as such there are alot of good download clients out there for you to share/distribute from. This issue is when throtteling clients come on the scene (started already) which offer you the ability to have a full T1 yet for all effect offer a pishy modem upload rate to everybody else and then 1 at a time.
Once these clients start to take hold then BT will be just as fast as all the other P"P networks out there.
Upload throtteling should be the privledge of peole who sponser/contribute to the development of p2p clients and not joe public who eventual kill the spirit of the networks with there greed.
was not aware it used sha-1
as for resuming, lets say i got half a file from kazza, i can rename it and resume it from dc++
not possible with bt
leeching is sometime needed.
"Hey look at this cool new bittorrent tool. People are illegally trading games and movies and mp3s with it. Here's a big list of sites where all the pirates exchange information for all of you!" Brilliant. Say goodbye to all of the bittorrent site you can find from this slashdot article. They won't last long now.
Get them here.
PS - if you know of any good bob dylan boot sites, let me know
The torrent creation guide relies on the stock completedir; bleh... a much better replacement is MakeTorrent. Currently it's an enhanced/modified completedir (sources are available, so you can use it under *nix), but I'm working on a complete rewrite. There are guides here and here.
I'm also developing an alternative client, and many people prefer the interface to the stock one.. it's called burst! (front-end is released GPL, back-end currently still relies on the python code which is MIT).
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
Lots of Friends stuff is available here.
Here are weekly episodes of lots of shows.
If anyone needs another example of innovation in Free Software (besides the web browser, or gee the whole freakin' internet), BitTorrent is it.
Story here
I remember the last time I clicked on a .cx domain.....
Still struggling to recover, after 2 years..
By the way, torrentse.cx is not just about sex. I think the name refers to something like "my prrrecious torrentses".
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
...and those problems are nearly always the users. Networks are stuffed full of leeching goits who deliberatly try and minimise the ammount they upload, making P2P much less useful.
The best P2P solutions are ones run where bandwidth is excessive (DC on campuses for example, where 1mb/sec upload was no skin off the nose of the user with 100mb/sec internally) or private groups (like my local SSH+DC system that only has 6 users).
Freenet seems to be pretty good at enforcing people to be altuistic and not selfish, as well as taking away any worries about traceability or culpability. It also helps that the person inserting the content is not the one mirroring it to the users - everyone shares the load equally which keeps it managable. Try putting up real live files on Kazaa and see how fast your connection gets nuked. It wouldn't surprise me if long after the current generations of P2P clients had collapsed under the weight of their own users self centeredness that only that one was still going.
Beep beep.
if you've got ``Hard Memory'', I think that means your computer doesn't need any more porn...
Geez, another geek with atrocious spelling. How can I take ANYBODY'S technical advice seriously when they're tripping all over basic words?
"...spread threw Bit Torrent..."
"...while download's are blazing fast..."
"...use ALL you're bandwidth..."
John Kerry is a Joke!
huh?
Shutup, assrammer.
It's really tough to find seeded torrents for older stuff. The BT client should autoseed anything you've gotten off torrent that is still laying around.
I believe BT works by taking the file, and chunking it into pieces... but clients randomly download pieces.. they are not grabbed in order. This makes sense statistically if you want to share the load around.
To a degree, BT is designed so a client won't send chunks over a certain number to a certain host unless it has also received chunks from that host... is this not correct? This is to prevent pure leeching. You can leech, of course, but your rate will not be near what it can be if you upload.
...bittorrent will be most useful as an alternative to web downloading huge legitimate files, like the Baen CD-ROMs or Linux distros. It's blazing fast, or can be, but it's just too easy to shut down a tracker/website, just like what was done to Napster. There's no anonymity here, and the only reason sites like torrentse.cx are around at all is that the RIAA/MPAA haven't noticed them yet. Once they do, kiss 'em goodbye.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
I've heard complaints about and requests for "advanced" features, on the mailing lists, on IRC, and of course here. As far as the P2P protocol is concerned, I trust Bram's judgment. There are no plans to include any advanced features like upload bandwidth throttling. Instead, what I'm hoping will differentiate the Java port will be the GUI and ease-of-use, the ability of testers familiar with Java (leading to great security and QA), and code cleanliness.
If you're at all interested in seeing a (mostly) working Java implementation, and the only feature-for-feature 'official' version, check out JTorrent, and drop me a line. If you're curious about other language ports, or other ports with different goals, check out the "btports" Yahoo group. For general questions, or questions about the original Python, use the "bittorrent" Yahoo group, or go to #bittorrent on irc.freenode.net.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
If you used BitTorrent before, you probably noticed that most Trackers currently cannot handle the load created by the hyping of BT. Thus, more Trackers need to be established (See here) </shameless ad>
...it's just that we share more and more. But a typical mp3 album is still on the order of 3-5mb*10-15, a DVD rip 650-700mb*1-2, and a game 2-3 cds. Even the 7th Guest was two CDs back when I had my 1x CD reader. Better compression like .ogg, mpeg4 avc and similar means that files actually become smaller, not larger.
