Azureus Decentralizes Bittorrent

BobPaul writes "While the eXeem project to decentralize Bittorrent remains in open beta, the Azureus Java Bittorrent project has recently released a major update that, among other things offers 'a distributed, decentralised database that can be used to track decentralised torrents. This permits both "trackerless" torrents and the maintenance of swarms where the tracker has become unavailable or where the torrent was removed from the tracker.' It doesn't contain the search functionality of eXeem, but it's also not a beta product and is licensed under the GPL. Could this and compatible clients be the replacement to SuprNova and Lokitorrents, or does the lack of search negate its effectiveness?"

Comments

A step in the right direction...

[Lostie]

... but the RIAA/MPAA lawyer teams don't need to start hiring again just yet.

does the lack of search negate its effectiveness?

I'd say it "limits" it's effectiveness, not negates it. It's not really de-centralized if you still have to rely on sites like suprnova in order to search for stuff, is it? This is a major reason why BitTorrent hasn't completely dominated eMule yet.
But since this removes another potential point of failure in the network (the tracker), it is still a good thing(tm).

Re:A step in the right direction...

[DenDave]

A pity these technologies always end up being dissed as being "vehicles of sin" ... I actually hope it works... I download alot of Linux/bsd isos and it's a pain sometimes because of poor mirrors and shitty trackers, however if these swarms appear upon a new release then it makes sense to start downloading during the swarm as opposed to waiting for the rush to pass.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[shird]

Which you have to ask, why not just use emule/edonkey network?

Before you say 'wah wah bit torrent is faster', etc, it is only like that because it is centralised and so a tracker can make sure everyone is seeding, there are statistics which encourage people to seed, and most importantly, there are far less files, and so the bandwidth isnt spread out as thinly.

The more these guys work on decentralising BT, the closer you get to just being a less efficient and less established clone of emule. Whats the point?

As far as 'warezing' is concerned (99% of traffic), BT is a terrible protocol. The trouble is, these kids see the speed of BT and think thats the way to go. They realise the centralisation is a problem, and so try to fix that. Without realising they are just reinventing the wheel. They think they are going to get the best of both worlds, because they are just warezing kids and don't know any better.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[dbretton]

But the truth is, 99% of gun use is against people.

The truth is, you are a liar and a child molestor and you eat babies. How do I know this? I don't, but, like you, I will assert it to be true without providing any supporting information.

Though I cannot refute your assertion with solid numbers (as the only info I can find is either procured by pro-gun nuts or anti-gun nuts), I can refute it with simple logic.

The local rod & gun club gets about 50 people per day, averaged out across a seven day week. The reality is that most of the business is on the weekend, but an average is sufficient for this exercise.
Using your statistic, that means that, in my town alone, there would need to be 5000 shootings DAILY.

Let's assume the traffic at my local club is average. Since there are approximately 10000 US cities (link), even if only 50% had a rod & gun club, that would mean there would be 250,000 recreational gun uses each day. Assuming this is the 0.01 minority, this means that there would have to be 25 million gun shootings in the US each day. Each year, every one in the US would have been shot... twelve times.

Now, getting back to BitTorrent. I would tend to agree that BitTorrent is analagous to gun use in that its primary use is recreational in nature. The difference here, however, is that BitTorrent's recreational use is more likely to be illegal in nature than not.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Using a gun on a person does not imply shooting them. Genereally a gun is used to intimidate. Or do you propose that every cop and soldier carries a weapon for hunting?

Re:A step in the right direction...

[DenDave]

I don't see the paralel with guns. Apache webserver can be used to distribute illegal content, it is in many cases, should it then be banned? oh perhaps we should just do away with the internet altogether?

Guns were built to kill things, software was written to distribute content. Killing things is usually best left to a (legitimate) government who has the monopoly on legitimate use of force. Content is up to the members of society to be done in good taste and within the norms of such society.

I'd say most are looking for porn, movies, software, etc.

doesn't, by nature, break the rules, perhaps the problem lies not in the distribution medium but between the chair and the keyboard.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[Ed Avis]

Look at it this way, statistics can be used to back up a sensible argument. But the truth is, 99% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[mrjive]

ObSimpsons:

Kent: Mr. Simpson, how do you respond to the charges that petty vandalism such as graffiti is down eighty percent, while heavy sack-beatings are up a shocking nine hundred percent?
Homer: Aw, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. Forty percent of all people know that.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[FidelCatsro]

Wrong analogy , i prefer this one .Guns Are designed to kill, which can be used to kill prey for food or murder.
So there is still a fairly just debate over the fact that guns are by nature evil .
Bittornet is designed to take the load off of server , and by its nature is good .
However there is an argument that it can be used to help people download infringing materials.

