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Exeem "Successor" to Suprnova Announced
First, Exeem really isn't an extension of Suprnova as the hype might have you believe: the connection between the two seems more marketing than anything else. Sloncek has been hired to promote their product as the heir apparent to his popular website, but his involvement really seems to be almost entirely PR. It'll work obviously: my headline on this story mentions Suprnova, and so will hundreds of websites around the world in the coming days. "Yet another p2p app" would not create anywhere near the waves that "Successor to Suprnova Announced" will. I hope that people judge exeem by its own merits and not by its (clever) marketing.
Second, Exeem is pretty much what was rumored earlier: a blending of the tracker, the BitTorrent client, and decentralized indexing. It's Windows only. It's in beta now, and will be out at some indeterminate date in the future. It also has a rating and commenting system which appears to be somewhat rudimentary. It's unclear to me if the rating system will be as useless as other attempts, and I think this is the critical thing: Suprnova succeeded because the content available on it was verified and trustworthy. Suprnova was as much the work of a few dozen editors as it was a list of torrent URLs. So far no other p2p system has achieved that level of accuracy. Exeem supports magnet sites which is a start, but not exactly p2p either. And did I mention that it's adware?
Third, there's a mystery company. Someone is paying Sloncek. He won't say who, but there's a history in the p2p world of secretive development. Since Exeem is to be adware, someday it will have a billing address, which means the legal issues faced by predecessors like Napster and Kazaa will be forthcoming, which is of course why we have a mystery company that Sloncek won't talk about in the first place. We definitely haven't heard the last of this.
Personally I was hoping for more: source code and cross platform compatibility never hurts. These are the things that made BitTorrent a huge success. I guess I was hoping for a new protocol instead of just another Kazaa. I guess I was hoping for a monumental leap, and instead Exeem to be a more incremental step. I'm sure we'll learn more in the coming weeks.
I can't help but wonder if BitTorrent is the application that finally pushes people towards Freenet. That would appear to be the obvious way of decentralizing it, without requiring platform specific software, and providing anonymity for both producers and consumers in the process.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
There's going to be ads and crud with eXeem?
So basicly it's Kazaa without the quality of programming.
Goodie.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I really need to be able to mod slashdot errors...
-1 Annoying!
-1 Obvious! *sigh*
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
... didn't seem to work and the link itself resulted in a 404 error. Nice recursiveness with the statement that Exeem isn't up yet!
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
So it's Windows only and adware. This is nothing like Suprnova.
The parent article is a Troll.
you can already find cracked copies of the latest version on *gasp* bittorrent sites :)
Investing forum
Torrent Reactor is another
what makes this better than other peer2peer programs like limewire or bearshare or mldonkey. If you remove the tracker/website approach then all the stuff out there becomes unverified and you lose the appeal of using BitTorrent.
Have you metaroderated recently?
ad-remover.
...seems like it's back to IRC.
Do Not Eat iPod Shuffle
Most of us find this very interesting and not annoying or obvious at all. I suggest you go back to IRC if slashdot is not to your taste. Let the rest of us build this community website.
If you know where to look, there's a closed beta of eXeem avaliable - however, it needs a beta key in order to join the network - and it can't be a random key, i.e. it's assigned by the Suprnova team. At the time of writing, the version I have is 0.16, and does NOT include any adverts of some sort, although yes Sloncek did confirm this earlier this evening.
The basic user interface is friendly, and it's basically a "compact" version of Kazaa (you have to use it to really understand).
As for the release date, it "won't be this week, or next week, but very very soon". It'll be an open beta, to chink out all the bugs.
Because that's what everybody uses suprnova for, right? To download legal works that isn't infringing on the rightful owners of the copyright? Right?? Right??
The silence is deafening.
... from the remaining BitTorrent tracking sites. Now all the kiddies can go download Exeem and the MPAA/RIAA/ can cook Exeem over the coals of the SuprNova fire while the rest of us keep using the many other tried and true tracking sites. I doubt Exeem will be around very long if they're advertising themselves as the new Suprnova.
Shouldn't these developers take a look at some of the research in this area?
Tangler, FreeHaven, and Publius come to mind.
Thank you, CmdrTaco, from one pirate to another. Without the valuable news service Slashdot provides, I would never know about the latest piracy-tracking websites that allow me to download everything without--gasp--paying for it. I just know all the artists I'm protecting from their willingly signed contracts and all the filmmakers who spent a year of their lives making the movies I'm ripping will appreciate my actions. Damn the MPAA/RIAA for going after the downloaders, exactly as you, Rob Malda, and other Slashdotters suggested they should in 2000 during the Napster trial!
It's my right to illegally copy someone else's works and distribute them how I want. I feel I'm entitled to everything just because I want it and don't want to pay for it. Well, except GPL code--that stuff is protected by GPL copyright, darn it, and down with any company who "steals" it! But otherwise, I think all my actions are justified because I don't want to feel guilty about being a thief, so I invent entire mindsets about how it's the copyright holders whose rights I'm violating who are the bad guys. How dare they attempt to make money putting out stuff! I'm entitled to freely obtain everything they put out for sale. I also never had to work for anything in my life, and my parents bought my car for me growing up, so it's only natural I have the same sense of whiny entitlement the other bitter freeloaders have.
In case you're dense, it's sarcasm...and no, I won't be surprised to see this modded down.
No thanks ..
But at least they are upfront about it.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The best part of the interview was when they asked if there were goign to be ads on it.
"Uh.. well yes, it takes a lot of work to develop something like this so we will need to have ads"
classic.
"In Europe, he would have been a just lawyer, an original philosopher, a bold psychologist, an influential teacher. In Russia today, he could only be a novelist."
In some alternate universe, suprnova would have been the next indispensable web site, the next Google, the next platform for innovation, the next great leap forward for human knowledge. But in today's world, it's nothing more than hype for some new bullshit adware.
"source code and cross platform compatibility never hurts. These are the things that made BitTorrent a huge success" keep dreaming.... the lack of virus/trojan files and the good speed and availible of a wide variaty of files made it a success, most bittorent users don't even know what 'source code' is.
"It'll work obviously: my headline on this story mentions Suprnova, and so will hundreds of websites around the world in the coming days."
Yep. You couldn't have chosen another title for the article that wouldn't have worked for them. Nope. Had to go with that one. And then complain that it's just a marketing scheme. Yep. I'm feeling really sorry for you for being duped here!
Bittorrent has some interesting methods of making sure all parts of a file are available (sharing rarest parts first, for example), but I've been unable to find a complete list of how a file is shared.
There are some things I think would be interesting additions, such as sharing a the rarest part to users with the quickest turnaround time (determine how long it takes to download the file and then immediately upload it, and choose the person with the shortest time). Of course, that might already be the case, but I haven't been able to find out.
It's the big elephant in the room, yet the editors just gloss over this like it didn't exist.
As long as people keep thiinking like this, you'll just perpetuate the image that you guys are defending piracy.
This is probably really offtopic, but that's OK because I have bad karma anyways, and no one is going to see this.
I am a student in university, and I don't have much money to my name, so I don't buy DVDs, music CDs, and so on. What do I do instead? Simple: I download them for free off of the internet. Now I get to watch movies and listen to music without spending money. I relate it to taking donuts out of a dumpster being Tim Hortons after hours.
I don't even consider things like "freedom" or "ethics," or anything for that matter. I enjoy getting something for nothing. I like it when things are one click away.
I know that it makes some people very sad to hear this, but that's Ok with me. I am a good friend and human being, and I feel really bad about the disaster in Asia. I just don't care to pay fucking money for a movie.
Thanks for listening.
I cared before, and now I know I don't need to care any more. So to me, this news story was useful, even though like you I no longer care.
501 Not Implemented
Link to a torrent of interview as an MP3.
One of these days, everything will be on Google and firms will get paid by he number of cycles run in their apps, from a pool of moneys levied by bandwithtax - yuck.
This is not a signature.
I wonder if this will be a truly open technology, open source, and give us the ability to actually know what it is doing when it runs. And Windows only? Perhaps that will change, that wouldnt be a friendly policy to ignore users of other OSs. Microsoft isnt the entirity of the computing world.
