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BitTorrent Guide

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the p2p-for-more-than-just-music dept.

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.

58 of 363 comments (clear)

  1. Potential? by harveyswik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No, if Bit Torrent can be implemented as a standard protocol for all web browsers *then* it will have real potential.

    Potential dissipate the ./ effect!

  2. Probably it will always stay... by RiverTonic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... 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.
    1. Re:Probably it will always stay... by TopShelf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And as we move forward, file sizes in general will keep getting bigger, making BT more useful over time. Check back in a couple years, and we'll see how pervasive it becomes...

      --
      Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
    2. Re:Probably it will always stay... by secolactico · · Score: 4, Insightful

      a tool to download very big files like iso's

      Indeed. It's more of a mirroring tool than a "file sharing" tool. Wanna download the latest Madonna mp3? Use kazaa/gnutella/whatever. With bit torrent you'll have a hard time finding the seed file. If you want to download a distro iso and the mirror sites are full, bit torrent is the better choice.

      --
      No sig
    3. Re:Probably it will always stay... by EpsCylonB · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Indeed. It's more of a mirroring tool than a "file sharing" tool. Wanna download the latest Madonna mp3? Use kazaa/gnutella/whatever. With bit torrent you'll have a hard time finding the seed file.

      For an example of how little mainstream content it carries compared to other p2p networks I did a search for porn with a torrent file search engine. I was dissapointed with the results.

    4. Re:Probably it will always stay... by David+McBride · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But as files get bigger, so will the typical network connection.

      Remember when 9600 baud modem links were fast?

    5. Re:Probably it will always stay... by Bios_Hakr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is exactly WHY bittorent is so useful. While the typical home pipe is huge compared to a few years ago, the SOURCE system pipe hasn't grown much. You now have 500 people trying to get an ISO from a single computer sitting on a dual-homed OC-3. The mirrors these days are swamped with too many requests for the same data.

      BitTorrent allows all of us to share the burden. In the process, the system as a whole gets much faster. We could be seeing an end to the typical mirror system. A new paridigm, possibly based on freenet and/or bittorrent, is long overdue.

      --
      I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
    6. Re:Probably it will always stay... by leshert · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Lots of reasons, actually.

      For one, the originator ('seed') of the file maintains authority over the file, and maintains canonical checksums for the segments of the file. This means that the originator is known, not anonymous, and you know that what you're getting is the same as the seed (i.e., I can't download the RedHat ISOs, insert a Trojan, and then propagate it to others unless I seed it myself.). Sure, this will crack down on illegitimate sharing, but it will also eliminates the fake files (i.e., "What the *&%! do you think you're doing?!") currently swarming over Gnutella.

      Second, the protocol is a step ahead of Gnutella's. Leech control and segmented download are built into the protocol, so it's guaranteed to work with other torrent clients.

      A direct comparison with Gnutella is not terribly applicable, as they serve different needs. Gnutella was created in the shadow of Napster, for completely dispersed, distributed, and somewhat-anonymous peer to peer file sharing. BitTorrent was created to offload most (but not all) of the bandwidth required to host large, popular files. Horses for courses.

    7. Re:Probably it will always stay... by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Uh, there are lots of porn torrents out there. The only thing now is instead of short video clips or pictures, it's entire porn film DVD rips. Usually DivX or SVCD encoded. Unless it's 100 megs, it's usually not worth making a .torrent out of.

  3. as far as the difficulty finding torrents goes... by httpamphibio.us · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  4. "P2P"? by Gorimek · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wouldn't call it a P2P application in the typical file sharing sense. Isn't it more of a "poor mans Akamai"?

    1. Re:"P2P"? by Omnifarious · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Maybe it is a poor man's Akamai, but IMHO, it works a lot better than Akamai does. For example, it works well even if your ISP doesn't have a hub running BitTorrent. And the publishing step is much simpler than Akamai's. So, perhaps, Akamai replacement is a better term.

      --
      Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
    2. Re:"P2P"? by Kethinov · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wouldn't call it a P2P application in the typical file sharing sense.

      No, it isn't a P2P application in the typical file sharing sense. Bit torrent is perfect for short term kinds of downloads.

      Let me give you an example.

