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

Seasonal Traffic

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I used to work for a porn site back in the bubble. Same thing, our numbers plummeted in the summer due to college students being off.

Re:Seasonal Traffic

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Yeh, as a former IEG guy, I remember that. Ah, those where the days! State-of-the-art equipment, an office in a glass tower just off Pike Place Market, gettin paid $$ to look at porn...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

How can they accurately measure it?

[hey]

I file trading is peer-to-peer (decentralized) how can some central "authority" know what's going on?

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: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 ;)

Re:How can they accurately measure it?

[vDave420]

I file trading is peer-to-peer (decentralized) how can some central "authority" know what's going on?

Glad you asked.

The company I work for, FreePeers Inc, faced this same problem about 2 years ago.

At that time, I invented a statistics gathering scheme that took full advantage of the decentralized nature of p2p networks.

Previously, the client/server scheme was superimposed upon networks (see Limewire's network crawler, for instance, which contacts every node it can to count them).

My invention takes advantage of the nature of the network itself as a routing/aggregation tool to gather statistics for me,and let the results "ebb" thier way to our collector.

See the public results here.

Interesting to note is that we are running our aggregator node on a cable modem, and yet still get "round trip times" for measuring stats on the whole network of 5 minutes. This could even be reduced to about 2 minutes for our current network size.

In any case, the problem you describe (central counting of decentralized p2p info, such as network count or bytes transferred in a given time) is solved, and our company is awaiting a patent on it.

It does work well. We are running the aggregator on a 256Kbps cable modem (as I said above) but the BW usage is so rediculously low that it could be run on a dialup 56k modem, if only we had any in our office! With it we can accurately collect lots of good statistics about our network, and update it every 5 mins.

Each of those graphs in the linked to page is clickable, and will show more details.

-dave-

Use BearShare for all your p2p needs.

Re:How can they accurately measure it?

[jarich]

Use BearShare for all your p2p needs.

Doesn't bearshare still have spyware embedded?

From a quick google search

http://www.oit.duke.edu/ats/support/spyware/bearsh are.html

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?

It would be interesting...

[AKAImBatman]

...if someone could plot legit traffic against "illegal" traffic. My guess is that BitTorrent would account for a much higher percentage of legitimate file traffic as pretty much anyone who has a large file (e.g. Linux Distros) uses BitTorrent to distribute it.

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.

Re:It would be interesting...

[vidnet]

My guess is that BitTorrent would account for a much higher percentage of legitimate file traffic

Yes, BitTorrent is probably used for a hundred times more legitimate traffic. 0.1% as opposed to 0.001%.

But seriously... I can't remember when I last downloaded a distro on cds. Will we see netinstalls using bittorrent soon?

Re:It would be interesting...

[moonbender]

Well, I agree with your result - that the vast majority of bytes transferred using BT have the illegal bit set - but not with your means of getting there: looking at SuprNova is bound to result in a vast majority of the illegal stuff because, well, that's kind of what SuprNova is for. I mean, it's a (semi-) open tracker, sure, but I don't think a lot of people go to SuprNova for their legit torrents.

Sites who do legit torrents usually have their own trackers, since setting up a tracker isn't a very large effort if you already have a site of your own and easily worth the control and overview it gets you. And on the other hand, individuals who do not have a site to spread torrents with rarely do legit torrents.

Of course this is all backed up by no evidence at all. :)

While I'm at it, there are several numbers that would be interesting to look at: The relative usage of the various P2P protocols - this is what TFA talks about. This is something you can probably determine fairly well by only looking at the port ranges involved. The percentage of legal traffic compared to the illegal traffic - ie what we've just been talking about. This is extremely difficult and most likely impossible to find out at the backbone level.
What I'm interested in is the percentage of the total bandwidth P2P makes up these days. Imagine if something like a third of the total ISP bandwidth is consumed by P2P file sharing - then consider that nearly all of it is illegal. At that point the currently practiced stance on copyright violation is just shown to be absurd: either DO something against it, enforce the laws you already have instead of inventing moronic new ones, or come to terms with a reality that probably won't go away any time soon.

Kids are such slackers

[Anonymous Coward]

We all know copyright infringement is a full time job. When I was a kid, we didn't have high speed internet... heck, we didn't even have any peer to peer programs. We had a BBS and Zmodem (or worse!) and we traded what we could! And we we liked it! 0 day all the way.

Well shit.

[MikeXpop]

I sure hope the RIAA doesn't look in Bittorrent's direction. There are a LOT of good legal uses for it. Moreso (in my mind) than KaZaA.

Re:Well shit.

[ackthpt]

I sure hope the RIAA doesn't look in Bittorrent's direction.

You should know by now that they certainly will, if they could show that ftp was ever used for music piracy they'd go after ftp servers, too. You're concerned that cow actually cares where it takes a dump?

Great, Slashdot....

[eril]

....keep on screwing us by pointing the man in the direction of the next big thing. If you guys would keep your mouths shut, we could have the man chasing after Kazaa for years to come....just like he's still bitching about Doom as the game those kids play that cause 'em to go postal (no pun intended).

I'd assume BitTorrent is seasonal Too

[yotaku]

"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."

And BitTorrent traffic isn't seasonal?

Bit Torent

[trotski]

No surprises here, bit torrent is far supperior to Kazaa in almost every way.

The only thing that needs to be improved with bit torrent is a merger of all the small tracker sites into one big site where you can hook on to any torrent out there. Suprnova.org is getting there but still, more momentum needs to be developed.