I hope this app just isnt a commercial marketing type thing but is an open protocol, open source technology.
eXeem is just going to be horrible and to me the obvious successor to Suprnova is ThePirateBay.org. It's hosted in Sweden so it'll never get shut down, spread the word. Please mod up! http://www.piratebay.org/
With all due respect to the Freenet team, they have done a lot of good work, but the network isn't designed for things like bittorrent. What you need is a low-latency network like TOR or i2p. With that said, anonymous Bittorrent already exists, its available to work on the i2p anonymous network. Just go to the i2p website, , install the software and then click on this: There are already bittorrent trackers on the i2p network. Why this hasn't been on slashdot is beyond me.
The whole interview is also available as a 9MB MP3 from the Suprnova site (there's a minute or so of music first). That's a direct download of the MP3 itself, not a torrents, so I won't post a clickable link to avoid Slashdotting the site. Anyone got a mirror?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Hrm. Maybe this was the plan to get out of the non-paying suprnova, and blame the MPAA for it.
eXeem 0.16 beta screen shots.
Suprnova succeeded because the content available on it was verified and trustworthy.
Half a dozen 1MB files with exceedingly virus-trap-like names would show up there daily.
about p2p, but after ITunes came on the scene, I'd just rather pay my $.99/song and not have to screwaround with crappy adware or god-knows-what-else.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
So is this thing going to have any features to prevent unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works? Or is it just another piracy/warez tool that tries to make money off the artists' and programmers' hard work?
Is it possible to distribute torrents over torrent?
And I want to browse comments >2 and "-1 Troll"
The only good "advantage" bit torrent has over the edonkey protocol is that it is centralized and therefore content can be moderated. Also, because people generally seed/share very few torrents at a time (in comparison to other p2p programs) its generally much faster. This is the only reason it is faster, if edonkey users only shared the latest releases it would be just as fast. And to boot, couldnt be taken down as easily as something like suprnova.
emule already has a rating system, and there are plenty of 'fake search' and "release" indexes around that give hashes of "real" releases. BT is great for web sites to release legitimate content, but in reality is a poor "warez" distribution method, which is what all this is really about. The breakdown of suprnova may hopefully boost the much better p2p protocols around.
I.O.U One Sig.
1) Have p2p network like kazaa
2) Send request for donkey.mpg to network
3) User with donkey.mpg begins sending you file with spoofed UDP packets using error correcting codes.
4) You tell the network that you are getting the file from () and everybody else stops sending it to you.
5) RIAA has no way of knowing who is sharing files and no definitive proof of who is downloading.
7) PROFIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How long until we see Exeem++?
The reason i'm being plusmodded funny is the TITLE of my post. If you click on a slashdot story before it backpropagates (I'm not quite sure how the slashcode works) you get an ERROR (Title bar set to "Slashdot error) from /. that says "Nothing for you to see here, please move along." The reason it is -1 OBVIOUS, is because there's a big white/blank page staring you in the face....
Luckily, you didn't have mod points and those that do get the joke.
*sigh*
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
Before someone figures out the protocols and writes a OSS clone of this program with the same functionality, sans adware. Any ambitious developers out there should 'acquire' themselves a copy of the beta and get a head start.
http://p2p.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000703025392 :)
Here is the torrent for the interview, if anyone wants a listen: http://torrentspy.com/download.asp?id=116369
"I can't help but wonder if BitTorrent is the application that finally pushes people towards Freenet."
I can't help but wonder when we'll realize that technology doesn't solve social problems, and in fact exacerbates them?
The beta got posted here, download it: http://www.p2psecure.com/v1/index.php
Yes, the iTunes Music Store is an excellent option for music. But currently there's no good way of downloading TV shows or movies legally. We need something along the lines of an iVideo Store. The ability to download individual TV episodes for $1 or $2 would be great.
I, for example, want to get Stargate Atlantis legally without paying an extra $30 per month to get a "good" cable TV package. I don't want all the other crap, just this one program. But like audio CDs, the problem with the existing system is that you have to buy it all just to get the one or two things you want.
Red herring. Seriously, every time some new network pops up, people wring their hands and say "oh, wont somebody please think if the kiddie porn!"
When did this become: News for Pirates. Stuff to rip off.
Why can't we keep the 3133t '//areZ news on some other kind of site, maybe called it warezdot or LAMEDOT.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
"Suprnova succeeded because the content available on it was verified and trustworthy. Suprnova was as much the work of a few dozen editors as it was a list of torrent URLs. So far no other p2p system has achieved that level of accuracy."
Quite a lot of rubbish did make it onto Suprnova. I believe the verification ended quite early in the site's history.
The few torrents I posted (and first seeded) were showing on the the front page in an astoundingly quick time if they were verified.
One notices that some people have started to post trackers on usenet; alt.binaries.torrents
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
A) Not platform independent.
B) The verb "hired" was used in conjunction with "Sloncek"
C) Closed beta, key based access, potential for ads
This is so stupid. Will someone please start up a competitor on Sourceforge? Or at least implement this tech in freenet or something. The idea isn't all that far out, *I* even thought of it last summer in my own slightly sucky way.
Direct away from face when opening.
I've seen /.'ers suggesting freenet as possible {il,}legal content distribution method. I'd like to disagree with this methodology.
There is already a working way to have anonymous BitTorrent - using Onion Routing protocol. It's great for privacy concerned netizens and if more people set up Tor Servers, Tor would gain critical mass needed to support both tracker AND data connections for BT.
Most of torrent clients supports Tor out-of-the-box, as tor is nothing but socks proxy for your programs. Torifying various applications is really a snap and there is a detailed guide on how to make Azureus BT client work flawlessly with Tor (see section 2.2 Totally Anonymous BitTorrent).
Currently, the only concern for the Tor authors is the fact, that the Tor network may not be able to handle the amounts of traffic, bittorent is able to generate.
However, if each one of you would set up a server with couple of kbps spare bandwidth, the tor network would immediately start scaling up.
Since BT relies on multiple (slow) transmissions occuring at the same time to create the "torrent effect", even if all the transmissions pick different routes trough tor network (taking slight performance hit), the overall performance of BT would remain unchanged.
There is also a very important aspect of tor. It allows you to create hidden services. Basically they are accesible via bogus URLs (like LKbalkbsflKflasbd.onion). The anonymity of the server is assured. More about hidden services at this address.
So, before you let the *oids start reinventing the wheel (and charge an arm and a leg for it), do your bloody homework and use what's already there :)
PS. tor is free software.
Power to the people!
Wait... What was the first and last time I downloaded from Suprnova? Oh yeah, it was Debian Woody that I downloaded!
The hip way to get your IP. No ads, ever.
Exeem seems like nothing good or new...it's just taking a bunch of old crap and remixing it. It almost seems like it would be better to use kazaa than this anyway simply because you can get kazaalite without adware (even if bittorrent is better for files)
Guess who's the anonymous donator. Get your own tracker and you have the most complete list of copyright violators.
With all these new groups getting shut down like this, newsgroups still seem to remain the safe way to get stuff.
http://www.macinhack.com
But it won't work without a key. It can't join the network. Gives you a chance to check it out the interface spyware/adware free I guess. I don't think I'll be using it. I too was looking for a larger leap...not so much of a baby step.
http://82.149.22.18/eXeem%20BETA%200.16.zip
This is why things like Microsoft Virtual Machine was created (acquired). The other day my G/F was at my place getting some music off allofmp3.com when she couldnt find a song she wanted. She started to download Kazaa when I stopped her and fired up a Windows 2000 virtual machine for her to download in. I guess I dont mind if its got adware or spyware as long as I can sandbox it.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
just close the serial box and it works fine
/* No Comment */
I listened to the interview, and one thing came across stronger than anything else:
He sold out.
And I bet the "mystery company" is Sharman Networks.
Bastard.
Anyway, you can download it here, though it doesn't seem to work without the key.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Since Napster, Kazaa, and now Bittorrent, is the P2P universe is starting to gain the same sort of over-hyping that poorly made but well-marketed Hollywood films already have?
It's amazing that companies will pay to place ads in the middle of P2P programs, is there anybody on Slashdot who would
a) use Adware P2P programs
b) actually follow an ad link from one ?
Let's hope Exeem doesn't follow the pattern set by Kazaa MD with it's over obtrusive Gator...
I pause the VCR/DVDR during commercials. Does that make me a thief?
Too bad.. Once it enters my house its mine..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I honestly don't think this [the exeem client] is totally necessary, depending on the outcome of the Lokitorrent legal case. Exeem seems as if it will make .torrent files much harder to find, which in turn creates problems. The http section of the web is a lot easier to navigate than an adware-filled, bulky client.
