Slashdot Mirror
Decentralize BitTorrent with Kenosis
UnderScan writes "Eric Ries, writer/programmer/CTO, authored an article 'Kenosis and the World Free Web' at Freshmeat [Owned by Slashdot's Parent OSTG]. Kenosis is described as a 'fully-distributed peer-to-peer RPC system built on top of XMLRPC.' He has combined his Kenosis with BitTorrent & removed the need for a centralized tracker. He states: 'To demonstrate Kenosis's suitability for these new applications, we have used it to improve upon another peer-to-peer filesharing application that Just Works: BitTorrent. BitTorrent does one thing incredibly well. Using a centralized "tracker," BitTorrent manages efficient distribution of data that is in high demand. We have extended BitTorrent, using Kenosis, to eliminate this dependence on a centralized tracker.'
See also the Kenosis README for details on using Kenosis-enabled BitTorrent."
Decentralization is generally useful for any application where failure of some critical node results in failure of the entire transaction. Distribution of any data via bittorrent will benefit - regardless of content - if there is a possibility that a tracker host could fail.
This will probably considered a troll also, but I think the obvious answer is porn.
We all knew this was coming, but would this app get this kind of exposure had the MPAA not cracked down on those BT tracker sites?
It is just like Scour net (web based/centralized), then napster (p2p/centralized), then kazaa (p2p/decentralized). Every time they go after a technology, they force it to evolve into the next phase. They will never win IMHO.
It's fun to see how book-writing hackers act.
;)
What, you mean, by using the right tool for the job instead of language snobbery?
I think I found a defect.
This thing doesn't make any fucking sense.
I was really excited by this slashdot story, because I think something like this could be very very useful. I have to say that I was disappointed a bit by the download.
No docs or pointers at the top of the tarball.
One of the READMEs on the site says try "test.py" for an example, which seems to just hang.
Elsewhere it says to fire up bittorrent
trackers and clients.
There clearly is a lot of work that has gone into this, and the idea sounds really promising, but it looks like it needs a better end-user documentation before it's ready for primetime.
Because you have a fixation on money like some I've been acquainted with.
Seriously... I don't see how to make money off this...
Seriously...why is that important? Did you even read the article? The author of this BitTorrent enhancement does not even use the word "money"--it is WAY down the list of motivations for its creation, not does it seem to be about getting pr0n and warez. This guy sounds like an idealist in a very true sense--it's about decentralisation of control--making content available without being reliant on central servers.
I think this would be immensely useful. The reliance on central BT trackers has been shown to be BTs primary weak point--once a torrent is located and transfer is initiated it is incredibly robust.
Besides the fact that the admins of BT trackers are being harassed into submission by MPAA and RIAA, the more popular trackers seemed to be quite unreliable. If this innovation (open sourced to boot) addresses the reliablity issues in LOCATING the content that BT is so good at DISTRIBUTING then it could be start a dramatic shift in how we use the Internet, much like the WWW was.
It doesn't even have to be about piracy. Used within a VPN or on a corporate WAN it would make distribution of a large number of big applications much easier to distribute. I make VMWare and ghost images of machines that are many gigabytes and this solution would be a great way of distrubuting them to a large customer with global sites (keep in mind that these clients are legally permitted to use these images--my employer is a stickler for that).
A small operator could distribute software this way and save on the costs and time associated with maintaining a critical server with big pipe to the 'net. Security patches could be distributed this way very effectively without reliance on a single entity for distribution. The possibilities are endless. It might not be a money making machine, but it is the kind of thing that (if it works well) could change the face of computing.