      Let's say I make games and I release a patch for it once a month. If every one of my hundreds of thousands of users tried to download that patch at the same time, my bandwidth would be slashdotted so to speak. Even if I could handle the load, I'd be consuming gigs and gigs of bandwidth in just a few days.

      But if I torrent that file to all my users then the bandwidth consumption spreads across the internet like a virus (for lack of a better word) and I save money. It's also better for the user because they're not relying on a central server to supply the file. If my server goes down 12 hours after the patch is released, the file is still being distributed across the net.

      Obviously in 6 months the torrent won't be as reliable a downloading source because the patch is too old and not as many people are patching. After a week, the rush of people grabbing the file at the same time is over and then I release the real thing instead of the torrent on my website so the people who were too late in the patching can get it.

      The beauty of torrent is timing. If you have a popular file to share at a specific time, torrent's your application.

      --
      You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
    3. Re:"P2P"? by Felipe+Hoffa · · Score: 2, Informative

      Refer to the /. discussion Mozilla and bittorrent?, where the poster has an idea about using bittorrent as akamai. Quick answer: different tools, different uses.

      Fh

    4. Re:"P2P"? by ahaning · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You suggest that if your main server goes down, the distribution continues. But, don't you need a machine that keeps track of who's Torrenting so that all of the BT clients know from whom to send/receive?

      In some of my recent experimentation with BT, I tried to Torrent a file, but it didn't work because the main server wasn't hosting it anymore. I had the .torrent, but I couldn't connect to the host. There may very well have been someone else out there with more of the file than I had and/or there could very well have been someone else out there with the full file that wanted to share, but I couldn't get to them because the host wasn't up.

      I think the point to BT is to reduce the bandwidth requirement of the main host, rather than to eliminate the need for it to stay up all the time. So, with BT, given a large enough audience, you could theoretically host a fairly large collection of files on a smaller-than-normal upstream pipe because your clients would be utilizing their normally-unused upstream, rather than you sending data multiple times needlessly.

      --
      Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
  5. It's changed fansubs by Apreche · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    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 /.ing away. Something like that will require much thinking however.

    --
    The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
    1. Re:It's changed fansubs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      If only there was something like SiteTorrent that found some way to keep /.ing away. Something like that will require much thinking however.

      How about mod_torrent for apache? Right now every file you want to share with bittorrent has has to be configured separatedly and attached to a tracker. With something like mod_torrent you could specify that for example all avi files, zip files etc. on a host should always be uploaded trough bittorrent.

      On a file request the web server starts the tracker automatically if no one else is already downloading the file. There would always be at least one seed, the web server, and users would share the bandwidth load if the file was popular. Even if no one else will be downloading the file at the same time distributing the file trough bittorrent should only impose a very small overhead.

    2. Re:It's changed fansubs by GiMP · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, it isn't. Running a high-traffic private ftp costs a fortune, but with BitTorrent you can have more people downloading and more bandwidth per-user... with little to no cost.

      BitTorrent eliminates the 'leecher' problem that FTP has because it is designed to serve the file you're downloading to the other downloaders.

  6. The second link by Isbiten · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:The second link by Horny+Smurf · · Score: 2, Funny
      Read the FAQ!

      Does slashdot have a policy about posting links to warez/pr0n/illegal content/etc sites?

      Yes! We never link to them until after all the editors have verified the site is currently up, and downloaded all the goodies.

      Answered by CmdrTaco
      Last Modified: 6/14/00

    2. Re:The second link by Duds · · Score: 2, Insightful

      there's not warez there. .torrent files are not warez. There is no copyrighted content in the file.

      To claim so is to call me a drug dealer for the following sentence. "There's a lot of drugs avaliable in Soho"

  7. My issue with bittorrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Okay, so I was using bittorrent on a windows box to download the Doom3 trailer (posted here), and it works great.. 200KB/sec, so when it completes I decide, "sure, i'll help other people out by leaving it running". Windows, being the beast that it is, eventually crashes and the bittorrent app goes down along with it.

    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).

    1. Re:My issue with bittorrent by RonnyJ · · Score: 5, Informative
      Now, my issue is.. why can't I easily help serve that file again?