.torrent files, they are so easily tracked by anyone who cares! If Exeem could possibly get a better degree of anonymity, then it could perhaps boost p2p to an unbeatable level- forcing the MPAA and RIAA to actually work with the file sharers, rather than attack them.
Of course, even if it is legal for sites on the web to host the
Lastly, and on a bit of an off-topic note, if one is sharing only one part of a file, but not the full thing (or if the file being shares is obfuscated, but easily returnable), can they be prosecuted of illegal copyright violations? Is every single part of a film copyrighted individually? I've always wondered, so pegging it to the end of this post seemed as good a time as any to ask.
- dshaw
If I wanted Kazaa (clone), I'd ask for it. :(
.
.
.
.
I ain't askin' for it.
.
.
.
I want suprnova back.
Inject.
So the suprnova's of the world are being corporatized by "secret companies." The question comes down to, will it work? Does anybody care about napster.com since it was corporatized?
mod parent down
No, the only silence is website reply latency. If you wait for a while, you'll hear the obvious response: stop being a victim of corporate propaganda, and go learn how copyright is for YOU, not them.
Magnet support? Then it's just hash-based, then. eDonkey and Gnutella have been doing this for years.
eDonkey uses a splitfile with MD4
Gnutella uses SHA1
The problem with Supernova was twofold. First, the bandwidth needed for trackers and torrents was high. Second, the linking to the torrents or the torrents themselves was a potential liability. Gnutella and eDonkey solve the former problem, but the linking liability problem will always remain. There has to be some point of entry, and there is where the technophobes will try to attack.
Nothing to see here, move along.
http://pixelcort.com/
if you are too stupid to realize downloading what you can legally record is NOT piracy, then you have some serious mental issues.
Tell Judge Jed Rakoff, the judge in the My.MP3.com case, that he has "some serious mental issues".
There are some things I think would be interesting additions, such as sharing a the rarest part to users with the quickest turnaround time (determine how long it takes to download the file and then immediately upload it, and choose the person with the shortest time).
In some BitTorrent clients, when the only seed in a swarm sees that a given file is poorly distributed, the seed will use a "superseeding" strategy similar to what you described to allocate where to send pieces.
What about MUTE?
http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/
...because I want worms.
Worms worms worms, gimmie little worms. ~~~~~~~~
You want a competitor for Exeem on SourceForge? Here's your competitor.
Alright then, I do understand. However please try to keep posts on topic in future. We want the signal to noise ratio high.
i guess we'll just have to wait for Exeem Lite and gExeem..
I used to use Opera. I find their adbar a very tolerable way to to deliver a an ad supported application. It is still on my system, but I use firefox now.
I also made the mistake of installing DivX codec on my system and finding myself gain/gatored....
Ugh! Even after uninstalling divx it still wouldn't uninstall. I had to install several spyware cleaners, delete the stuff manually, it seems like there were several cycles of this before I was running clean again.
Ick. So why use evil crap like gain when they could do something decent like what Opera does?
I won't touch any program with Gain in it, and I assume any ad supported program is Gain and avoid it, until proven otherwise.
Hey, the "mystery company" might as well be the MPAA members themselves. After all suprnova was shutdown voluntarily, wasn't it? May be he got a deal sometime ago.
The announcement seems like the segway one. As you can notice on the streets, everyone has a segway now.
eXeem, not Exeem
this has links on how to do it!
eXeem does not use anything related to BitTorrent. They don't use the protocol or .torrents or anything. It's a p2p program created to get around using trackers. Which sounds a lot like eDonkey (or Mule or Overnet), Kazaa, or any other existing p2p program.
Good job, they invented the wheel.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Can I say Kazaa reborn? If it follows the BT protocol, it will always play catch up with leading clients like Azureus and the official client, even without the spyware. And as others have said, it doesn't solve the fake files issue with decentralized P2P networks. You need centralized authority like hash links sites, so you are back to square one. What we need is to prove the legitimacy of BitTorrent as a distribution mechanism, without hiding behind decentralization.
;)
I know, I'm advertising my site again. See sig. It takes the pain out of googling torrents, with much more features I won't go into details here. Enjoy
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
eXeem is a piece of shit. Not only that it will have adaware and spyware, it is also a "lock-in". You will only be able to use it on SuprNova. They have modified the torrent file. It is missing a lot of dictionaries ("key -> value"), and dictionaries that should have been subdictionaries start directly in the file. For example "files" is not in "info" it starts with it directly. This torrent changes were unnecessary. Also, the "announce" and "announce-list" are missing. eXeem has a hardcoded url of a tracker of all the peers on eXeem. The original seeder of a torrent acts as a tracker (so SuprNova won't have to host torrents), but eXeem is in no way decentralized because of the tracker that keeps in contact all the eXeem users (it does not care about torrents, just eXeem users). So, all you have to do is to kill the main server, and all the users of exeem will be disconnected (this happened when suprnova died). THIS IS WORSE THAN THE WAY TORRENTS ACT NOW. EXEEM IS HYPE AND A WAY TO MAKE MONEY. IT SUCKS! I think the best way to decentralized BitTorrent, is to have trackers that are decentralized IRC server style. If you people want something decentralized and a little bit of BitTorrent, get G2 (Gnutella2) and add BitTorrent's tit-for-tat to it.
Slashdot has a "+1 Funny" moderation for a reason. Don't be a prick.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
It's eventually going to happen.
Will the owners/creators of eXeem sue thru the DMCA because someone pirated thier piracy app?
Isn't it ironic how pirates always scream the loudest when someone steals 'their' stuff?
... is create a SuprNova styled website filled with completely legal torrents. For example, drivers, game demos and updates, Linux and other open source distributions, public domain stuff, share/freeware, etc. We have to let politicians know that p2p has practical legal uses.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
So, the "mighty" owner of suprnova closed his website.
Very nice.
He advocates this new technology.
Who said the MPAA/RIAA did not stuff him some "funds" to provide the people some nice software
(ie: adware) that cleanly informs those nice
associations with the ip address of every peer/seeder. Think about it.
who did say the new software does not harvest ip
addresses and nicely hands em over to some place
accessible to the MPAA/RIAA ?
I do not know about you, but I am convinced some
donated funds from MPAA/RIAA could change the mind
of any site owner to join the " side"
just 0.02 euro
Exeem will be no Suprnova as we can easily see from this interview. Hopefully though it will encourage an open source solution to rise up and do it right.
You know, this may be just a conspiracy theory, but I always wondered in the back of my mind if Suprnova going down was nothing but a PR move to drum up interest when Exeem comes out. I mean, the company is paying the owner simply to attach his name and claim that they are the successor to Suprnova, how do we know they didn't pay him a bit more to just shut down Suprnova early to drum up buzz? Do we have any reasons to believe this ISN'T what in fact happened?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
le' giv' em' a go' ool' slashdotting:
http://www.justcallmegod.com/Sloncek/301204%20-%20 Sloncek%20Interview%20www.novastream.org.mp3
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
You sound like you're trying to shape some kind of community out of this mess. That's something that was considered by many of the people with user id's an order of magnitude lower than yours and mine. It's really only gotten worse since I've come, I suggest you not worry about shaping this community, go with the flow, and take from it what you can get. If you're looking for communities that can still be saved, try something with less than tens of millions of members, maybe theworldforum.
Just some friendly advice.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
While obviously most people were disappointed about exeem, there is already a cross-platform, decentralized, anonymous, encrypted, bittorrent-like p2p-appilcation knows as ANts.
It's still in a pretty early phase, so it hasn't reached the critical amount of users p2p applications need to survive. Still, I have high hopes for it
It seems the files shared by BT are mostly static ones, not easily updatable. However, we can still store some snapshot index. Or modify BT protocol to allow easy modification of shared files including the seeds index.
Windows users steal more often than Linux users?
Bust'm Dano!
Here's an idea:
1. Build a Knoppix LiveCD with Freenet preconfigured.
2. Install onto a machine with NO HDD and LOTS of RAM.
3. When the Jack-Booted Thugz come to confiscate, whoops! All that potentially infringing material is wiped from (volatile) memory as soon as they crate up your box!
The key, of course, is to build in a lot of redundancy, since any node could up and disappear at any moment. But redundancy is what P2P is all about, right?
"Second, Exeem is pretty much what was rumored earlier: a blending of the tracker, the BitTorrent client, and decentralized indexing"
I wonder where this information came from... from what I hear (the announcement itself) I thought that eXeem is more similar to KaZaA (sloncek seems to repeat that eXeem is similar to KaZaA, except with the BT file transfer protocol, which I don't think really matters... maybe I need to listen to the announcement again? O.o) in that there is no "tracker"; each peer for any particular file is found one by one, instead of together from an announce (like what BT does). But that is just my guess.