Not to mention bandwidth increasing. When I had ISDN, I used download accelerator *all the time*. Now I got 1Mbit and hardly ever bother, because it's so fast anyway, at least given the right server.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"It wouldn't surprise me if long after the current generations of P2P clients had collapsed under the weight of their own users self centeredness that only that one was still going."
HeHe. There's a sort of irony about warez, and other such complaining about the effects of self-centeredness. What next? Drunk drivers complaining about having their licenses revoked.
That if we're all using it for web pages (downloading and uploading as we go along) the amount of end user bandwidth (which is unmetered) will increase and the amount of server bandwidth (usually metered) will decrease? Imagine how happy cox would be if every computer on their cable network was functioning as a mini-web server at all times. The ISPs will not like this, and will start either raising rates or capping bandwidth. Yeah, I know bandwidth is getting cheaper, but I'm sure Cox would rather pocket those savings then spend them on network upgrades.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The best P2P programs don't download blocks sequentially, but in random order (avoiding the last block distribution problem). BT and ed2k are among these, and its the reason why you can't resume from foreign programs. No big deal.
"The lesson to be learned is not to take the comments on slashdot too literally." --Vinnie Falco, BearShare
BitTorrent creates a sparse output file and then populates it with data in a quasi-random order. You can't resume these files with software that assumes that all data up to the end of file mark has been populated, but you can resume with any rsync or any other program program which supports differential file transfers. Rsync will checksum the blocks with missing data, determine that those blocks don't match the remote file, and transfer only those blocks.
"Are you from the RIAA/MPAA?"
Does he need to be?
Will that make him easier to dismiss?
Not everybody who reads /. is used to speak and write English all the time. Although they try to write in English. You should give them a chance. And I'm sure you understand the message what they try to say.
And your technical knowledge has nothing to do with your language skills.
This is RiverTonic's sig.
It appears like you have difficulty in reconciling your homosexual urges. I suggest you seek counciling.
" BitTorrent, while being a cool technology, still only exists for users to download files which are either copyrighted (warez/mp3/svcd) and/or illigal (porn of varying extrmes) and therefore will eventually die:" Did you miss the part where major Linux distros use it to send out the latest version?
1) Large collections of small files: It would be really cool, to me, if small files out of a large catalog could be picked and chosen over a single bittorrent session. I'm envisioning this being used for things like debian package pools. Forget all these mirrors, let's find a way to let everyone who downloads an individual package share that with the next person who wants it. I don't know enough about other distributions, but anyone else who has to keep a large number of small packages up to date would benifit greatly from this.
2) Small, high-demand, and/or frequently changing sites. One only needs to look at http://www.suprnova.org/ and http://www.torrentse.cx/, two major torrent hosting sites, to see the problem. All too often small informational sites with no real massive payload get squashed by the slashdot effect. Surely the idea of using bittorrent's neccesarilly distributed nature to move around signed, up-to-date, small suites of related html & images is amoung the biggest potential opprotunities for small-time independant web publishers to survive high bandwidth demands?
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
There is a major problem with BT: while Linux can handle characters like ":" and "|" in a filename, Windows cannot. This causes problems when a Linux user like me posts a torrent to my files, and Windows users have trouble downloading. When will the makers of BT fix this?
-macedon
seems like SuprNova (http://suprnova.org), a large BT link site has been slashdotted. what a pity... as reads on main page: "Thanks for asking slashdot... users, we will be back" it raises the question if slashdot should inform the webmasters of the potential increase in bandwidth use because of the post on slashdot, or whether it is their problem and slashdot is exercising free speech.
Surely this type of service is great in an asynchronous environment, but aren't the vast majority of fat pipes around the world are upload capped? as the number of users increases, surely the sum of the bandwidth downloading will ultimately be limited by the bandwidth uploading - not a problem at the moment as there are a good number of people on t1s etc, but as more and more people use the service, is this not going to become a problem?
... this could be useful for those 2-3 minute audio/video clips that the commercial news services run as well. "Breaking news" is always that, a lot of people nailing a server to get "the latest".
in other news, torrentse.cx, another majoy BT link distro has been brought down as reads on main page: "Slashdot sucks. Oh yeah, we'll be back." with a page title of "CmdrTaco's wife is fat" where have they been the last few months??!
no, but you missed the part where the latet redhat was put up when it was only available to paying subscribers.
Yep, since its open source it will be easy for the RIAA to find out who is downloading and DDS them (if you are lucky)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Downloading the newest Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle at the moment. Bittorrent is really great for getting TV shows before they air, it's like my own personal Tivo that ignores causality.
