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Decentralizing Bittorrent
An anonymous reader writes "Exeem is a new file-sharing application being developed by the folks at SuprNova.org. Exeem is a decentralized BitTorrent network that basically makes everyone a Tracker. Individuals will share Torrents, and seed shared files to the network. At this time, details and the full potential of this project are being kept very quiet. However it appears this P2P application will completely replace SuprNova.org; no more web mirrors, no more bottle necks and no more slow downs. Exeem will marry the best features of a decentralized network, the easy searchability of an indexing server and the swarming powers of the BitTorrent network into one program. Currently, the network is in beta testing and already has 5,000 users (the beta testing is closed.) Once this program goes public, its potential is enormous. "
Just imagine the benefits of the system, with so many new trackers, the RIAA/MPAA will demand even more when they haul you into court.
"Your honor, the defendant wasn't just a person sharing the file, our records indicate that he was the person sharing the file, running a server, not just a client on a network with files to share"
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
There are just so many different P2P products these days. Doesn't each new one subdivide the market more? If half of the torrent folks use the new thing, and half stick with bittorrent, don't both of them become less useful? I'm not sure what can be done about that, and I'm not saying there shouldn't be progress. But I miss the days when there was only Napster, and you never came up blank on your search terms. -Lep
I am allowed to criticize you: you are not allowed to criticize me. Sorry, that's just how things are.
With the IP addresses still out there, wtf is the point?
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
Just a minor thing - if half use each, then bittorrent becomes LESS useful and exeem becomes much MORE useful than with only 5000 beta testers.
I say let's give it a chance - never know, it might make up for what you miss:-) Worst case, no one will use it and everyone will stick with regular bittorrent.
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Pirates will be able do download their illegal wares much faster, without the inconvenience of web mirrors going offline by pesky interference by law enforcement officials.
Let's just be clear: BitTorrent is legal, and can be very useful
but the trackers on suprnova.org pretty much all link to ILLEGAL pirated files.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Hmm, but the overheads would be *enormous* - think about it. Even for a simple search, you'd need to be able to decrypt and see the file.
But -- maybe we could use checksums of the encrypted files and have some kinda hash table to make it faster.
Waste + Decentralized Bittorrent --> Death of RIAA + MPAA.
w00t!
Hardly.
They already have it up and running with over 5,000 members. They're just removing the website trackers and making the clients into trackers in and of themselves. It's not so hard, and it's a good idea too.
But as anothe user pointed out, it would slow down your system a real lot.
I think he was talking about CPU overhead. Encrypting/decrypting data at high transfer speeds does kinda hog your processor when it could be used for better things.
- These characters were randomly selected.
The great thing about BitTorrent is that you are being pointed to a known file. You can judge for yourself who points you at a given file by what website is hosting the tracker. This is one of the reasons you don't get the spoofed files on BitTorrent. The fact that you can tell who is offering a tracker also means that the RIAA can. Thus the RIAA can sue this person. I see a distributed bittorrent being useful for non RIAA protected files. Once bittorrent is distributed though, the RIAA will start spoofing it.
"brxref
It's just a pet peeve of mine, but copyright infringement and theft are two distinct crimes.
I hate it when people equate copyright infringement with stealing. Illegal downloading is more like sneaking into a movie, concert or ballgame without a ticket than it is like theft.
MM
--
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The RIAA and the MPAA also use encryption to protect their IP from infringement, and they don't want to lose that either. In other words, encryption isn't going anywhere, period.
"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is living in a state of sin." -- John von Neumann
Absolutely not.
You are describing Gnutella1 which is incredibly inefficient (someone does a search query and it gets passed around the network for days in most cases, even though the user is only online for an hour or so) and generally, very crap.
Most modern p2p networks work off a 'supernode' principle which is users that the network has chosen (automatically) because it has fast upload or long uptimes on the network etc. This then runs the search queries for all the leaf nodes connected to it, which really decreases the amount of network inefficiency because the supernode is like a central server, it knows nearly all the of the files because it connects to other supernodes and in turn they index the entire network. Interestingly you can find yourself connected to splinter networks where by some odd reason the supernodes haven't found each other and split into multiple networks.
You are describing a network where everyone is a supernode. This is useless because many users don't stay online for more than an hour and in the end you basically have a huge search query swapping contest.
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You're addressing the problem of an attacker (the RIAA or their agents) finding you by looking at your network traffic. That's not what they're doing. They are finding nodes that offer files. The problem for the non-lame P2Per is that their node must tell good guys that they have lots of files and must tell bad guys that they have no files. The difficulty is that you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys on the network. One solution is to use private overlay networks, although the recent Finnish case demonstrates that it's hard to keep the "bad guys" (law enforcement in that case) out of the overlay network. Another solution would be use to use recommender systems, perhaps in a PGP style, but I haven't seen a P2P filesharing system that does that yet. Finally, Freenet attempts to give a sending node plausible deniability by hiding the true contents of a file from the sending node.
Oh, in case you meant that you were trying to hide network traffic from your network administrators (also "bad guys" from your point of view), then it would be simpler to use encryption (perhaps layering P2P communication over HTTP/SSL or SSH to avoid arousing suspicion).