Secondly, I spent some time thinking about how it is possible to, in the case that each client is indeed a tracker in the stricter sense of the word, 1. find the tracker that tracks a particular file/torrent, and 2. make it so that all the trackers that track a particular file/torrent will have all the peers on that particular file/torrent. Even if the second is curable, it means massive bandwidth used for every announce a peer makes... Just some thoughts.
Doing a whois on the domain name exeem.com shows it was registered to a company named "Swarm Systems Inc" based in "St. Kitts and Nevis". Seems kind of odd to me... Actually I find it even more odd that they're not using some kind of cloaking service on the domain records too. Also I don't understand what the big problem with a few ads in the program is. as long as it's only a few banners and doesn't infest your system with spyware who cares? And I believe Sloncek is more than just a PR guy on this project. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how it all works.
You know, BitTorrent isn't all that bad when used with extensions like BlogTorrent. For instance, a couple of days ago I used BlogTorrent to host a compilation of Tsunami footage and media on my blog. All of the usual mirrors wilted under the load but my torrent just kept humming along.
I put a big fat link up that says "Don't have BitTorrent? Click HERE" That's about as simple as it gets. In two days my humble blog has distributed upwards of 3 Terabytes of data. Most of it from first time BitTorrent users. Having a distributed tracker is really only important if you're trading illegal files unless of course you have a flakey tracker. Maybe we just need legitimate sources of content before BitTorrent rears its head.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
You know, I posted a review of the exeeem beta (along with screenshots) about 2 weeks but it was rejected. Hopefully this post will make it through.
p ?Board=web_news&Number=43166
http://www.mitosis.com/sections/forum/showflat.ph
- Simon
P.S. No registration required.
If you have expectation of download such items, then you should not be using the network. I cannot be sympatehetic even if you deleted immediately. Your ignorance promotes such usage.
Any protocol that allows "show me what you're sharing" type command or maps content to IP addresses is inherently vulnerable to these 3rd party organizations that are being hired by the MPAA. It's a trival matter for them to fire off violation notices to ISPs at high volumes.
Thus, I would suggest:
An offshore site that allows users to remotely (over SSL or MSTSC) use P2P apps to download to local disks, and then permits transfer via SSL to their local machines.
A virus/worm that pretends to be popular P2P apps and appears to be sharing copyrighted material. Result: almost everyone in the US appears to be sharing, overloading the people monitoring such things.
People familiar with the law need to see what the loopholes are (e.g. IANAL, but I have heard that sharing less than an entire "piece" is legally different than sharing the whole thing...don't know if this is true, just an example). Result: we use the law against the same people who are using it against us.
I don't want to come off as an evil pirate here. I simply feel that:
Intellectual property needs a serious reworking.
When you don't offer your customers what they want (e.g. on-demand without-commercials video), and what they want is technologically achievable, the customers will use the technology, even if it happens to be illegal.
I pay $150 for cable + internet + HDTV channels. I would gladly pay the same for a single channel of on-demand video, and more for the same without any commercials.
That was the best comment I've seen on Slashdot all day. Welcome to my friends list.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
What a bunch of sellout pigs. Just the fact that it has adware in it gets me wondering why in hell anyone would install this garbage. Just use Pirate's Bay everybody and fuck the suprnova assholes.
I'm not anti-microsoft. I'm anti-bullshit. Which means I'm anti-microsoft.
The point of freenet is neither to be a haven for kiddie pr0n or a place free of any pr0n. The point of freenet is to be a place where no information can be censored ever by higher authorities.
The point is, the decision of what should be censored cannot be decided simply and logically by technology. In fact, there is no way for censorship to ever be fair as long as it is possible to have unfair censors.
In the words of Neal Stephenson, "I want them to remain secret for as long as man is capable of evil."
So, if we want any kind of freedom of speech, we need freenet as long as man is capable of evil.
If only it wasn't slow as hell.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Your criticisms of the record industry are pretty naïve, too. You complain that "too much of CD profit goes to marketing/advertising firms and the cushy CEOs of record labels". Too much according to what standard? I don't see you seriously arguing that record labels would be more profitable if they did not spend money on marketing and advertising, or if they did not compete on attracting the best candidates for senior management. (Not that I'm claiming that record labels are right on their current policies, but dammit, I don't go around pretending I know when I've barely even thought about it.)
"Information and content is a lot cheaper and more easily accessible than it was a few years ago. The RIAA still sells CDs for $10-$20, when a CD holds 700MB of music/data, tops."
Apparently not enough to stop the pricing complaints. Also size of medium doesn't equal quality, nor the other tangibles that go with one's purchase.
"Meanwhile, a DVD, with 8GB of Video/Music/Data, is usually in the $20 range. Already, CDs seem overpriced."
Apples and oranges. Different businesses.
"But now take the cost of a high speed internet connection ($30/mo. for cable modems around here), and how much data you have access to in how much time, and you realize that the world has definitely changed. These aren't the days of the local library and record store, but of Google and Kazaa."
Plus time and effort to find what you want and retrieve it. Plus not everyone has broadband.
"People have the connections, they have the big powerful computers, all they don't have is the service."
And yet all those MP3's released by willing musicians go unnoticed.
"The RIAA/MPAA are dinosaur organizations who don't realize the meteor has already struck and they are soon to die. "
Don't tell Apple, or Microsoft that.
"So they go around frantically foraging all the food they can while the doomsday clouds loom above."
The birds and reptiles wouldn't agree with you.
"Information and content is cheap. Dirt cheap. Users want fast access to it. Message to the RIAA: adapt!"
Distribution is cheap. Most P2P'ers lack the background to make a fair assessment of exactly how much information creation actually costs, let alone keeping straight the differences between movies, and music.
"You have to keep up with the technological innovations if you want to survive. People pirate movies, but not nearly as many people as those who pirate music. Why? Pirating a movie is a pain in the ass right now. You get a low-quality DVD rip that doesn't easily play on your TV. Music, on the other hand, you get at near-CD quality (or CD quality), and you can easily burn a CD or put it on your MP3 player. The day that one can download 8GB of DVD video in a few minutes is the day DVD videos in stores will be severely overpriced at $20/pop."
In the face of economic terrorism, all economics are suspect.
"As to your other point, the reason this research focuses on censorship-resistant systems, and uses the word censorship, is because as it stands today using no fancy techniques, one cannot be assured that the publication of any document will not be censored by those who can control access to your particular server. And if the government or any other agency wants to censor the publication of a document on the Internet, currently it can (maybe not 'legally', but technically). So this research does have a place, and is well-named."
So how well does your "censorship resistant" network work against those who can control the physical resources you depend upon? Let alone the physical seizure of equipment.
The successor to Bittorrent is.... Bittorrent. Killing Suprnova is the *best* thing that ever happened. That is exactly the form of decentralization that was necessary. Forget Exeem, or whatever it's called. Just continue to move to the hottest bittorrent site that has your file until it's shut down and them move to the next. Do people actually think the long arm of the U.S. law is that long??? I can't follow the bouncing ball around the world continuously with success. Stay with bittorrent, forget that new P2P and just move to the next Bittorrent site.
"Thank you for generalizing that everyone with an opposing viewpoint from you is some type of spoiled rich kid. "
Doesn't stop your side from engaging in the same behaviour
"I do not understand the concept of "intellectual property". Want to "own" an idea? Keep it in your head with your mouth shut, and if you write it down or otherwise record it anywhere, make sure that it's somewhere no one will ever find it."
If that's what IP was, you'd have a point. However it's not. "Expressions of an idea" are considered IP.
"An idea, spoken in public, is public property. Period. Doesn't matter if the "idea" is a song, a computer program, a movie, or anything else."
In your personal opinion.
"Awwwwww, big corporation can't make money? Too bad. No one has a "right" to the continued success of their business model."
Neither does one have a right to be entertained. Let alone other people's "expressions of an idea".
"They have the right to adapt and find a way to provide what the consumer wants, the way they want it, and make money, or die."
This assumes that the consumer is a fair and just assesser of value. Also businesses don't have to be formed to serve a capricious and spiteful public. Anymore than I have to stand there and let you spit in my face. But they can simply leave the public to their own devices.