So here is a blurb from suprnova.org
Thanks for asking slashdot...
users, we will be back
OK, so now people are getting pissed if we slashdot their servers. Since when on the Internet do you have to "ask" to see a webpage. Well, if you don't like it then don't post your servers on the *public* Internet. DUUUUUUH! I have an idea, don't want us coming in? Make things password protected for your precious little community. Don't be a bitch because someone is interested in your site. Next thing you know people will be bitching because a search engine found their site. [SARCASM]Thanks for asking Google![/SARCASM]
Thats the end of my rant.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Here
The BitTorrent FAQ and Guide site is rapidly becoming the main collection point for all information BitTorrent. If you have questions or curiosities, check it out.
Since it's a "SHARING" program people can post whatever they want, wether it has a copyright or not. People are individuals and they in the end determine what gets posted. I have seen manly Linux distros available for download, which is legit, not to mention people posting things like collection of Wallpapers, or WinAmp skins. Gee, are this illegal to DL? You can use this program for whatever you like, why don't ya search more before stating your comment like a fact.
" BitTorrent, while being a cool technology, still only exists for users to download files which are either copyrighted (warez/mp3/svcd) and/or illigal (porn of varying extrmes)
" Kazaa, while being a cool technology, still only exists for users to download files which are either copyrighted (warez/mp3/svcd) and/or illigal (porn of varying extrmes)
" mIRC, while being a cool technology, still only exists for users to download files which are either copyrighted (warez/mp3/svcd) and/or illigal (porn of varying extrmes)
" Direct Connect, while being a cool technology, still only exists for users to download files which are either copyrighted (warez/mp3/svcd) and/or illigal (porn of varying extrmes)
" FTPs, while being a cool technology, still only exists for users to download files which are either copyrighted (warez/mp3/svcd) and/or illigal (porn of varying extrmes)
" The Internet, while being a cool technology, still only exists for users to download files which are either copyrighted (warez/mp3/svcd) and/or illigal (porn of varying extrmes)
You're right!!! It's just a matter of time until they shut us down! Get all the MP3's you can before Metallica and the RIAA stop the Internet!
For taking down all the good bit torrent sites. No, you couldn't setup a mirror or anything else. Why, plain and simple...You are arrogant assholes.
wow you really have your head in the sand dont you. look at any collection of torrent links that have been posted from comments on this article and you'll see 99% of it is porn and warez.
not that i have any paricular problem with that.
What i do have a problem with is assholes like you trying to pretend it's NOT for downloading porn and warez. open your fucking eyes dude. at least KNOW you're doing something illigal here. you haven't got a right to this shit. under normal curcumstances you have to pay for it. count yourself lucky.
Sometimes the download rates with BitTorrent are sucking, but what is really excellent is this:
When you are downloading something via one way, a website for example, and your wget gets terminated or the file appears to be damaged or anything -- no matter what you _were_ downloading with, you can always resume it with BitTorrent.
BitTorrent ensures the resulting file will always be complete, but it won't redownload what you already have.
The first rule of BitTorrent, is that you don't talk about BitTorrent. Now all the torrent sites posted here are slashdotted, and the rest are being DDoS'd. The key to a successfull filesharing network is that it's not publicized.
What's difficult about publishing content on akamai?
I drop a file on my webserver and the content will be automatically published to a server geographically local to whomever accesses the content. I publish my content directly to my website as I always have. I never publish the content anywhere else.
I don't need to configure individual files to be available through bittorrent.
Clients accessing my content don't need a plugin.
BT & Ak both work well even if my ISP doesn't have a hub running akamai.
If it is in any way a replacement for Akamai - why is BT's website just text? (maybe because you can't bittorrent content like you can akamize content)
Is BitTorrent is a poor man's Akamai?
Hardly.
Besides - bittorrent is just files. Akamai has several different types of services most related to distributed content distribution. From individual files to whole websites can be hosted on the Akamai network. [nba.com] is completely hosted on the akamai network - requests to nba.com rarely ever hit the core servers.
Not only is this a redux (with Bittorrent being mentioned in every fucking 'article' with a download in it, all you are doing is jumping into filesharing communities like Supernova and expecting to get something for nothing, slashdotting them in the process so that everyone loses.
If you want to advertise Bittorrent, and you want to invade filesharing communities, why the fuck don't you go and set one up for yourselves? And use it, and stop touting LAST YEARS NEWS as something interesting today.
Debian was approached last year in an attempt to promote bittorrent as a transfer mechanism for its images. There were no replies, so I'm guessing they didn't.
No doubt the most insulting part of this entire mess is that Slashdotters lumber along and proceed to destroy every single site that they link to. They then exclaim "Oho, that site has been Slashdotted!" and move along. Slashdot is like a gigantic baby that topples and destroys others' work without ever actually realizing what they've done. Do you people ever feel BAD about the websites that you've permanently flattened?
