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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. "
It's only for legitimate trade of legal files you own, kids.
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just the end was affected. the correct version is
its potential for lawsuits from 'artist' organizations is enormous
vodka, straight up, thank you!
With the IP addresses still out there, wtf is the point?
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
This is also what I worry about. A hostile peer is one thing. You can just choose not to receive packets from them. But what about a hostile tracker sending your client on a wild goose chase?
So BitTorrent took the whole "everybody's on the same network" and converted it into "one network per file".... and now this new system puts it *back* like that? How is this different from every other p2p filewhoring system?
Publishing a torrent is incredibly easy, drag the folder in, pick a category, click go. It hashes it and it starts seeding within seconds.
It still (obviously) needs some work doing to the app to make it more friendly but it's shaping up well.
Get paid to search..It's geniune and
This thing could be even bigger if the traffic was encrypted. No - stop and imagine.
What would really matter these days is anonymity. It's a bit late to develop yet another non-anonymous network, when the real problem is the risk of lawsuits...
I realize that full anonymity is going to be a problem, but at least some degree of deniability and limited IP address propagation would be a boon. SuprNova might have the name recognition to really give something like that a good start.
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
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
...can I run it on a Phantom?
Another one bites the dust
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.
Tied down by what? Finish it, GPL it, release it, done deal. My concept of how it might work: First, no server application or central server of any kind. Second, Client application (psuedo-server as well) sends out constant "seeker" packets blindly that it also responds to whenever it receives some. When it receives a response on a seeker packet a connection is established, forming a web of clients. Once 5 or so connections are established, we can stop sending out seeker packets. Do to the nature of the network, once we hit that many connections we have probably "connected" to the entire network. When a search request is sent out, it goes to the entire network because every client which receives a request sends it out to all their connections as well. Clients with no local matches do nothing after that. Clients that have a local match to the search send a directed response to the initial requestor. Reponses contain enough information to determine which files are identical. Identical responses are all grouped together, and then all responses are sorted based on relevance. When you choose to download a file, a connection request will be sent out to all those who responded for that file. All available connections are then managed locally (and updated regularly) as individual packet requests are sent out to all responders to the connection request. Once a packet fails 3 or so times that responder is removed from the list of available connections and the packet is requested from someone else. I typed this quickly at work, so if there are any gross inconsistencies or obvious errors please don't flame me. It's just my idea of how this thing might work.
RTFA and cite your sources or prepare to get pwnd
always produce the best software!
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
Any new big thing needs absolute anonimity. I already worry for all of the innocent civilians out there using bittorrent now to get their favorite shows and movies. I'm sure their transgressions are all being logged for future lawsuits.
And yes they are INNOCENT. Here's one good reason why. We first must ask, why did the founders of the US constitution feel it was important for accused criminals to be convicted only by a jury of peers?
I believe this is because they knew that honest citizens doing honest activities will often run afoul of the law, especially in a broken government where England (back then) or corporations today make all the laws. The jury of the peers is built into our criminal justice system in order to prevent just this kind of thing. I mean the hope is that a jury of bitorrent users will never convict a fellow bit torrent user. That's probably why we're only seeing civil lawsuits today by the RIAA and the like. I think I criminal jury trial for file sharing would be quite interesting.
I gave freenet a try for well over a week constantly on and in the end it was still basically useless. It was about 10x slower than a modem. It is a great idea but from my experience it just doesn't work.
Tinfoil hat? Naa, I long since replaced it with a reinforced titanium alloy.
I don't agree with the all-in-one idea. It seems to me the problem would be better solved in a more modular way.
(1) having a search that only indexes trackers, and can then launch an external app of your choice to do the torrent download
(2) improving the bittorrent protocol so anybody with a seed can failover as the tracker
When I want to download torrents, I want to use Azureus, regardless of whether it was a P2P searched torrent or one off a website. I don't want to have to use some all-in-one app that decides for me the One True Way that downloads shall be handled, merely because it implemented the search to find them.
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).
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.
Who relies on encryption? You, me, government, business, charity, church.
I talk to God (the Jehova one) over a 1024 bit 3DES encrypted tunnel. I don't want those bastards like Vishnu, Allah or Qetzoctl listening in.