"Copyrights and patents create artificial scarcity and give "ownership" and exclusive rights to the first person to come up with something which cannot be owned-an idea."
Incorrect. They create an artificial scarcity of the "expression of an idea". You're more than free to take an idea, and come up with your own unique "expression" of that idea.
"But it'll stifle innovation? Biggest load I've heard. Those who have great ideas and are passionate about them need no reward. Socrates was KILLED for putting forth his thoughts, but even facing that he would not back down. And we suggest massive amounts of money are necessary to encourage this? It never was before."
Innovation is hard to substain in the face of poverty. Many artists have either starved, unknown and forgotten. Their contributions lost to time. Or found patrons who served a similiar role to our modern day content creators. Many simply had their ideas profitted from, after their paupers deaths.
"All "copyright" creates is a massive media monopoly capable of controlling the distribution of 98% or so of creative work. The "little guy" doesn't even get heard amidst their marketing noise."
Well there goes the "Internet as a new business model. Adapt or die" argument.
"No one has a right to make massive amounts of money for the REST OF THEIR LIFE plus 75 years because they do a good job one time, or even several times."
IP doesn't guarentee profit. IP guarentees that you can exercise certain kinds of control on your "expressions of an idea", and punish transgressors after the fact. The IP holder still has to do all the work any profit seeker would have to do.
"Most of us must go to work, every day, and do our job well each and every time. I don't get to say "Well you know what, boss? I've done a damn good job, and this company will benefit from that work for quite a while, so you owe me royalties for the rest of my life while I do no more work.""
Unfortunately for your argument, that's not what happens. One signs a contract to do a certain amount of work (like IT contractors). Like create a certain number of albums. Do a certain number of tours. Etc. Even in the field of patents, a lot of pre, and post work is required.
"If an artist/programmer/filmmaker/whatever is out of ideas and can't do his job anymore, it's not time for him to retire and profit at 31, it's time for him to find another job."
Since the contracts don't involve any Slashdot third-party calling the shots. The contracts are quite legal (same for professional sports.
"Personally I was hoping for more: source code and cross platform compatibility never hurts. These are the things that made BitTorrent a huge success. I guess I was hoping for a new protocol instead of just another Kazaa. I guess I was hoping for a monumental leap, and instead Exeem to be a more incremental step. I'm sure we'll learn more in the coming weeks."
....
Huh?
On one hand you say you didn't learn anything about the product, on the other hand you're disappointed that it's just another Kazaa
Which is it?!
And you want the SOURCE CODE to a product that is going to be sold?! Stop, please, just stop it.
Commander Loco is off the deep end, and continues to help the RIAA learn about a technology that is in BETA, and they're going to shut this down quicker than you can post the next best centralized Bit Torrent server as a DIRECT LINK from Slashdot, thus killing the server, thus killing another innovative method of content distribution.
Yes, BitTorrent still "works" and Slashdot has not - thankfully - destroyed it's creator. But that's because you haven't given the creator as much attention as you've been giving criminals like Supernova.org. No matter how you slice it, they were engaging in illegal activity, and Slashdot has yet to support Bram Cohen, the creator of this great technology.
MUTE is a program I've enjoyed supporting directly. .4 was just released this week and has several improvements.
While it may not be as secure as Freenet, it does take advantage of IP obfustication and is a fair bit faster. No one user knows what machine is connected to what data. With enough users, it would virtually be impossible to determine data origin.
The author of the program continues to make progress as the funds continue to roll in - fair enough.
Give it a try at: mute-net.sf.net and think about supporting the ongoing project. It certainly seems to have more plusses than Exeem!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
When you are serving software and media to the world of people who download these things, then you introduce them to an app that will - no, NEEDS - to be reverse-engineered. Just like Kazaa Lite did to Kazaa!
Like it's so hard to pump out individual lawsuits using any of the currently available p2p programs. The more hype P2P gets, the more fuss is made. It's not like I can't jump on IRC and download stuff. When was the last time IRC was shut down?
"For thousands of years, the patronage system solved this problem."*
The patronage system is simply substituting one form of control for another. Even in the form of the NEA it lacks those qualities that "competition" has brought us. Also "taxing" the public isn't as fair, as the public simply deciding through their dollars what is worth funding, and what isn't.
"If movie theatres didn't have to pay the lion's share of their ticket prices for royalties, they could afford to commission works, and recoup their investment by charging for something you can't d/l from kazaa -- the experience of seeing it in a theatre."
People already have this experience. Plus the element of risk is still present, regardlesss of who pays for it. And you lose the "economics of scale" that the big content providers provide. LOTR Couldn't be made by a local theatre.
*The laws of evolution also call into question it's effectiveness.
interesting...
As the MPAA and RIAA and various other groups kick up the fight against piracy, decentralization will do no good to the individual user, because now the responsibility falls SOLELY on that user, and not the provider of content, like a tracker or a P2P server. This means that users are easier targets because now there is no one else to blame.
This story suggests, as I have read before, that the big advantage of Suprnova was it's verification system to assure against pollution.
;-)
This advantage is also its achilles heel because it makes them vulnerable to attack.
I think it might be possible to use PGP-like technology to create an anonymous rating system. In such a system uploads would be digitally signed by one or more secret keys that vouch for its integrity.
The P2P software would be able to assess the reliability of the signer by checking his 'credibilty'. If you have downloaded something of value from him before or one of your other P2P friends has the torrent gets a high reliability value, otherwise it's more or less a gamble. If the download is good you automatically sign it with your own secret key as well.
Because of the signing system 'verifiers' could remain totally anonymous. Just made sure you burn your secret key when they start breaking down your door
y0 when u come to think about it, I dont know it could be a whole hoaX you know what I am saying... When you really look at it woodn't this program kind of take the eye off of the company but now put the eye on us????
"But now take the cost of a high speed internet connection ($30/mo. for cable modems around here), "
Wow. That's cheap. Where are you? Here in the SF Bay Area, Comcast tells me that I can pay $42 if I'm a cable subscriber (I'm not) or $63 + $3/mo for the modem if I'm not. That's $66/mo + taxes for a cable modem.
DSL is not available at my apartment complex. There are no other cable modem providers.
Broadband is getting more and more expensive these days.
What are you talking about. So it's ok to blame the tracker or P2P server? So it's ok that the tracker and P2P server are sued? I run a tracker ring and I find that kind of thinking the most insulting. Most trackers are up just because the host wanted to share... and you take advantage of that fact and rejoice in that the tracker host is getting his ass sued off and you are in your home warm and cosy?
* * *
Decentralization basically spreads out the pressure on all nodes in the network, just like how deer always travel in packs, so that it is harder for the lions to select a specific target. And even if a deer is killed by the lion the pack still survives. That's decentralization.
Didn't DirecTV do this about 4 years ago? If I remember right, they basically convinced the top guys to teach them how to "break" the current hacking methods, leading to what is know known as "Black Sunday", due to everyone's H Cards getting toasted during the main event of a WWF Pay Per View. I can't remember if it was money, get out of jail free cards, or both, but what you are suggesting HAS happened before.
A quick WHOIS gives us the adress of the registrant for the Exeem.com domain: Swarm Systems Inc. Goggle couldn't find anything interresting about it. Might be some kind of a screening company?
Just assign a +3 (or more) reason modifier to "Troll", seek somewhere in your preferences...
"The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner."
Tracker web sites that index new torrents published recently. You do not search for files, but see what is available. A big difference to the usual P2P networks, and perhaps the reason why BT is so popular and works so well.
Fast downloads because of swarming
Bittorrent's problems:
Centralized torrent indexes (suprnova etc)
Centralized tracker. There has to be a network address in the torrent file that leads to the guilty sharing individual.
Gnutella's benefits:
Decentralization
Gnutella's problems:
Slow searching
Excessive traffic due to searching "xxx porn" a million times
Slow downloads, no swarming
Trust issues?
Solution (?):
A distributed gnutella-type network, where torrents are shared instead of files. But not regular BT type torrents. Instead the tracker would not be fixed, and any node in the network could become the new tracker dynamically when the old tracker leaves. This would be possible because of the way the information about new torrents is distributed.
When a torrent is published to the network, the original seeder becomes the tracker. When leechers have 100% downloads and become seeders, they can become trackers too. The tracker can then be changed if the original seeder leaves the network. Otherwise the process would work just
like bittorrent does.
Instead of searching for torrents in the big network, the torrents would "advertise" themselves. This advertisement package would contain the following information:
Current tracker's address & port
Normal information that a .torrent file has, contents, blocks and checksum data etc.