A great site to see just how popular BitTorrent has become is bstark's topten list. It doesn't list all trackers out there, most notibably the one that had the redhat 9 torrent, so the top list isn't all that accurate, but it is fun to see how popular some files are.
Stop killing good sites
"Thanks for asking slashdot...
users, we will be back"
you should first ask if they want the promotion, suckers
Napster, the obvious first example of P2P file sharing, maintained a centralized index of everything it knew about, which was one reason it could be sued to death, so most of the newer file-sharing applications found ways to also decentralize their indexing (which is harder.) BitTorrent avoids the whole problem - the person running the tracker is the person publishing the file, and the indexes of who has what pieces are transitory. So if the distribution is legitimate, fine, and if it's not, the copyright owner can go sue the publisher who ripped them off.
So from an applications standpoint, yes, the person distributing a file can sometimes use it like Akamai or AT&T or Speedera to ship their stuff out faster, except that it's quasi-free because it's using the downloaders' bandwidths instead of a big caching service's bandwidth. But one big difference is that BitTorrent is designed to handle big files, while the caching services can handle anything - so they're useful for keeping your front page from being slashdotted (or superbowl-commercialed), and for the graphics on your front page, as well as for distributing the new release of your music CD or your software update. The caching services also provide a function that BT doesn't, which is accelerating delivery of small files by delivering them from nearby servers - instead of hauling them 50ms across the continent or 200ms across the Pacific, you're grabbing them from nearby, while BT requires an index hit from the tracker before fetching content. BT scales very closely with demand volume because it is P2P, so the more demand there is, the more servers there are to fill it - the caching services scale because they've got big honking servers spread around the net.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
BitTorrent is great for things like new ISO releases and recent TV shows, but it doesn't scale down... it works great when there are hundreds of people downloading the same file, not so great when there are only 2 or 3 people with it. Also, it needs a "real" interface instead of that python crap it uses now. It would be great if there was a single window download manager that you could run 24/7 sharing your files.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
He's made a couple of trollish comments on this topic. It's obviously not abetting a crime to host a torrent for something you're allowed to copy freely, so things like Linux ISOs and Jam Band Concert Tapes are just fine.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Thanks for crushing those sites, Benedict. I'm calling down to hell to make sure there's a spot for you, but I get the sense they already got you a seat right up front.
Imbecile.
I just installed bittorrent, and after an hour or so it bluescreened my Win2k box. Yes, I have a linksys NIC, but I have the latest drivers for it -- guess that isn't the problem...
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
The biggest problems the cable modem companies had, beyond their initial technical learning and of course the supply of capital, were how to get subscribers to buy the stuff. The way to do that is to have really cool applications that need broadband, and the way to get them is NOT for cablecos to think them up and offer them in walled gardens, it's to make the tools available for then net to invent and discover them (either by users or by commercial companies - it doesn't matter to them.) Anything they do which makes that not happen is seriously detrimental to their success, and the fact that they squashed server development during the Internet Boom means they lost the chance to have VCs funding it. On the other hand, a few more years of Moore's Law have increased disk space and processor capability on home machines and game consoles, and decreased the costs of hardware widgets (e.g. little firewall appliances), so that may get them some development that didn't happen in 1990.
Most cable companies had three opinions about Napster - the official ones were "Servers - BAD!" and "Copyright violaters - BAD! BAD!", and the unofficial opinions were "Well, Duhh, why do you think people buy cable modems, it's so they can download music." The current equivalent problem is Wifi - they really really need to find a way to visualize open Wifi networks as an opportunity to get more customers, rather than a bunch of evil bandwidth-sharing service thieves. Perhaps a tunneled gateway service that would let them charge $5/month for WiFi access to anybody who's already a cable subscriber and $20/month to anybody who's not?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Thank you Slashdot, for posting outdated news and utterly demoloshing some autonomous websites that were perfectly fine on their own as well as endangering the network of BitTorrent communities as a whole. Hope you're happy.
-Snoop Dodge / John Henry Irons
From the uk site:
why are all the BT sites down? 90% of them are under DDoS attacks, from unknown sources
- Jakara
Unknown sources? Us? Slashdot?
Nahhhh..... =)
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
I disagree tell lately 70% of bit torrent useage was for anime(fansubs not licenesed in us yet) and perfactly legit files such as iso for linux. Only once it made all the news sites with massively pirateing of the matrix2 did it even get recongition. Now that everyone is like omg its only for pirateing. Its not it has infite legit uses such as the distrbuting a game called Ragnarok online that http,ftp,mirrors where unable to handel. Once i had posted the client on supernova there was over 2000 dling from me in less then 2 hours. Withing 1 day before the server opened over 10000 clients had been completed from just my torrent. It was also on many other trackers. Sites such as www.animesuki.com/ and a.scarywater.net/ have been around longer and lastest longer then most sites that offer only copyrighted files.
nevermind
p.s. stop hating slashdot hello.html
dude, that's seriously not cool
-snoop
can somebody post the torrent file here on slashdot? the site linked to is slashdotted.
