Wired Interviews Bram Cohen, Creator of BitTorrent

ZP-Blight writes "Wired has posted an in-depth five page interview with Bram Cohen, the creator of the popular Peer-2-Peer software, BitTorrent."

Comments

WJR 760

[Puls4r]

A local radio station WJR 760 in Detroit interviewed him earlier this week. It was apparent that he needed to hire someone with a little better speaking skills - especially when he knows he'll be ambushed at nearly every opportunity.

I couldn't believe my ears when the talk show host asked him: "Does it bother you that people use your product for negative purposes, sort of like the scientists who developed the formulas used in the atomic bombs that killed hundreds of thousands?"

My jaw hit the floor when his reply was "Well, this isn't exactly an atom bomb...." That's why the lawyers are winning right now. It's not because they're smarter. It's because they are SO good at twisting things around, and us geeks can't speak in public worth a damn.

He also wouldn't admit that bit-torrent is a revolutionary way of transfering data, he kept downplaying his program. Come on man! You're not a programmer right now. You're a salesman and a human resource department. Act like it!

Re:WJR 760

[kmak]

And if he "brags" about Bittorrent, the Slashdot crowd will call him arrogant...

I agree with you with being more articulate though. I think the standard answer should be to deflect responsibility, just like a politican!

Probably something along the lines of:
"It is the responsibility of the individual to decide what he/she wants to do with it. I'm only responsible for discovering new things."

Or maybe even a bit extreme:
"Someone can stab someone else to death with a pen. Does that mean pens should've never been invented?" (Or insert something equally trivial..)

Merit alone, sadly, isn't enough anymore..

Re:WJR 760

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Nope, that's not it. The proper response is something like:

(Cohen) What can I do? Even now, there are evil bittorrent people who have used my software to burn villages to the ground, teach schoolchildren to write with their left hands, sodomize livestock and advocate american usage of the metric system! It makes my skin crawl to hear how it ressurrected Jeffrey Dahmer and caused him to go on a zombie rampage, eviscerating screaming women and devouring innocent children! Stop zombie Dahmer, think of the children! What will we do when the terrorists twist my innocent application into a weapon of mass destruction, simply because Congress couldn't stop the partisan bickering long enough? Bittorrent doesn't even prevent AIDS, let alone cure it!

(Radio host) But, you say this can be used by terrorists, and you still created it? What?

(Cohen) What, does that sound a little ridiculous to you?

(Radio Host) I dunno, can it be used...
(Cohen, interrupting) Because it sounds more than a little ridiculous for you to compare Bittorent to nuclear weapons. C'mon, tell us straight. The RIAA didn't put you up to this, but you've been one of their lapdogs so long, they don't have to explicitly tell you to do this sort of character assassination.

(Radio Host) Now wait a minute...
(Cohen) No, you wait a minute. Bittorrent doesn't do anything the internet itself doesn't do. Except that if ever the RIAA was so insane to suggest the internet be made illegal, even the most bought senator would laugh. Bittorrent is just a networking protocol, something your mouth-breathing bosses couldn't describe in layman's terms if their lives depended on it. A protocol that makes the internet slightly more efficient, and not much more. It's clever, I like it, and so do quite a few other people. What do you say to that? (stomps out of the booth).