Amount of seeders & leechers
These packages would be sent out to everybody at least when some of the following happens:
The torrent is initially published
A new user joins the torrent, and starts leeching
The tracker changes
No searching means less traffic. You would instead of searching just look at the advertisements, and information of active torrents would come very quickly when you join the network. This would be like looking at suprnova.org to see what's new.
This kind of network would have all the benefits of BT & gnutella and get rid of both's problems.
my friend got a hold of it.
here
i agree it basically sucks, but it's worth a look.
Supposing exeem isn't the evil it's being described as here, and does the job of suprnova.org. Doesn't this still mean that somewhere, a load of .torrents files have to be hosted somewhere (web server,irc,ftp),and all of which rely on a tracker. Or has exeem got a mysterious way of broadcasting these torrent files around its network? If that's true, I'm still lost as to how you know who is on the network...you still need a centralised point, surely?
Which means the exeem server or the trackers still get stung by the authorities, if this is infact the point of the program - to avoid detection. I can't see a way of it ever being anonymous. Without meaning to point out the obvious, the authorities can always track your IP address on any p2p software, so why bother hiding it. And even if you build in the anonymous IP feature into the protocol or client, there is always 'netstat' to view the connections.
Nothing costs nothing
For example, there is padding and encryption of all data, but the impact of this is minimised because the data is split up such to minimise the need for padding, and the encryption is childs-play for a modern CPU.
Further, Freenet does some pretty clever stuff with caching and minimising inter-node latency that is still, in many ways, way ahead of any other P2P applications (see this article for more info on that).
It's one of the very few real black and white issues, folks.
You agree with censorship or you don't.
Why not just use usenet to distribute the Torrent trackers? On usenet one can post anonymously, and they are automatically distributed to other usenet servers.
If that's too much typing for you,(without any spaces put there by Slashdot) yields: http://www.gotdotnet.com/Workspaces/Workspace.asp
Oh, and for you "Well just right-click on the text and click 'Follow Link'." people, tell me how to open a selected-text link containing extraneous Slashdot spaces in a new tab using Mozilla, or shut up.
(Note that the link that alfaromeo posted was "scr*wed up" because of the extraneous Slashdot spaces.)
I don't know if people are already doing this (haven't checked eMule), but I think hosting the torrent files on eMule would work quite well.
More people sharing a torrent file would mean that the file is valid. You can attach reviews and comments to the torrent file.
You still need a BT tracker though.
skype's voip application leads the way in simplicity for users: after registering at a central location to obtain a list of jump-points (100 random known IP addresses) you're pretty much on your own.
then, other people's computers are used to route incoming calls _back_ down your outgoing connection if you don't know how to configure your NAT or firewall.
i believe that it is a small step to creating a firewall-busting totally distributed VPN (that could then be firewalled itself on the VPN interface).
on top of THAT, you could run your own alternate DNS service - one that is distributed, moves about, is anonymous and untrackable (well, by businesses and lawyers, anyway).
fuckem. fuckemall. if people feel the need to steal, that's their problem. if they believe that what they are stealing is justifiably stealable, that's up to them to deal with.
remember the burning of the id cards in south africa and in germany?
Thought those had been posted already...
Screenies
Life isn't a bitch. Life is a virgin. A bitch is easy.
"Let the rest of us build this community website."
HAHAHAHAHAHA! Hee hee.
Used it to send out their 800+ meg installer for their free 12 month trial. I remember some game demo sites using it too.
"...simply because distributors of such material feel safer in distributing it, means that more people will upload more. I think that counts as encouraging."
So, because they feel safer, the prog itself is 'encouraging' it, and can't be used? Proxies may feel more safe for them, encryption may make them feel more safe, heck, maybe the internet istelf! Should we not use any of those tools, then?
Come to think of it, digital camera's may make them feel more safe: no need to go to a photo-developer anymore! So the same argumentation is possible to say digital cameras and the like is 'encouraging' CP; yet, I think most would see the absurdity of it. It's as absurd to say Freenet 'encourages' it, however - unless you interpret 'encourage' in the broadest way, in which case you can forbid all tools, basically. I'm sure the RIAA will like a broad interpretation of 'encouraging', however, especially when INDUCE gets passed. Then they can sue every P2P application (and many others) in existence.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
It floors me how many slashdotters are willing to call copyright infringement stealing and/or piracy.
It is copyright infringement. Here is a list of things it is not:
1. drug dealing
2. spousal abuse
3. public nudity
4. grand theft auto
5. murder
6. breaking and entering
7. assault
8. theft
9. tax evasion
10. clear cutting
11. toxic waste dumping
12. piracy
13. keeping two sets of books
14. plagersim
15. insider trading
16. price fixing
17. dumping (flooding the market with goods below cost)
18. add your own...
A Nony Mouse
I don't know where to begin. But to make just two points:
First, you say the caveman has no obligation to show his method for safer catching of animals to others. I personally disagree, but let's suppose for a moment that we don't have a responsibility to share - shouldn't society encourage him to share, rather than encourage him to keep it to himself? In other words, shouldn't we encourage people to make their findings available to all for the public good? The difference is perhaps between one caveman catching more animals, and hundreds catching more animals - the gains are clearly superior in the latter case. Likewise, if you figure something out that makes your life better or work easier, good for you. Share it with others, and you should be rewarded, sure - but the initial innovation shouldn't come from the desire for money. That kind of model is what gives us spam, pop-ups, adware, and Britney Spears, while innovation for the sake of knowledge and beauty gave us most of humanity's scientific and cultural advances. Sure, artists and scientists need to survive, but their discoveries will be best when motivated by their own curiosity and creativity, rather than profit.
Secondly, the alternative is not, as you claim "a world where all you can own are widgets, and your wealth is measured by how much material stuff you have" - that's absolutely absurd and suggests you are probably still in middle school, or possibly business school. True wealth is not exclusively, nor even primarily, derived from intellectual or material property. Maybe you'll grow up / get a life and realize this someday.
Wait a minute, I didn't say I wanted to forbid it! I just said I didn't want to use it.
And I think your analogy regarding digital cameras are lacking in the regard that if I buy a digital camera, I can decide if I want to photograph child porn with it or not. If I run a freenet node, I can't decide if I want it to host child pornography.
That makes a difference.
Then you don't want to use any ISPs neither?
Because, you know, those ISPs are used by a lot of people abusing their services. And it's not like they 'decide' about that, neither.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
"It also has a rating and commenting system which appears to be somewhat rudimentary."
So... if you mod the torrent funny, the seed gets no karma?
Huh? How am I responsible for what other people do?
I don't want to use freenet, because then I could potentially, although unknowingly, be hosting child porn on my server. I find that ethically disturbing. And so does plenty of other people it seems.
If the ISP has ethical issues with transporting freenet data. They should make an effort to stop it.
Or do you really think that because the ISP takes my money, and the ISP ferries freenet trafic, then my small contribution to my ISP is in effect more or less a direct, though tiny, contribution towards keeping freenet running? And in turn I should have ethical issues with that?
I am not responsible for what other people do.
I will admit our system is nowhere near perfect, but I think you underestimate the value of intellectual property in our society. Money isn't evil; it's the most efficient way we have of giving value to what people do. By completely taking away the monetary value of ideas, we are overall saying that ideas do not have value. Whether the implications of that are good or bad, I canoot say. All I know is the situation is much more complicated than you suggest.
1) Not all countries can be affected by the MPAA/RIAA. 2) In almost all cases, it will be requested that the tracker be taken down first, or action will be sought after. So take the tracker down and throw it up somewhere else. 3) It wouldn't be impossible to run a tracker in anonymity, but the warez scene is so full of elitism and kids with low self esteem, that its no wonder people get caught.
"I don't want to use freenet, because then I could potentially, although unknowingly, be hosting child porn on my server. I find that ethically disturbing. And so does plenty of other people it seems."
I see. And do you feel like people *should* find it ethically disturbing to run a freenetnode? Do you think ISPs should be held responsable for what other people do with their services? Do you think they should feel morally/ethically responsable because some people abuse their services?
"Or do you really think that because the ISP takes my money, and the ISP ferries freenet trafic, then my small contribution to my ISP is in effect more or less a direct, though tiny, contribution towards keeping freenet running? And in turn I should have ethical issues with that?"
I find your reasoning compelling. Maybe you *should* have ethical issues with it, indeed? If you believe in guilt by proxy, then you should, logically speaking.