Check out libtorrent, a C implementation of the BitTorrent protocol. I know many people are having problems with the current Python implementation, specifically in the area of resource consumption.
Since when was 7k/s considered fast? That's the most I've ever gotten with it, files big and small. The problem is that upload speeds are being capped lower and lower on broadband connection in places. Mine is only 15k up and I know a lot of people have only 30k up. When several people try and download a file and then quite when it's done (like most will) it's just not going to work.
http://www.maximum-cars.com - My little hobbie.
Slashdot:
:]
...
... sorry :[
You took down all the other big sites, why do you have to go after me?
The reason he couldn't find any files was that he ignored my hints, and searched for a category name, instead of searching for all files in the category. The search engine searches for titles! (How many movies do you find that are linked to as "Movie: The Matrix"?).
I suppose ignorance is pretty funny
Of course, now the searches return hardly anything anyways, because there are no links to be found
To all the regular users: Just wait until all these slashdot people go away, and this page will be back up
teehee Monduna search engine
- You're not paranoid, they really are after you.
What I don't understand in all the hype BT receives is how specifically it is better than ed2k network?
.torrent file - ed2k text link is enough). eDonkey has chunk-based downloading and everything else that was mentioned in this discussion.
eDonkey also has hashes (and more conveniently it doesn't require hosting a
Is BitTorrent really better than ed2k? I understand that some groups of people may just stick to it, making certain kinds of content easier to obtain from BT (like anime fansubs already mentioned here), but are there any technical advantages?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Here
If anyone wants torrents to the four episodes of Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle that are airing tonight go here http://www.marksailes.uklinux.net/bt/ .
I've actually been using a bit torrent implementation for a few weeks now. The folks over at Digipatch use bit torrent to move really big (1.1 GB and up) SHN and other lossless recordings of live music around.
My overall review: a good idea. I felt like I was contributing a lot of bandwidth, and not getting that much in return. Download speeds never got over 20 kbps. This could easily be fixed when more clients join the network. But hey, I got some good Gov't Mule and Dead shows that I would have never gotten off Kazaa.
I agree with what other people have said about BitTorrent being blindly labeled as a P2P. I frankly do not find BitTorrent as useful as WinMX or Newsgroups are for MP3s.
.rar files are so inadequate considering other types of encoding methods, the use of WinRAR and SmartPar, reduce the number of corruptions and the downloads are speedier.
I think BitTorrent creates a semi-fair sharing structure that would be great for small downloads rather than large downloads. I think it's probably an excellent way to share patches, isos, and updates etc.
And yes, it has changed the access of Anime fansubs dramatically. I agree, like others, the drawback is that if the file isn't popular anymore, where everyone has episode 4 and are now on episode 32 i.e. Naruto, your chances are slim to none to get within the same day or the next.
Any amount you're getting will be far surpassed by the amount given to those uploading (because you are a seed, too). So, in other words, there is a side effect of unintentional bandwidth leeching.
Also, another drawback to large files is corruption. It's painfully frustrating to download an anime fansub, only for it to be corrupted in the end. Combine that with the scenario aforementioned, and you just end up very angry at your time lost.
I think for me, I will stick to newsgroups. Although,
Truth like surgery, may hurt, but it cures. - Han Suyin, Chinese Physician and Writer
Illiterate dork, the word is spelled ILLEGAL!
Maybe instead of being an anal retentive dick on things that are self-apparent, you need to go to m-w.com or some other dictionary site so you can spell words a 6th grader wouldn't find challenging.
CIRCUMSTANCES.
DINGLEBERRY.
Oh, and drop the lower case I e.e. cummings.
Imbecile.
My Redhat PC has:
... check ... check ... check ... check ... check .doc and .xls format support ... check
... check!
... you say they made a company by that name? wonder if they payed gibson for the use of his word?
Sound support
DVD playback
CD-R
Web browsing
Email
p2p filesharing
microsoft is a term coined by william gibson in neuromancer referring to firmware modules
I always thought warez was a selfless act. "I have purchased this software that you might partake in it." Somone needs to buy the software, and it's more self-centered to say "Well I had to pay for the software, you should too."
It's difficult because Akamai has to go through a bunch of stupid effort to get the content to where it's going. It's also difficult because you have to sign up with Akamai to arrange to be able to push your content through them in the first place.
If BitTorrent were natively supported in Mozilla, you could host entire sites using it too. In fact, I rather would. Most of those picture heavy sites that get Slashdotted within seconds of their appearing on the front page would be just fine if they were published through BitTorrent.
