BitTorrent Beats Kazaa In Traffic Numbers

prostoalex writes "CacheLogic attempted to measure the peer-to-peer network traffic by installing their network monitoring tools in data centers of large ISPs. The results are in, and Bram Cohen's BitTorrent overtook Kazaa's FastTrack network. BitTorrent traffic amounted to 53% of all peer-to-peer traffic, according to CacheLogic. It's worth noting, though, that Kazaa traffic is highly seasonal, as a lot of high-schoolers and college students are simply on vacation this time of year."

Comments

Re:How can they accurately measure it?

[Mondongo]

I remember on a NYT interview that Bram Cohen said that all BitTorrent packets were not encrypted nor decentralized. All machines must connect to the tracker in order to download, so there ARE ways to measure it.

Re:How can they accurately measure it?

[athakur999]

They installed their monitoring system at the ISPs, so they can just analyze packets going into and out of the ISP's network. Kazaa packets and BitTorrent packets will look different and be destined for different ports, so it wouldn't be too difficult for the software to tell the difference.

Re:It would be interesting...

[athakur999]

It's also worth noting that most people use BitTorrent for larger files like ISOs. So even though the traffic in bytes in higher, I'm willing to byte when it comes to "number of files transferred", Kazaa still has the lead.

MPAA monitors BitTorrent traffic

[unisol5]

MPAA monitors bittorent traffic from sites such as suprnova.org. They constantly send out letters to ISPs that explains which movie was donwloaded, and how the ISP should proceed with the client. So, downloading several movies from suprnova.org is not a good idea, because MPAA sees what everyone downloads. BitTorrent is in no way an anonymous download.

Re:MPAA monitors BitTorrent traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

I can confirm this...

Anti-Piracy Operations
PHONE: (818) 728 - 8127
Email: MPAA@copyright.org <mailto:MPAA@copyright.org>

Via Fax/Email

RE: Unauthorized Use of Copyrighted Motion Pictures
Reference#: [Withheld] (M)
IP Address: [Withheld]
Date of Infringement: [Withheld]

The title(s) offered included:
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT

Specifically, we have identified the following material as infringing:

Infringement Detail:
Infringing Work: WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT
Filepath: Who Framed Roger Rabbit-avi(1).torrent/
Filename: Who Framed Roger Rabbit.avi
First Found: [Withheld]
Last Found: [Withheld]
Filesize: 748,644k
IP Address: [Withheld]
IP Port: 6885
Network: BTPeers
Protocol: BitTorrent

Please contact us at the above listed address or by replying to this email should you have any questions. Kindly include the above noted Reference # in the subject line of all email correspondence.

We thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Your prompt response is requested.

Respectfully,
Motion Picture Association of America

There was more to the email, specifically steps we need to take and such, but it just made it way to long and boring.

Re:How can they accurately measure it?

[nkh]

Everything is explained in the documentation if you ever need to write your own client (or alternatively, you could look at the Python source code which is very interesting for all the lazy CS students on holiday like me ;)

Who needs it

[smclean]

Who needs P2P software when people leave movies unprotected on their websites all the time? Click on any website on this google search, see what movies they have, and leech em.

Re:How can they accurately measure it?

[Anonymous Coward]

All of that is great Dave, but Bearshare has spyware in it and it doesn't seem to stay up for me for more than a few days at a time. Why do you expend so much effort only to wrap it in such a crap program?