So Guns are designed to kill , Torrent are designed to aid.

many people use guns for legitimate reasons such as Hunting for food or to cull an animal population.
Guns are also used by murderers to murder people .

Many people use bittorent for legitimate reasons such as downloading files that are not copyright infringments in their country!
Torrents can be used for a slightly negative reasons, IE Infringment by those scurvy Infringers of the High seas.

So to sum it up ,
at best , guns kill for food at worst guns kill.
At best torrents help the internet , at worst they potentialy infringe some copyright. ;) So explain to me again why torrents should be illegal and guns not

Re:A step in the right direction...

[Stalyn]

Now, getting back to BitTorrent. I would tend to agree that BitTorrent is analagous to gun use in that its primary use is recreational in nature. The difference here, however, is that BitTorrent's recreational use is more likely to be illegal in nature than not.

I'm sorry but the gun was not invented for recreational use. It was invented as a weapon of war to maim and destroy people. You think the gun was created so people can have gun clubs and target practice? Oh dear god I hope not. The vast majority of the times a gun is used in the world is not for fun. Unless you consider killing and scaring people fun then yes its recreational.

Anyway the BT and gun analogy is misleading. I don't think anyone is going to die from the misuse of BT. Oh maybe those poor artists will starve to death because you downloaded all their CDs. But other than that.. no one.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot! You're not taking into account the fact that one person can be shot more than once! Around 200 people get shot a day... and that one jerk gets 24,999,801 popped into his skull. He's been dead fifteen years, but the hatred still flows. That reminds me, I need to buy more ammunition.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I'm sorry but the gun was not invented for recreational use. It was invented as a weapon of war to maim and destroy people. You think the gun was created so people can have gun clubs and target practice? Oh dear god I hope not. The vast majority of the times a gun is used in the world is not for fun. Unless you consider killing and scaring people fun then yes its recreational.

I'm sorry but sex was not invented for recreational use. It was invented as a method of procreation to create more people. You think sex was created so people can have sex clubs and kinky orgies? Oh dear god I hope not. The vast majority of the times sex is used in the world is not for fun. Unless you consider making a woman fat for 9 months just to create a new person fun then yes sex is recreational.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[Thomas Miconi]

Which you have to ask, why not just use emule/edonkey network?

Hell, why not use a Gnutella2, as Shareazaa does ?

Gnutella2 is a smaller network but is still pretty large, and it has the advantage of much shorter queues. Edonkey is cool for very large files which you don't mind waiting for, or for rare files. Gnutella2 is ideal for smaller files which you want to download quickly.

The more these guys work on decentralising BT, the closer you get to just being a less efficient and less established clone of emule. Whats the point?

Swarm management in Bittorrent is much more advanced than in edonkey/gnutella clients. The latter do have "swarming" possibilities in that you can download from multiple sources, but seem to have only primitive "retribution" system, etc.

If someone could set an Edonkey/Gnutella-like system and incorporate Bittorrent's efficient swarm management in it, that would make a killing p2p network. The question is: why do these people insist on developing their own isolated software instead of using established protocols and systems ? Just merge Bittorrent and gnutella/edonkey and be done with it.

Thomas-

Re:A step in the right direction...

[i wanted another nam]

No, guns are designed to kill. Waving a gun around to scare somebody is not using it for its intended purpose. You are threatening to use it for its intended purpose. Thost bullets don't have "fear me" written on them, they're made of soft lead designed to leave a large exit wound. The gun does not care what it shoots. It is a tool. Point it at what you want to kill, and pull the trigger.

Bittorrent was designed to download. The analogy to the gun is stupid ad best. You can't threaten a download with azureus. "I MIGHT USE SOMEBODY ELSE'S BANDWIDTH TO DOWNLOAD YOUR FILE! FEAR ME!" ... just doesn't work. The bittorrent client doesn't care what it downloads. It is a tool. Feed it a torrent file, and point it to a directory.

Then again, I could be completely wrong, because, as I recall, sport utility vehicles were designed for offroad driving, not taking up 4 parking spaces at the fucking Krogers, you fucking asshole. How are those keytip-sized scratches looking?

Re:A step in the right direction...

[tepples]

Porn is illegal now?

Not illegal, just copyrighted with all rights reserved. Take the example of Eyes Wide Shut, probably among the best written erotic films in existence. Yes, Warner Bros. Pictures is going to have a problem if somebody puts up a rip on Demonoid.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[maxume]

Guns are designed to eject a small, dense projectile along a highly predictable trajectory at very high speeds. This makes them very useful for hitting objects at some distance with a force that the object can not sustain without damage. This makes them a very useful tool for killing, but the killing is still an act carried out by the user of the tool.