Never going to happen.
Who relies on encryption? You, me, government, business, charity, church... Everyone. I don't care how powerful the RIAA or MPAA is, they're not more powerful than the rest of the nation's trade industry, and the weight of a few hundred thousand businesses would drown out the record and movie attorneys easily. In order to get rid of encryption, you'd have to return to roughly the technology in use about forty years ago, and no one is going to put up with dealing with the lines required then for things like unemployment, DMV, and taxes. Far too many government agencies are required to make available information to the public, and that information has to be encrypted. You'd end up with around 5000 pages of changes to law, tying up Congress for years, if not decades, just on that.
Believe it or not, the government isn't afraid of you using encryption. The NSA moved off of SHA (yes, I know it's a hash -- it's an example) to SHA-1 several years before the public realized there were issues with it, and they're constantly updating the nation's existing protocols. If necessary, they can get a court order to do a black-bag op to get the password -- the younger Gotti used PGP to encrypt files, but a simple keyboard sniffer grabbed the password (his father's prison ID number, IIRC), and in the operation that planted that, the FBI had snagged the key files.
If they need it from you, they'll get it. Encryption is often the strongest link in a weak chain.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
1. It doesn't work reliably.
2. You can't host files, and it takes a long time to insert large(medium even) files.
3. Files are dropped if not popular. Thus, you can't get rare files, only popular or recent ones.
4. It DOES NOT WORK reliably.
And this coming from a guy that hopes beyong hope that one day it WILL work. Today is not that today. Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.
You could do the encryption/decryption then the complete file has been downloaded. You dont need realtime decrytion of the data chunks right? You can download all encrypted segments to disk and then reassemble the file.
With RIAA/MPAA hunting users with blowtorches and ISP's sniffing users IP packets to collect evidence for law suits, encryption will become a standard feature of P2P platforms in the future i'm pretty sure. Ofcouse there is a performance/bandwidth pentaly involved with encryption, but I think the benefits of secure transfer will be greater than the drawbacks.
I don't happen to agree with the "ethical" standard that copyright laws, as currently written, attempt to spell out.
I don't find it unethical to give a copy of a TV show to other people, especially when it has not been edited. The networks broadcast these shows freely, but somehow I'm not permitted to watch it at a different time, or download it from someone and watch it on my computer?
I'm sorry, but being a mindless consumer who does whatever the corporate CEOs tell me does not equate with "ethical". Maybe it does for you, but don't assume everyone else has no spine.
This is a stupid analogy. Milk isn't free. Programming is.
If they were giving away milk for free, would it be wrong to take some extras and bring them to some friends, so that they didn't have to go to the trouble of going to the free-milk place themselves?
What if some stupid executive said you were only allowed to get it yourself, and couldn't give any to friends, because he's worried you might pour the milk into another container, and throw away the original container which has some ads on the back, before giving it to your friends? I'm sorry, I'd have no guilt in taking the extra milks and giving to my friends despite this stupid executive's pronouncement (which isn't even firmly backed by any law). Of course, I wouldn't bother giving my friends new containers either, because that's just unnecessary work on my part.
If someone comes along and takes a copy of a digital work from me, they have not deprived me of a physical object and I can still sell that work. Yes, I do agree it is wrong for someone to take a work from me without permission. I am just making a point how it is _very_ different then taking a physical work from me which will be in limited numbers. That _would_ be depriving me of a potential sale.
I agree with you about doing the ethical thing (in my case just not buying the copyrighted works). However I feel that copyright has gotten very bad and unbalanced. I think because of this, many people do not feel it is unethical to _copy_ digital content. Add to this the fact that producing an _exact_ copy requires no capital and results in no loss of goods, and you have the P2P vs. unbalanced copyright war we have now.
With the ??AA, BSA, etc all dumping millions every year into the pockets of our corrupted politicians to continue to swing copyright in their favor, you will just see more consumers fighting back. Maybe if these big corps get hit with the clue-stick, things would get better. However, I don't ever see that happing.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
I know that copyright laws are not ethical. And my argument has been backed up many times by many people. And that's just here at Slashdot. For me to spell it out again would merely be redundant. Check them out and try to refute them. I would like to see if you can do better than anyone else so far.
Oh what the hell...
Copyright laws are nothing more than a bad reaction to new technology(the printing press in this case). They were designed to protect an obsolete industry. That industry had friends in high places. Laws were bought and sold, just like today. There is nothing ethical about that. I don't give a damn if somebody keeps their ideas to themselves because they can't make million bucks overnight. They're greedy bastards. Somebody will come along with the same or better idea later, because they will understand the value of the idea is the idea itself, not the guy who invented it. To demand a monopoly on an idea is extremely selfish. Airplanes and steam engines(to name a few) might have developed much faster if not for the stranglehold the the inventers had on the patents. The patent on the diesel engine had to expire before anyone could improve it enough to be practical. The tired old cliche still holds true: It's like prohibiting the use of the automobile to protect the blacksmiths, carriage, and buggy whip manufacturers. I hope that can hold you over until you check out what others have to say.
What?