Slashdot Mirror
Ask Bram Cohen about BitTorrent
It's a clever P2P 'information broadcasting' concept, as the simple diagram on the BitTorrent home page shows. It's gotten a fair amount of notice, especially here on Slashdot. And reader Ignorant Aardvark wrote to us about BitTorrent sites disappearing, possibly because of RIAA/MPAA intervention, so this technology is now generating some controversy as well. The person behind BitTorrent is Bram Cohen, and he's agreed to answer 10 of the highest-moderated questions about BitTorrent you post here. So ask away (after reading the project FAQ and other info about BitTorrent and Bram, of course). We'll run Bram's answers as soon as he emails them back to us.
Bram,
0 5/27/133822 3&mode=thread&tid=188&tid=97
:)
Do you feel you might be a target of litigation or any sort of legal action because you're the "point" person for this project? Stories like these prompted my question:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/
It looks like the media companies are looking for someone to "drag over the coals."
Being linked to from Slashdot every couple of days didn't exactly help with bandwidth costs.
Wasting your time since 1997.
Create a Chord-ring for each single file, every chunk of a file gets its own key in the 160-bit keyspace. Replace the trackers IP with an entrypoint to the Chord. In short, everything stays exactly the same, only clients lookup chunks in the DHT instead of asking a tracker about them. Why don't you do that ?
... to have an official "start time" for files, posted in advance, so that people can get ready then hit it all at once. Makes more sense than just posting a file at random, with people all over the world at different time zones trying to make use of the features of bit torrent to not do it correctly, ie "at the same time for maximum effect".
Just my thoughts, but I think adding searching would make BitTorrent appear more like a P2P network for illegal files if a user had the ability to search the whole network. When you have to find the torrent file as it is now, I think that it keeps more people honest by taking convenience out of the equation. That way, if you want a redhat ISO, you get it, but if you're searching for Enter Sandman, the MTV Icons won't come back after you.
Heh.
"Bob Metcalfe, how do you feel about your invention being used primarily to transport unathorized copies of copyrighted works?"
"for the time being, i am using bittorrent more and more because it is fast as hell, but I really think on the long term it will be a blip in history due to its centralised model. i mean, i sure as hell wouldnt want to be a seed node for a big hollywood movie considering the president set by recent lawsuits."
This is precisely WHY BitTorrent will continue on for legitimate uses, and not for distributing "big hollywood movie". The users commiting a crime with the tool will be prosecuted, not the tool maker.
I have installed bittorrent and it seems interesting but I think it has several inherent weaknesses and if I might make a couple suggestions.
The entire thinking behind bittorrent is that it should improve download speed and remove the high bandwidth bills for parties wishing to host large files. Using these assumptions, I see the follow that frustrates me.
You have to use google to find a site which is hosting bittorrent files and then you have to use this sites search engine to find what you are looking for. I find these bittorrent sites very Mickey mouse. You should develop a system for searching also; I think this would greatly improve the popularity of this product.
Just my 2 cents
one of the lessons learned working on mojonation in its original days was that "search is hard" so its best to leave that up to the people that know how to do that very very well.
Maybe you should learn how to disagree without attacking someone, but since you sound like such a charming individual let me explain what I mean so you'll understand. If the capability to search was added, there would be a guaranteed hoard of people taking advantage of the software. Right now BitTorrent is a rather small enterprise compared to other networks like Kazaa, and its usefulness as a large file transfer mechanism is sustained by the way that people are using it. Instead of letting everyone use this service for whatever they please why not maintain it as a tool people use for transfer instead of a mass search engine? There are a few benefits...
I hardly consider careful discretion a restriction of rights.
First, we should stop calling bittorrent "p2p". That brings up too many bad connotations. It's NOT a filesharing service.
YES, many are using it as a warez service right now.. but ultimately, this is JUST like offering the files for download themselves.. just a bit more abstraction. Instead of offering a file for download, you are offering a meta-file that describes where to download the file.
Yes, bittorrent is awesome.. for distributed downloadnig.. it's one of those things that just makes sense on the internet: If a bunch of people want a big file, why not have all the people currently downloading it help each other out with the download, to relieve congestion on the main link? It makes perfect sense, and it works equally well for any kind of file.
Yeah, there has been an absllute orgy of open warez trading.. but that's ONLY because they can now download faster and keep up with the load.it's got nothing to do with sharing files over bittorrent.. if anything, putting up downloads with bittorrent is more involved than just putting up a file.
It's like blaming HTTP for early warez trading over the net.
BitTorrent seems to have better data-side handling than Kazaa or any of the other FastTrack programs, since BT will handle directories, verify file integrity, fragment less, and seed better (since it doesn't always just start at the front of a file).
But it seems that there is a giant disadvantage to BT that FastTrack/Kazaa have inherent, that makes Kazaa more usable.
1) Built in search. Requiring webpages to find downloadable files just seems to be a waste. It makes files harder to find, and since more downloaders gives faster speed, missing a search hurts downloaders.
2) No "share directory" leads to download degradation. Once a file is no longer new, and people have closed their BT client for that download, they no longer are listed as sources, even if they are using BT for another file. So even though tons of BT users have the RedHat ISOs, downloading them through BT today will be slow or impossible. (Although really, without a search, you couldn't share everything anyhow since nobody could find your stuff...)
So the big question is, why is there no built in search, and do you foresee a time when a Kazaa-like search feature gets added to BT (Which would obviously require an addition to the standard)?
Currently P2P networks generally form almost entirely at random- you're as likely to connect to a server on the other side of the world as you are to connect to a server 5 feet away that has the same file. This means you use up bandwidth on all the links on all the machines inbetween. Clearly you can reduce the total amount of bandwidth used, and often latency and throughput, if you (mostly) go to local servers. Are you planning to include any strategies to help minimise this in Bittorrent?
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"The big question is, if the RIAA/MPAA are just fighting copyright infringement, then why would they dislike BitTorrent more than HTTP or FTP? After all, they can still send a DMCA complaint to the main server's admin or hosting company. Or easily find and sue the person who uploaded the infringing file in the first place. If the RIAA/MPAA had heard about HTTP and the Web when it was created, would they have tried to sue the developers? Unfortunately, I suspect the answer is "yes".
If they do go after BitTorrent, it will be solid and indisputable evidence they wish to control technology and restrain trade, not protect their copyrights.