IMHO, HTTP is a broken protocol, and the fact that sites can be Slashdotted proves it.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I can't see at this becoming a huge home broadband user network. It's too inflexible.
There are millions of broadband p2p users on cable. Nearly all cable services cap at 128-300 kilobits/sec. That's would be fine and dandy except for the fact that nearly every one of those users has a Windows operating system.
Now that's not exactly the worst thing in the world, but when you're trying to download files while uploading at the same time -- as BitTorrent basically requires that you do -- your downstream will go straight down the crapper. Why? Because with windows there isn't a way to set up packet prioritzation, aka traffic shaping.
As you're sending more and more data out to people, there's less and less room for your simple ACKs from your downloads to get to their destination, resulting in either the server waiting before it sends more data to you, or retransmission of the same data until it gets those ACKs. ACKs by nature are incredibly small packets.
If you were to be able to set up windows to automatically send them before any other data, you'd be able to keep your upstream, without affecting your downstream.
I learned about this a while back when I was wondering why the heck my Bit Torrent downloads always dropped to like 10 k/s when I was uploading multiple files too. I've searched around and can't find any simple solutions to the problem for windows. All traffic shaping tools are apparently built for Linux and BSD. I did find one but it required a $1000 license to work after 30 days or something. Please.
And for those of you who want to flame me for not mentioning QoS for the newer Windows OS', QoS is only good if an application recognizes and utilizes it. Otherwise it doesn't do jack.
Perhaps someone else knows of a simple solution?
You're nothing; like me.
this isn't as much of a problem as you think...
this is why bt randomizes which blocks to fetch... so that even among only those who are actively downloading, most people will have chunks you need. It doesn't start at the beginning and work towards the end.
Staying online afterwards is nice, adn courteous.. but it's not necessary for bittorrent to do what it is.. which is to provide faster downloads when demand is high.
Many keep calling it a network which its not really. There is no search feature and the users are not really connected to each other so much(unless up/dl) as they are connected to the tracker. Which is why torrent files die over time. Its not truely a peer to peer network. More of a open source content disributing system. It needs an http server to send out the torrent files and a server to run a tracker.
Other than animes, the exchange of comics has greatly increased by BT, I think.. I found about BT when trying to complete some comic collections from dcplus. That big files with "complete series", "#1-to whichever is the newest" sure helps a lot.
OMG. torrentse dot cx is a great place 2 get torrents! i also know there's a forum where u can find more torrents! i forget the name of the forum but it is a comedy site where u can find torrents. the dude who runs torrentse runs this site i think so if you ask he can tell you!
do you want to start paying for the bandwidth of torrentse.cx?
Of course, my provider charges me for traffic in /both/ directions, and the outgoing pipe size is tiny, so BitTorrent is a Bad Thing for me.
Even more astounding is the fact that the article is held out to be the collaborative effort of two authors. I have to believe that each author worked independently, handing off his solo work to some third party upon completion. I need to believe that, primarily because the alternative would effectively crush what little faith I have left in the sophistication of humanity.
Some choice cuts from the article itself:
Volumenous spelling errors, run-ons and fundamental punctuation mistakes, along with a variety of references to "BitTorrent" as spelled any number of ways, make for an even more effective study in how to distract the reader from the content itself.
I know what some of you are thinking, and yes, I'm well aware that there are other countries on the planet where English is not necessarily the primary language. Certain paragraphs in this article, however, were clearly written by a native English-speaker. Aside from that, the ability to spell a project name consistently and correctly requires no language skills whatsoever
You know what else is slick? Adult literacy programs.
- nocturne
I'm still confused as to how this is meaningfully better than designs like ed2k or overnet (which have a common multi-source ftp, though with different indexing protocols).
eMule has had a credit system forever which favors people who upload, and being open-source, can be tailored to anyone's likings. Anyone can run an ed2k index server... plus, sources can be embedded within the ed2k links themselves, and with source sharing, all you need is a few valid sources to find most of the rest.
As far as I can tell, the only reason BT might seem faster is because there has been quite a few high upload capacity seeds for the files.
Can anyone explain to me the significance / usefulness of BitTorrent over these other designs?
http://www.digital-update.com/forums http://newsisfree.com/sources/info/5355/ http://home.quicknet.nl/qn/prive/romeria/bittorren tsites.htm
"No, thanks to you, they'll be shut down, you fucking moron."
Q:How are file traders like cockroaches?
A:They both like the dark.
Thank you slashdot, for ruining a few great community-driven servers.
Thank you, mods, for not deleting the links to the sites.
Fuck you all.
That is all.
Thus, BitTorrent is best used, as the OP said, for legitimate material.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
... tubgirl you STUPID ASS?
Maybe it's because the admins don't want ten thousand Slashdot douchebags charging over with their "hay guys wheres teh last seasonn of friends????/"
Stop trying to show off (JSUT TYPE IT IN THATLITTEL THING CALED ADDRESSS BAR!!!1). You're pathetic, and getting off on blowing a good thing for a lot of people. Moron.
