A Blog With Unlimited Bandwidth (Beta 1.2)

jcr13 writes "konspire2b is a new content distribution system that essentially turns the standard p2p model upside down. This simple change gives the network several nice properties, including log-bounded distribution times (logarithmic in the number of nodes that receive a file) and a refreshingly different (and somewhat blog-like) user-interaction model. Comparisons have been made to other systems, including BitTorrent (with in-depth analysis), but k2b stands alone as a unique system tackling a different problem than other p2p systems. Recent Slashdot attention gave the network an effective stress test and provided the first real-world measurement results. The new beta1.2 release contains fixes for all of the issues encountered during this traffic surge."

Comments

So so

[indros]

I tried this a couple of weeks ago.. It's so so, but as a user you didn't really have the ability to get files you want, but what other people want you to get, and it seems very unpredictable as far as start time, length of download, etc. Of course it was still beta so I expect to see improvements yet.

OTOH, it's nice just to sit there and let the pr0n roll in.

Works nicely

[Eloquence]

I've been running K2B for the last few days and it's quite impressive (the web-UI could still use some polishing, though). You can choose from several channels to subscribe to, such as "mp3jackpot", and automatically get the latest files broadcast in these channels while your node is running. At this time there are actually no illegal channels, at least I've seen none; the mp3jackpot channel above is run by mp34u, a site where music fans choose and rate freely available songs. Some of them are actually pretty good, and it's about time the net is used more effectively to promote the free music that's floating around.

There's even a channel called "publicdomain4u" which broadcasts very old music from the 1920s and 1930s. If you have something to say, you may consider setting up your own channel on k2b and use it to broadcast text files, music, videos etc. It is possible to share the private key to your channel so you can collaborate with others to broadcast files in it. I for one will be keeping an eye on the new channels that pop up. For those running other p2p clients: K2B doesn't normally take much bandwidth, you can use it in parallel.

P2P broadcasting may very well be the next important development. It's a bit like Usenet, but fully decentralized, and with some quality control (K2B has recommendation channels, and only users who own the channel private key can broadcast files in it, eliminating the spam problem).