      You can, just open the torrent file again, and try to save the file to the same location you did before. It'll then check the file is OK and continue serving it for others.

  8. short term - new clients are too configurable by SuperBanana · · Score: 4, Insightful
    At least the way anime groups use it(they've discovered it beats the hell out of IRC on "release day"), it's for short term. However, it varies group to group- some will leave BT downloads seeded for weeks.

    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.
    1. Re:short term - new clients are too configurable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      AFAIK, if you lower your upload rate you will also download slower. There seems to have been quite some thought put into the design of the BitTorrent protocol.

    2. Re:short term - new clients are too configurable by kryptkpr · · Score: 4, Interesting

      As many have pointed out, if you have an asynchornous connection where you can download way faster then uploading, then uploading too much blocks TCP ACKs and kills your download speed. This is why clients that let you adjust the upload rate "sprang up".

      This does not give people an excuse to leech. I'm currently co-ordinating with a number of other developers to create an anti-leech tracker (it keeps track of how much you've uploaded and how much you've downloaded, and will begin to warn and/or deny you at a certain ratio after a certain ammount of time).

      The reason BT's speed is dropping is not becuase people are limiting uploads, but becuase popularity is growing. There aren't 100 people on a file anymore, there's 2000.

      Do a little test. Grab BT Availability Checker from that page, and run it on a torrent that's got lots of people (new simpsons episode, matrix reloaded, whatever).

      If you're lucky, half of the 50 or so peers you're sent (out of 2000!) will be actually alive.
      There is currently no way to "match up" people who should be sending things to one another (one the same ISP or LAN), but again, we're working on it.

      BT is still in it's infancy, but the future looks good.

      --
      DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
    3. Re:short term - new clients are too configurable by jooon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The official client let's you tweak everything as well. There are command line parameters for everything that you can see in the experimental clients. Those clients just built a GUI on top of already existing functionality.

  9. Some great bittorrent sites by dr+ttol · · Score: 4, Informative
    For the slashdot crowd, http://f.scarywater.net is for them.

    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).

    1. Re:Some great bittorrent sites by CausticWindow · · Score: 2, Funny

      www.torrentse.cx redirected to Slashdot.org, now it just shows:

      Slashdot sucks.
      --
      How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
  10. Re:no. by CTho9305 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
  11. Thanks, Slashdot. by suntse · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "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.

  12. BitTorrent by kryptkpr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!
    1. Re:BitTorrent by kryptkpr · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, burst keeps one icon, with a constantly updated pop-up menu to show transfer progress and state. You may wish to enable "Start Transfers Hidden" under options if you don't want to see the console downloader windows (they're for advanced users and seeders, but they let you adjust upload rate and number of unchoked uploads at will, using up/down/left/right).

      To re-open a file for sharing, follow the procedure for downloading it again, and choose the same destination file. It will go through a checking phase, and will then stay at 100%, and you will begin seeding.

      --
      DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
    2. Re:BitTorrent by __aasfhc1949 · · Score: 2, Informative
      Hello teamhasnoi:

      Once the file is completed, you can stop uploading (sharing) it at anytime and resume it later on just by double-clicking on the *.torrent file (just make sure it points to the directory with the downloaded file). It'll check the file first and then begin uploading to other clients.

  13. In My Opinion... by Robotech_Master · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...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
  14. Java Bit Torrent by deblau · · Score: 4, Informative
    I'm leading development on the official Java port, here. The code was originally a line-by-line port from the original Python (3.0.2), but it's in the middle of a refactoring to take into account some of the ways Java does things differently. We plan to match release numbers with the original Python codebase. Once we get the code cleaned up, we'll make a 3.0.2 release, and add features to get ourselves up to the current Python. The code is currently in CVS, directions available on SourceForge. We're always looking for developers and testers, of course. If you have any questions, email me directly, my SF username is flickboy. More general comments can go to the boards. We're in the process of getting our own web page up, so cut us a little slack.