Slashdot:
:]
...
... sorry :[
You took down all the big sites, why do you have to go after a small site like mine?
The reason he couldn't find any files was that he ignored my hints, and searched for a category name, instead of searching for all files in the category. The search engine searches for titles! (How many movies do you find that are linked to as "Movie: The Matrix"?).
I suppose ignorance is pretty funny
Of course, now the searches return hardly anything anyways, because there are no links to be found
To all the regular users: Just wait until all these slashdot people go away, and this page will be back up
geez guys
"hey man got a light?"
Just tried 'm both and noticed this whilst sitting behind a FreeBSD NAT box, that BT has an upload and download rate of 40 KB/sec whereas WinMX claims no upload capabilities are present.
OK, so my ADSL hookup is pretty much swamped, still I oughta have some KB/secs spare...
Roelof -- the red nosed hacker -- Osinga
PS this is not criticism per se, just something I noticed, is all
the links to all your favorite torrent sights weren't posted by slashdot editors. why don't you mod all the links to torrentse down?
Guys, there is much Bit Torrent discussion on Something Awful's Forums. GO THERE NOW.
Search for them on Gnutella or Kazaa. You'll find lots.
:-P
Seriously. I'm not kidding.
And the irony is killing me, too.
IMHO, HTTP is a broken protocol, and the fact that sites can be Slashdotted proves it. You're wrong. Sites being /. has nothing to do with the HTTP protocol. It's the servers (hardware/software/bandwidth - take your pick) not being able to cope with the extreme number of visitors.
I don't really see how a technique such as BT would improve on sites' availability. Most sites consist of rather small images and text files (HTML pages), and having to download a .torrent file or similar before downloading the content would just increase the volume needed to download from the server (this goes for the client too - even after downloading a .torrent file, it would still need to download the content, which includes all the overhead of HTTP headers and TCP/IP connections).
However, I do agree that the HTTP protocol could use some improvements...
I'm not an expert on HTTP: would it be possible to add .torrent as an 'accepted protocol' to an HTTP request/response (like gzip)? Then apache could automatically switch to using bittorrent as a protocol once enough bandwidth is being used for a particular file (of enough size), for clients which specify torrent as an accepted protocol.
KaZaA and the like (this includes pretty much every P2P program out there) suck for downloading large files. There are a limited number of users who have it, and those who have a highly desired file are probably queueing it to 10 people at once. BT gives everyone a fast speed by at least watering down the effect of leechers. Most warez files are rather large.
Movies are a perfect example. BitTorrent was adopted almost overnight by the various anime fansub groups and movie pirates. It's perfect for getting large files to a large number of people. Unfortunately, it's still easier to just go to the store and buy a copy of the legit software than it is to download it, even from BT. So in essence, there are very few "legal" files of the size that makes BT really useful (also keep in mind with BT you have to hit a "critical mass" before it starts to work really well.) The only thing I can think of are Linux distros and large game patches (a la counterstrike.) While we can all dream, the P2P distribution model is only really feasable for... you guessed it, pirating things.
Let me guess, you're one of those point-and-click OS users.
...
If this is your single reason to reject BT, both arguments are wrong (except different p2p).
Btw, it's called sharing, I think it's a good thing that uploading is enabled, it's one of the things that feeds the success of a distributed file system (Ok, I'm stretching here). Imagine downloading a debian iso when your neighbour in your LAN has the file,
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
What if the bulk of the content creators are now just waiting around to see what everyone is going to do.
The P2P distribution model is free advertising. All you've got to do is get people to look for you and the rest is gravy. It's all free.
It used to seem like the radio worked that way. Now musicians use P2P.
I remember when uploading was as fast as downloading.
Nowadays, the typical network connection is getting faster in an asymmetrical way, with uploads getting relatively slower.
IMHO, this is bad. Its moving us further from the idea of distributed content, towards a traditional scheme of broadcasting.
J
http://www.gamedr.com has that 500 meg gamespy "Exclusive" half-life 2 video as well as a bunch of other good e3 videos and such
another legal application of bit torrent... www.gamedr.com
Good job, Slashdot...Now all of the torrent web sites are down for the night due to all of the Slashdot traffic.
Let's see: it instigates illegal filesharing activities which is not what bittorrent is intended for.
/. was smarter.
Someone should inform the feds about the folks of mp3newswire.net, it's these free-riding assholes that are going to be the DMCA of us all.
Maybe it's time to install some islamic laws and start chopping hands of off those thieves?
And while we're at it someone should zap CmdrTaco with a stun gun for posting this on slashdot. Other sites might be stupid enough to seek DMCA wrath but I had hoped
But come on.
Python is "some obscure scripting language"?