That being said, the best thing about the bit torrent technology is that it's almost impossible for the RIAA to control it. The cat is out of the bag and theres no way it will be pushed back in.

Re:Bit Torent

[Peeet]

The only thing that needs to be improved with bit torrent is a merger of all the small tracker sites into one big site where you can hook on to any torrent out there. Suprnova.org is getting there but still, more momentum needs to be developed.

That being said, the best thing about the bit torrent technology is that it's almost impossible for the RIAA to control it. The cat is out of the bag and theres no way it will be pushed back in.

That being said, wouldn't centralization (sp?) or merger of trackers create the one problem that other P2Ps have had? One target to attack? I think it's fine that BT is harder to find and nail down. That will help keep it as content-rich and un-**AA-able as possible.

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:MPAA monitors BitTorrent traffic

[foofie]

Erm...I think he means they are recording your IP if you join the swarm...Much easier to track than Kazaa actually. In some BT clients it'll display all the IP's right on the screen.

Source for .torrents?

[SubtleNuance]

One of the problems with .torrents is diversity. I use suprnova.org to get my .torrents.

Does anyone else know of a good database of torrents? RSS Feeds? Websites?

Re:Source for .torrents?

[jomas1]

Besides suprnova there is also: http://www.torrentreactor.net/torrents/ http://www.pleasure-torrent.com/ (porn only)

Disturbing

[Nom du Keyboard]

Am I the only one who find this disturbing that a private company is allowed inside a number of major ISP's and allowed to monitor traffic to the level of determining which programs the users are running? Doesn't this mean that they've looked inside the packets, since most programs now allow the user's choice of ports to use, and P2P means you can't analyze traffic based on its destination IP address?

If CacheLogic, then why not the RIAA?

If monitoring, then why not outright blocking?

Is that a slope, or a Slip-and-Slide[tm], ahead of me?

You want to blow this?

[PhatKat]

Shhh!!

keep it on the dl

Re:Ya but...

[Cyno01]

I just dont trust a program called eDonkey for porn...

same book, same cover, same price

[radiumhahn]

People, people, people... The RIAA and MPAA look to slashdot to find out which file sharing systems to target next.

This just might be "the one"...

[mcrbids]

I sure hope the RIAA doesn't look in Bittorrent's direction. There are a LOT of good legal uses for it. Moreso (in my mind) than KaZaA.

Which is precisely why BT stands to legitimize open-structure p2p networks forever.

Napster really had no legitimate use. I mean, did you *ever* download a song from Napster that wasn't a bootleg? Neither did anybody else.

Kazaa also has very limited legitimate use. Other than renaming an encrypted tar file "Wild Donkeys do hot chicks.mpg" and using it as a backup vehicle, its use as a bona-fide legal distribution channel is pretty limited.

However, BT is different. There are plenty of BT users distributing bootleg movies, songs, and pr0n, but there are also plenty of sites using it to distribute legitimate demos, patches, ISO images, and other large files.

To think that BT allows somebody on a T1 to serve near an OC3 worth of bandwidth by distributing the load is just incredible. I don't think the industry would be willing to give up that advantage without a fight.

And in other news....

[scifience]

New installations of spyware have dropped by 53%.

"We just don't know what is going on" said the CEO of Claria.

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.

Direct Connect?

[Epistax]

I've never seen direct connect mentioned on any of these studies or warnings. Even when my school, RIT, got warned and passed the warnings on to the students, they only complained about Kazaa and not direct connect, despite the fact that it is much larger on campus. Is there some big thing about Kazaa that I'm missing? No matter how rare the item is that I'm looking for, I'm sure to find several people that have it. I've never seen a reason to use anything else (yet).

Re:Direct Connect?

[phaxkolumbo]

Now, this is just my view (which, surprisingly, might not have any basis on reality...), but i've observed that DC tends to be more "regional" and "communal" for a couple of reasons...

DC hubs don't scale well (at least the software that i know of), 1000-1500 users per hub seems to be the maximum, therefore hubs tend to be more private, usually, and anyone can start a hub. Plus most of the hubs i frequent have some restrictions on user population (for example, amount and types of files shared)

There's a couple of DC hubs in my local area that allow only local people to connect and people look for stuff there first, and then resort to other methods (bittorrent, ftp, kazaa etc.). The ISP knows of the existence of these hubs, but seems to look away, since it keeps the traffic to the outside world down. The pattern seems to pop up on many campus LANs as well. And yes, there's legal stuff in there as well (*gasp!*), a quick search shows the ISOs for all the major linux distros.

Maybe that's why... anyone can get to kazaa or use bittorrent, but dc hubs seem to be more restricted

P2P, Bit Torrent, Kazaa, DC++, Open Source

[Dark-Helmet]

think p2p is here to stay, and there are still features that need to be put in place univerally before it's mature, and all the various p2p flavors are comparable.

The various bits are there scattered across different p2p networks. IMNSHO, all p2p networks/clients ought to have:

-Swarming (as defined/used in BitTorrent)
-Privacy/anonymity (perhaps as much as in Freenet)
-Good searching (Kazaa, Napster, those types. With room for improvement all around)
-Open-source clients with no ads/spyware
-Decentralized/self-organizing networks (no central point of failure, or at least minimal)
-Browser/web server hooks to autoswarm web content (there ought to be bittorrent:// links)

Pardon my BitTorrent bias. I moderate the bittorrent_help mailing list, so I have more exposure to that.

All these features should someday be pushed into numerous language libraries, so that they become ubiquitous.