"I am not responsible for what other people do."
Exactly my point.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
When you were downloading, did you look at the sources' queue positions at any time? If so, did you notice that you were often a thousand or so places behind? Some people on eMule have a lot of files shared, often obtained through other networks, so it's easier sometimes to find a rare file, but it's harder to get a popular file. It's a tradeoff that BitTorrent optimizes in favor of popular files rather than rare files.
I see. And do you feel like people *should* find it ethically disturbing to run a freenetnode? Do you think ISPs should be held responsable for what other people do with their services? Do you think they should feel morally/ethically responsable because some people abuse their services?
It's not a black and white issue. The way I weigh the arguments, I come out with the conclusion that running a freenet node is not something I want to do. But recognizing the complexity, I will say at the same time, it is not for me to decide what other people should do here. I don't have anything against freenet as such. It might be a tool that we will need later on when liberties have been more thoroughly stomped on. I don't think we have reached that point yet though.
So to repeat myself, seeing as I only just barely have an issue with this myself, I definitly feel that if other people feel differently about it, then that is their decision. And to answer your question. No I have absolutely no problem with whatever trafic my ISP carries.
Got to go to a new years party now. if you wan't we can continue this debate next year. :)
The line about the death of Hollywood is pure bullshit.
LOL
;-).
Ok...have to go to one myself, in a while.
It's not that I don't understand what you're saying and of course I feel anyone has the right to decide what he runs or not on their puter, I think all agree on that (exept MS
But I'm getting a bit pissed off by some that always use the same dead horse of "Freenet is a CP haven" (which it is not, as far as research has shown) and with how morally wrong it is, while that reasoning never seems to bother those posters when using an ISP or a hotspot or myriad of other tools. The morality issue is not intrinsically different then with other tools, it's just that the benefits versus the risks have to be determined. The risk is that of 'being' an ISP, and the benefit is that of promoting free speech.
If people make the conclusion it's not worth it, fine - see you when free speech will have become so suppressed even they get bothered by it, but it's not like Freenet involves totally new concepts (morally, I mean). A tool is a tool: it does not 'encourage' anything, and all tools can be abused, even when they are created for good purposes. Nothing new under the sun.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
i think that many people here are dancing around the heart of the issue.
ok, the problem is that we have two moral decisions which are apparently clashing.
1. child pr0n is WRONG
2. censorship is WRONG
normally these two ideas can float around in a person's head w/o them noticing that these morals may conflict with one another. as in the case of freenet. freenet is all about privacy and no censorship. that has apparently allowed much child pr0n to be distributed through its systems easily.
the internet itself has much child pr0n, or hate literature, etc. these things offend people. but, they still use the internet. that is because they are not taking any part in the seedier side of the internet.
HOWEVER, freenet does not allow you to choose what sort of data that will be stored/distributed by your computer.
let's put this into 3D. i believe in free speech. i know that neo-nazis can hand out literature, try to persuade people of their opinions, even gather peacefully. i can be morally outraged at what they are saying. i also have the right, by free speech, to speak as loudly as i wish against neo-nazis.
HOWEVER (and this is the big point here) i cannot be forced to participate in the dissemination of such untruthful and disgusting material as neo-nazi literature.
this logic doesn't work:
i do not distribute hate literature, therefore i believe in censorship.
censorship is about a governing/hierarchical body deciding what can be viewed by the general public. censorship is NOT about the personal liberty each individual has to choose what they are involved in.
in fact, what freenet has essentially done is become a dictatorial government that "for the sake of privacy" has forced its subjects (regular users of freenet) to distribute morally outrageous data.
i can just picture my local elected official coming to my house with a stack of child pr0n and saying, "our country does not believe in censorship - now go pass this child pr0n to people. if you refuse, then you are an evil believer in censorship!"
alright, that's my two cents. enjoy.
I use mlnet, a client for Overnet/EDonkey and have switched of browsing of files. So basically there is no way of looking into my system from outside.
This system is inherently much more secure than Bittorrent. You have no central site holding problematic torrents, local browsing is a switchable option, it only takes a small md4-Checksum to locate a file, names actually don't matter. Making Bittorent more secure and distributed would just mean making Bittorrent another edonkey.
MLNet supports several other protocols as well but I usually do not use them / do not give bandwidth to them. Includes Bittorrent, Fasttrack, Gnutella1/2, http/ftp/news/dcc and others.
With Bittorrent you have one easy target, the hub. And you can request nearly every information about its participant, what files and chunks he got, what he gave etcpp.
With mlnet you can actually only verify one thing: Someone gave you a chunk of a file matching a md5-checksum which you requested hours ago. You don't know how much he got, what else and if he even got the full fule. No central responsbility.
Oh, yes, you are still trackable. But only to a little more extent than freenet from a judge-point-of-view.
Also by using Linux I can have thousands of waiting connections which usually gives me very good rates. I only noticed one drawback, it usually tackes 60min to start full-speed-download while Bittorrent usually takes only 10min.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
To be fair, it wouldn't necessarily be difficult to implement a fully distributed Bittorrent system. The difficulty is achieving widespread acceptance to provide a large enough catalogue of material (illegal or otherwise) to make the network worthwhile in people's eyes.
.torrent from the process entirely, and have the DHT store the contents of the .torrent file instead. This is all easily achievable.
The research community has provided many, many ways of implementing distributed hashtable (DHT) functionality over the years, offering systems which can handle many thousands of nodes. Tapestry, CAN, Pastry, Scribe, Chord (etc, etc) are examples of such systems, each has its own way of organising the namespace across the nodes, each offers certain levels of redundancy between nodes.
It would be easy to implement one of these systems, or make use of code from one of the projects which has released code under some open source license. So long as results from a lookup were returned on the basis of finding only some terms in a query, rather than all terms, with some basic elements of information retrieval techniques coming into play here to provide a ranking on results returned, looking up content would be easily do-able.
If there's an issue with the system scaling, introduce some hierarchical structure to the system, the number of ways traffic can be passed between groups in the hierarchy (not necessarily reducing the number of nodes reachable from any one node). Christ, you could get a paper published just on that idea alone.
The DHT could either map [title]:[.torrent location] pairs (allowing the BitTorrent system to used in its current form). A cleaner solution would be remove the
Again, this would not be a difficult system to implement. The difficulty lies in acceptance.
1) Apparently the hostility towards trackers has grown. Sweden has just passed (or is in the process of passing) an anti-P2P law. Do you have ANY idea how expensive hosting is outside of NA. 2) Obviously it is easier for anyone to attack one target (the tracker) and destroy it, instead of a web of decentralized nodes. And it need not be the MPAA/RIAA. There are localized versions of the MPAA/RIAA in many other countries (I know both Canada and Australia have almost exact copies).
Thank you for generalizing that everyone with an opposing viewpoint from you is some type of spoiled rich kid.
I didn't say that, and if it doesn't apply to you, why are you responding? Clearly, I struck a nerve.
Actually, I have met quite a few people who are in favor of changes to "intellectual property", from liberals who have spent years helping with poverty-stricken families in third-world countries and have little sympathy for CEO's who don't make another million, to archconservatives including my father.
Well, can't argue with that kind of research.
Which one I am, if either, is not really relevant to our discussion here.
It absolutely is. It illustrates the root cause of your position on defending piracy.
I do not understand the concept of "intellectual property".
It's very simple. You are protected under law to come up with something that is your own and sell it as you wish.
Want to "own" an idea?
COPYright. You own the right to copy and sell it. You're veering off into a strawman argument. Nobody's talking about the ownership of ideas. We're talking about copyright.
Keep it in your head with your mouth shut, and if you write it down or otherwise record it anywhere, make sure that it's somewhere no one will ever find it.
I'll remember that in the next GPL "source code theft" article.
Awwwwww, big corporation can't make money? Too bad.
And so one of the root causes surfaces--bitter envy and vitriol toward business. You are a dorm room anti-capitalist.
No one has a "right" to the continued success of their business model.
Nobody EVER, EVER said that. But those companies do have a right not to have their rights violated. If their business is going to die, it should be because nobody is buying it, not because their product really is in demand but people are making sure they don't have to pay them for it.
They have the right to adapt and find a way to provide what the consumer wants, the way they want it, and make money, or die.
Clearly the consumer wants it if they're pirating it. Consumers don't have a "right" to something just becuase they want it. Your argument has already fallen completely flat.
Copyrights and patents create artificial scarcity and give "ownership" and exclusive rights to the first person to come up with something which cannot be owned-an idea.