Python's not some obscure scripting language. Lua might qualify as "some obscure scripting language". Maybe you could also qualify pike as "some obscure scripting language".
But in any case, the BitTorrent developers completely document their protocol at the network level; for example, nothing depends on how Python serializes or deserializes a certain structure - it's all specified in terms of bytes carried in standard IP packets.
7th Guest the game was actually only 1 CD, with 1 music CD for, well...
The ______ Agenda
There are a three different ways to do this that I see right away:
While the second option is arguably using all of the w3c's carefully spec'ed out extension mechanisms in the proper manner, the last option has a lot to recommend it - it's largely automatic to the page creator once installed on the server; it's also something that could be configured to only activate when load exceeds a certain value.
On the other hand, the first option could be very useful on a page that had, instead of a single 30 Mb file, 300 100 kb files (because then the page could advertise one bittorrent archive of all the linked files). Doing that nicely with mod_torrent would be extremely tricky.
Unfortunately, the
So - thoughts on this? Which way addresses best the problems that it's reasonable to throw bittorrent at? Also, which is easiest to get into the browsers?
And filled it with his toys
Six guests all came one night
Their screams the only noise
Sorry, couldn't resist a dusty T7G reference
I tend to disagree, though. If you look at the size of the average game (T7G was actually unusually large for 1992) and the size of much of the freeware/shareware on Tucows, or as a like-for-like, look at the download size of Netscape 2.02 (3.25M) vs. Netscape 6.2.3 (25.9M)
My debut novel AMITY now available: http://jeremydbrooks.c
I'm still hoping for a protocol similar to bittorrent, but that runs over http. This is because the office I work at uses authenticated http proxies for internet access, with all other ports/protocols disabled. Unfortunately, very few applications actually support authenticated http proxies for their access, so I'm limited to trying to keep a reliable ssl tunnel up to my home workstation. Unfortunately, the 30-80KB/s that I get at home is nothing compared to the potential 100MB/s I can get at the office.
I d/led it yesterday for the first time. I liked it, so I of course donated $5 to his Pay Pal account. Within a couple of minutes, he wrote me a thank you e-mail.
Yes they did. Not only did they host the songs (it wasn't a p2p application), but, to save bandwidth, when you "uploaded" a song, if it was already on-site, they didn't bother uploading your copy.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
Actually, it's a very, very effective anti-conception technique--beats the pants off the rythym method, no chemical inbalancing, and when it fails, you know immediatly. (Failure, of course, doesn't always result in a pregnancy.)
The problem isn't effectivenses--it's that, by relying on people to go against what their instinct are screaming at them to do, it has a god-awful high error rate. Especially given that those who aren't in a position to use a better form of birth control, or have the necessary operations, are of the segments of the population not known for their willpower or their ability to go against their instincts.
Then I tried Bittorrent for the first time on this torrent and got the 500mb file damn fast and without needing a fileplanet account.
So it looks good to me so far, I hope it's used for more stuff like getting the big trailers and demos out and doesn't get bogged down with warez and stuff.
because it's a wee little server with a comparatively outlandish location. and i'm glad that site is what it is, or else my mail would stop being responsive under the slashdotting. :)
All you idiots complaining about your favorite bittorent link sites getting slashdotted are ignorant. Yes, thats right. If you understood the bittorrent protocol at ALL you would realize the the MORE people who download the BETTER dl rates you will get. What good is a site full of torrents if noone freakin knows about it!
Please google for that string.
:-(.
http://www.rvt007.com/vasectomy/faq.htm
That's where I got the quote, but making it a link goes over the 120 char limit
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
Why don't you use your mod points for something sensible! That guy was an idiot! The thread was about hosting illegal stuff, and that is what i commented on - then he adds its not a crime when you share something you are allowed to copy freely,ie something the thread was not about, ie he was an idiot. And so are you for moderating this as a flamebait. Jerk.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Ummm... no they didn't. Napster acted as an index. File transfers happened peer-to-peer. Napster was most definitely a p2p application. It was the first big p2p application. It's disturbing that someone with a 5 digit /. UID doesn't know this...
That's where I got the quote, but making it a link goes over the 120 char limit :-(.
Oh, I'm not doubting the general point of the sig. ("Those who rely on the withdrawl method are often parents"), I'm just nitpicking the terminology.
It'd be like the doctor saying "being shot in the foot can kill you." It can't, really--not the way that being shot in the head can. But you can die of shock, bleeding to death, etc...
This only came out after the courts had already found napster guilty of contributory culpability, so there was no need to re-litigate. They were already in the process of being shut down.
And, since it required centralized servers, it was not a true p2p app. Napster had control of what went in and out.
Please provide a link backing up what you're saying. The *only* thing that was ever uploaded to napster was a list of the songs on your machine. When you actually did a file transfer, you sent the file straight to the recipient, or them straight to you.
answer him, butt chunk.