    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.
  15. Actually, file sizes have been fairly constant... by Kjella · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...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
  16. Wouldn't the problem with bit torrent be by rsilvergun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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/
  17. rsync can resume BitTorrent downloads by Brian+Ristuccia · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:rsync can resume BitTorrent downloads by Evil_Timmy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ...although BitTorrent can resume any sequentially-downloaded file that matches the Torrent (IE the ISO of some distro that cut off halfway through); it'll check for any bad pieces and start you off (pretty much) right where you left off. You can use it for files that you have completed but that may have corrupt bits, too...it'll replace them with the correct bits from a working seed. (I've done both on occasion.)

  18. Re:Don't think so... by TwistedSquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    " 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?

  19. Questions by gehrehmee · · Score: 2, Insightful
    As I see it, there are two obstacles to bittorrent becoming a player in my usual internet usage:

    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
  20. suprnova.org /.'ed by SilverStreak · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  21. useful for... by zogger · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... 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".

  22. Re:as far as the difficulty finding torrents goes. by Intocabile · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  23. Thanks for Asking? by Milican · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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
  24. Obligatory FAQ posting... by oobar · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  25. Re:Don't think so... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    " 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!

  26. ... (Obligatory Fight Club Comment) by nuclear305 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

  27. Re: Poor Man's Akamai� Yeah, okay� by VJTod · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  28. Yes, P2P by billstewart · · Score: 3, Interesting
    You're mistaking the term "Peer-to-Peer", which describes *how* the program works, for "things people use early popular Peer-to-Peer-based tools for" and also because you're confusing "how you let other people have your files" with "how you find files other people have." BitTorrent is Peer-to-Peer, because the way it distributes files is primarily by sharing them between peers, a piece at a time, rather than by getting them all from the host or whatever. Unlike some of the other P2P systems out there, BitTorrent doesn't have a central index of files that are available - it does its indexing on the pieces of a single file, and the person who runs the tracker for a file is usually the person who has the complete copy they're distributing.

    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
  29. A "90% upstream max" client would help by billstewart · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Bram spent quite a while figuring out which things need tweaking to get the performance to optimize. Some of them are more critical than others, such as the "no leeching" approach. There are two basic difficulties with it, one of which might be easily fixable:
    • Using *all* your upstream for uploads can dog out the rest of your applications. It's nicer to be able to limit the uploading to 90% of your upstream so that ACKs for other things get through. That's probably fixable; I don't know if Bram's working on it.
    • ADSL and Cable Modem are asymmetric, and no-leeching limits you to your upstream rate, not your downstream, which is probably the *real* reason people tweak it. From an overall system perspective, it probably works almost as well if you balance the N:1 asymmetry by keeping the uploading going for N times as long as the download took, but it's hard to do that well, and of course kiddie leechers aren't going to think of that.
    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  30. libtorrent by ikewillis · · Score: 2, Informative

    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.

  31. Re:Failed to mention the blue screen issues by skookum · · Score: 2, Informative

    Read this: http://www.dessent.net/btfaq/#freeze. You should use the drivers linked and NOT the latest from Linksys.

  32. Re:Fast Downloads? by skookum · · Score: 2, Insightful

    7 KB/s isn't shit, but 175-200 KB/s isn't half bad, which is what I can get on popular torrents. You probably need to cap your upload bandwidth and forward the BT ports if you are in a NAT environment.

    And BTW, here's a thought for you: even if a client is limited to sending at 5KB/s, if you are connected to 20 such clients that's 100 KB/s. Now consider the case of 75 peers.

  33. ed2k and overnet by ingenuus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:ed2k and overnet by kryptkpr · · Score: 2, Informative

      eMule uses a 9mb piece size, BT uses a 256kb - 1024kb piece size.. this means partials go out quicker. Also, ed2k links only store a hash for the whole file, whereas BT stores a hash of each block inside the .torrent files .. this makes it impossible to effectively poison a torrent with bad data.

      eMule is designed for sharing lots of different files, whereas BT is designed for sharing a few, specific files.

      BT also favours people who upload (not only that, but people who upload faster), it's just transparent to the user.

      Anyone can run a BT tracker, and when these operate properly, they take care of all source propagation in a central manner, which can then be optimized.

      --
      DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
  34. that Bram, such a nice young man by scubacuda · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'm entering this thread kinda late, but I just wanted to mentioned what a fucking cool guy Bram Cohen was (the maker of Bit Torrent).

    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.