No, copyrights give the holder the ability to copy and distribute something they came up with in order to make a living off of it. Again, it has nothing to do with "ownership;" it's about distribution rights. Metallica, whether or not you like Lars Ulrich, has the right to decide how his music is put out there. Not you, the pirate.
But it'll stifle innovation? Biggest load I've heard. Those who have great ideas and are passionate about them need no reward.
In other words, you're imposing your lifestyle idea on other people. I'm sure the artists will appreciate it (fascist).
Socrates was KILLED for putting forth his thoughts, but even facing that he would not back down.
What in god's name does Socrates have to do with this?
Of course, there are those who can consistently do a great job at coming up with and putting into practice great ideas. They'll make a living. (No, I didn't say "killing").
This has nothing to do with idea ownership. I'll repeat it again because you've completely veered off into an emotive, anti-capitalist dorm room rant that has nothing to do with COPYRIGHT.
All "copyright" creates is a massive media monopoly capable of controlling the distribution of 98% or so of creative work.
So don't buy the stuff if you don't like it. Oh, that's right, you believe you have the right to something just because you don't want to pay for it. That's all this boils down to.
The "little gu
I like your emotive use of the word "cartel."
The message shouldn't be "adapt" it should be "go away".
That's why we have things like iTunes, and other online music sales outlets. They are already adapting. The arguments behind piracy are dead and dying.
Regardless, it still doesn't justify ripping off an artist and guaranteeing that they don't get paid. The reason labels are afraid to take risks is because there's not enough return on investment based on piracy, so they rely on tried-and-true sellers.
Uh, you do realize that record labels are the ones who rent out the high-tech studios, the consoles, the computers, the Pro Tools setups, hire the engineers, the agents, the managers, and so on...set up the tours, provide the band with equipment to record and play with...it's much more than the black-and-white, pro-piracy viewpoint you put forth above.
Remove the labels, and it will be a lot harder to get things done. Companies that have money can get things done a lot better than indie bands in a garage. The home recording revolution doesn't matter--the best studios and engineers are still far out of home consumer reach. Unless you like the idea of a band as good as the Beatles, somewhere out there, stuck in a garage recording through Cubase for the first time instead of being presented a contract so they can properly be recorded and toured.
Due to the way Mixnets such as Tor work the overall performance of BT or anything else will be greatly reduced. Namely reduced to 1/(av_nbr_of_proxies+1). E.g. 2 proxies = 1/3 speed. This is pretty obvious seeing how every packet now consumes 3 times the bandwidth (and of course no bandwidth will be magically created). That's not to say it won't be usable though. (E.g. look at ed2k which is often slow, yet people use it anyway.) The largest problem ought to be massive increase in traffic this would result in if it caught on among the masses.
Quoted from torrentaid.com he popular BitTorrent download system is an excellent way to distribute large files that are in high demand quickly and efficiently. However its reliance on a "tracker server" makes it part of an older class of peer-to-peer systems which depend on central components, vulnerable to attack or overloading. TorrentAid is a suite of easy, powerful, open-source BitTorrent tools. These tools not only work with traditional centralised torrents, but can also create a new generation of decentralised, cross-network swarmable trackerless torrents. With supporting download software these backward-compatible torrents can be used without having to contact a centralised tracker, and can also be "cross-network swarm downloaded" combining BitTorrent download sources with sources on other P2P networks such as Gnutella2 and eDonkey2000. TorrentAid's Torrent Wizard is an easy Windows-based wizard for creating decentralised (and centralised) torrents. Simply select the file(s), add a backward-compatible tracker URL and/or comments, and create. Download it now or review the step-by-step tutorial. Using Decentralised Torrents Decentralised torrents contain additional file identification information that allows them to be searched and found over popular decentralised peer-to-peer networks, eliminating the need for a fixed web-tracker. Extensions to the torrent format and communication protocol are open and in the spirit of its design. The Shareaza multi-peer-to-peer client currently supports BitTorrent and TorrentAid extensions, including decentralised torrent search through the open Gnutella2 network. With Shareaza 1.9 even normal torrents can operate without trackers, however TorrentAid-enhanced torrents can also swarm-download from other networks such as eDonkey2000 and Gnutella2, further enhancing download performance. About TorrentAid TorrentAid is a non-profit effort to extend BitTorrent technologies and provide high quality open-source BitTorrent tools.
Indeed, there is no substantial difference, only a difference in degree. If there were, ISPs who use servers that don't log would be more morally wrong then those who do. In essence, every practise that improves privacy would be, if the reasoning is followed consistently.
:-)
Anyway, happy newyear, halo1!
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
the whole decentralization thing seems a bit like a reinvention of gnutella, one of the first predecessors to pop up after napster. bit torrent is great, why not use the existing gnutella network to distribute torrents? it's got plenty of clients, some open source/cross platform, a huge userbase, and is still being improved upon.
Nerds (95%?) care about piracy, and most of them pirate themselves, so why shouldn't slashdot post news for them (nerds) that matter?
So what you are saying is that the EFF supports warze, does not believe that people should have a say in how their copy righted work can and can't be used, nor be compensated for their work, and wants help people hide their actions so that they don't get caught doing something they know is wrong?
Wow, what a nice organization! And to think they also support spam, and wants break firewalls in order to bypass peoples spam filters too!
Who wants to be the first to reverse engineer this thing? (Since it looks like it's going to be closed source, without a protocol spec avaliable)
I'd be willing to give it a go, guess it's time to brush up on my python..
My email addy? should be easy enough.
Crap, I made an elaborate post as an answer, klicked on submit (I thought) and the whole thing vanished. If you ever had the same: it's SO frustrating to see a post disapear into thin air, isn't it?
:-)
Ah well, I'm not going to repeat everything; we've covered most of it in the past. In essence, you're happy with irrational reasonings, and I'm not.
Let's just agree to disagree on this topic.
And a happy new year and many more interesting discussions. (And I hope this time, the submit will work).
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I have a second one. Contact me if you're interested in working out a deal. I can provide screenshots to show it's legit.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
I hate to say this but it does not matter if there are Linux versions etc of Exeem. Bittorents success is because it is a well designed protocol for the transmission via P2P of high demand files NOT because it is crossplatform. I suspect less then 0.1% of bittorent users are using anything other then Windows. Let's not forget Kazaa is still the most popular client despite all the bloat and spyware but there has never been any Kazaa client for anything other then Windows
It could also be done by the good guys to make it that much harder to find child porn. If 99.9% of labeled child porn was fake, it would be pretty pointless to search for it.
... might as well sell it as advertising space.
Hell, if we're going to distribute fake decoy porn
-kgj
-kgj
Luckily, at least on slashdot there aren't any real authority figures! ;-)
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I realize that his use of "and" doesn't necessarily mean he's using an implication between normal and okay or deviant and not okay. However, the mention of normalcy and deviance would be otherwise irrelevant if he weren't using normalcy and deviance as hypothesis for implications.
i just thought of something. The RIAA doesn't now what it is doing, its like come on I only can by a CKY cd from one company. The goverment started bitiching when they go confused about bill gates. Why don't they do that to a market that is in complete control of one company. I mean and the the riaa starts sending out these adds like i work on the set, and i am not get paid, wait you are getting paid wether or not the movie even sells a ticket. They don't realize that movies aren't even the problem. I mean i don't care if CKY gets paid nothing. They do nothing but like record for one day or many like a month, so who come if I were to work for the same amount iof time i would expect not like all the money i could get. They probably get paid 10% and the ceo gets paid 40%, and the other 50% goes to them saying "Stop downloading where not getting paid". why dont they bitch to the CEO of like virgen records, not to us we took like $5 dollars of music and your record company took like 10,000,000. I mean if they want more money they should go some where else. They have a monply and they know it and they do nothing.
I like CKY and was just using them as an example.
I too am sad that suprnova is gone, I loved using its categories to find international (mostly spanish) music that i would not have discovered otherwise. .torrents are uploaded and distributed etc., is interested in discussing the creation of a new site, PLEASE contact me!
To me, it seems like the suprnova site wasn't really that complicated. But i could be mistaken because unfortuanetly i really don't know that much about the torrent process except for the end user (downloading) part.
If anyone, who knows a decent amount about how
Email: rylwin@houston.rr.com
PS: Since it seems like the MPAA might have been behind the suprnova shutdown, any legal advice about how to avoid suits from anyone with expertise in this field would be nice.