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Decentralize BitTorrent with Kenosis

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the do-you-peer-what-he-is-saying dept.

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."

5 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. Still falls just a bit short. by Nosf3ratu · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This doesn't anonymize the users, does it? Your IP address is still readily available, no?

    Then this falls a bit short of the "killer p2p app" moniker that it *almost* deserves.

    --
    The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori
  2. From the feature list... by hourieh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From the feature list...

    Kenosis works in almost any networking environnment, including restrictive corporate firewalls, because it uses XMLRPC for its network communications. It can also work with an HTTP proxy.

    This alone makes a worthwhile project, for those stuck behind firewalls/proxies.

  3. Great Step, but still no safe haven for fileshares by 314m678 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This is an important step, but it still does not hide the user's IPs from the *AA.
    From the Article:

    It does not address problems of anonymity, privacy, or distributed data retention, although we hope to address these issues in future versions.

  4. This isn't the MPAA's worst nightmare (yet) by RebornData · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you read the article carefully (or not so carefully), you'll note that this product does NOT include a fully distributed / decentralized tracker... an web server tracker is still necessary for the initial torrent retrieval. If that tracker becomes overloaded / unavailable this system will have real value, but there's still an originating central tracker for the MPAA to go after.

    However, it's only a very short matter of time. The author explains that such a thing could be easily created with this framework. Clearly he could have done it if he wanted, so I'm guessing this is a purposeful strategy on his part to avoid any potential direct or indirect personal liability or legal issues down the road...

    -R

  5. Decentralized? by MasTRE · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Lets simplify this. You are a program that doesn't know anything about the world, because you are a de-centralized program. You are started by your master ("user," in human speak). What do you then do? Who do you connect to? Surely if you had an address hardcoded somewhere you would no longer qualify as being decentralized. Do you start walking the IP space, trying to connect to 1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.2, and so on? Oh, so the IPs you have coded in your config are "only hints," huh? Okay, then you should be able to cope with all those "hints" having gone bad. When those hints are all bad, what do you do, Mr. D. Centralized Program?

    Decentralized, my ass.

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