Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

P2P News Syndication?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the reinventing-usenet dept.

Buggernut writes "According to an article at BBC, news may be the next major item to be passed around through P2P networks, thereby escaping the grasp of the censors' attempts to control the spread of forbidden information."

9 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Remember the article troll? by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Remember the poster(s) not too long ago who would post the "complete article text in case of /.'ing" and then subtly replace/add words in the actual text? How'd you like to get your news that way, and not even know it?

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  2. This may accelerate the outlawing of p2p by Trespass · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's one thing to rip off musicians and publishers, but when this has some chance of actually being used for samizdat, you'll see it demonized and outlawed as a tool of terrorism.

  3. Remember... by y2imm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Desert Storm 1. The CNN guys using IRC to get info past the Iraqis.

    1. Re:Remember... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Heh. I remember quite well. At the time I was enlisted, in a very technical MOS (diagnosed/repaired communications equipment down to the component level). A lot of our gear wasn't all that advanced (some of it was Vietnam-era tech) but it was milspec certified and it worked -- most of the time anyway. But our old-ass tech was so far ahead of Iraq's that we could basically intercept all the communications and blindside them at any time of the day or night. Which we did. I don't think they even knew WTF IRC was. ;-)
      Now, the NSA on the other hand... Those guys are the reason why P2P networks like Freenet must be deployed...

  4. No changing the articles after either... by Supp0rtLinux · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And while providing the average Joe with news that is much more gory than we see on a regular basis, it would also help to put an end to *altered* stories... the kind that've been mentioned on /. before where a story is written, then because of this complaint or that reason they edit the original. If the news is on P2P networks, we'll be able to always see the raw stories...

    The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers

  5. :: Usenet III? :: by argent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Usenet I already serves this purpose, and with MIME it can be just as rich a medium as the web. Just look at the porn-spam groups!

    Which does make me wonder how a medium even less controllable than Usenet would manage to avoid turning every group into spam. You'd need something like Google News to make sense of it... but, hold on, we already *have* Google News.

  6. Freshness? by Doobeh · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Wouldn't one of the greatest problems be that of signal to noise. If P2P is employed as a way to supress censorship, then we by that very mark, we are unaware of who published it (since we don't want the author being censored at a later date)


    Now spread this out to a wide implementation, what news is 'worthy' and 'trusted' to read if this very untraceable route holds true? I might as well read mind-numbing, ultra-biased blogs, because that is all the system would amount to.
    I go to the news outlets I currently do because I can to a high degree trust the articles, news without that trust is.. gossip.


    P2P for articles, especially news doesn't hold true, how is the article propogated? Will I have to wait 2 days for a fresh article to make its way around the Internet to me? If I want news, I'm used to getting information when I want it, P2P fails on this point.


    People think P2P is the cure to [insert internet downfall] because it works for MP3's. But MP3-P2P essentially runs off peoples greed, so there are mass copies of MP3's around, no-one cares if an Mp3 is four days, old, 3 years old, it makes not a difference, but hell, even MP3's are tainted, blanks, bad rips, misnamed, to assume this wouldn't follow on to any other P2P implementation is wishful thinking.

    Not to mention that only when an article gains a certain critical popularity mass would most people be able to find it on the system due to the inability to search every user without having a centralised database/hub (which could of course be.. you got it, censored!)

    --
    If we can't play God, who will?
  7. I wish I could read the article by WhiteManInChina · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I live in China, where everything from the BBC is blocked, so I can't even read the article...

    grrr...

  8. Don't see it happening by initialE · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can forsee several fundamental problems with spreading of news through P2P. First of all is the speed with which anything disseminates through P2P protocols. We're talking somewhere around a day or so for things to spread virally, not to mention the need to publish the presence of the latest news through the various announcement methods (trackers etc). Second, Google. P2P is not currently googlable. Third, the tendency is for us to accept whatever news is spread over the web without checking for details. If you know of anyone who still thinks that going on holiday to Bavaria/Thailand/Wherever is putting him in risk of getting his kidneys stolen and himself dumped in a tub of ice water somewhere, it's thanks to unverified mass mailing. Now imagine this being spread over P2P, leading either to a lot of people first falling for alot of false information, then distrusting whatever they hear (cry wolf syndrome) Finally, remember that P2P has enemies, namely the RIAA and MPAA (and their cronies worldwide). They'll believe, and rightly so, that anything that justifies the existence of P2P networks will weaken their ability to gestapo the net. Therefore I'd expect as much trouble from them as they can concieve up. Well, my 2 cents.

    --
    Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.