So I guess I am argueing that guns are designed to do something that is very useful when trying to kill, not to kill.

As to whether either rifles or torrents should be illegal, no they shouldn't, they both have plenty of legitimate uses. If you don't think rifles are useful, then you don't understand that in many places(Michigan for one), deer are essentially pests, tree rats, if you will. They destroy trees and have a huge negative impact on forest regeneration. One great way to keep the population in check is to shoot and eat them. There are ~300,000(out of about 1.75 million) deer shot each year in Michigan alone. Compare that to the nation wide murders of less than 20,000(yearly) and you have a pretty concrete example that at least some guns are being used for legitimate purposes(controlling the deer herd). Let's not get into the fact that the herd is where it is due to the elimination of natural predators.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[daikokatana]

Sex was invented? Don't tell Microsoft, they'll try to get a patent!

Re:A step in the right direction...

[MBGMorden]

xMule, mldonkey, and aMule.

All work fine. No they're not "official" eMule, but eMule itself isn't official. It's just client for a P2P network for which eDonkey2000 is the official client (and it DOES have official versions for non-Windows platforms).

Re:A step in the right direction...

[ultranova]

Many of the most valuable inventions known to man were created for purposes of war. This in no way invalidates their usefulness in times of peace.

Of course, this also renders the grandparents claim meaningless:

Now, getting back to BitTorrent. I would tend to agree that BitTorrent is analagous to gun use in that its primary use is recreational in nature. The difference here, however, is that BitTorrent's recreational use is more likely to be illegal in nature than not.

Even if BitTorrent was mostly used for illegal purposes (which is impossible to know for certain), this would in no way invalidate the fact that it is used for legal ones (such as distributing Linux distributions) as well.

BTW. I can't help but notice that every time there's some kind of argument, it will turn into a debate about firearms sooner or later.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Guns Are designed to kill,

Odd. I thought they were designed to propel a lump of metal at a high rate of speed along a trajectory determined by the operator.

guns are by nature evil.

Made by the devil himself, right?

Guns are objects. They are not inherently 'Good' or 'Evil'. Good and evil are used to describe human morals and ethics.

Calling guns 'evil' is like calling copyright infringement 'piracy.'

Re:A step in the right direction...

[MaCa]

Before you say 'wah wah bit torrent is faster', etc, it is only like that because it is centralised and so a tracker can make sure everyone is seeding, there are statistics which encourage people to seed, and most importantly, there are far less files, and so the bandwidth isnt spread out as thinly.

For God's sake, please!!! Basically, all the tracker does is distributing a list random list of clients to you and keeping statistics.
BitTorrent is fast because your client makes sure it is getting the most it can from the network using it's tit-for-tat logic: if a peers uploads in a nice speed to you, so you will do to him. If a peer is not uploading fast enough you will just stop uploading to him or upload to him slower. It's this selfish behavior that makes BT work - not the tracker!

The more these guys work on decentralising BT, the closer you get to just being a less efficient and less established clone of emule. Whats the point?

eMule is also decentralizing itself (with kad), so, what's your point? By decentralizing all they want is avoiding the only point of failure that BT has: its dependency on a tracker. But, then again, it is not the tracker that makes BT faster then eMule...

ON the other had, a emule server is nothing close to a BT tracker. Basically, the first only is concerned about collection meta-data and handling searches, the later just handle source searches and keeps tracks of who has each piece of the file. :-)

As far as 'warezing' is concerned (99% of traffic), BT is a terrible protocol. The trouble is, these kids see the speed of BT and think thats the way to go. They realise the centralisation is a problem, and so try to fix that. Without realising they are just reinventing the wheel. They think they are going to get the best of both worlds, because they are just warezing kids and don't know any better.

Yeah, right. It just doesn't matter that BT is the result of a PhD thesis and there are lots of papers in ACM and IEEE stating that "Yes, BT supports flash crowds and is able to keep with a almost insane number of users downloading". Those are all warezing folks, for sure! :-P

Re:A step in the right direction...

[swillden]

I'm sorry but the gun was not invented for recreational use. It was invented as a weapon of war to maim and destroy people.

It really makes no sense to talk about "the gun". Although the first guns were weapons of war, they have fairly little in common with modern firearms. During the long (and continuing) evolution of guns, many different uses impacted their development, and some of them had nothing to do with war. For example, one very significant advance -- the long, rifled barrel -- was quickly adopted by armies after its military capabilities were demonstrated during the US Revolutionary War, but that advance was developed to produce a better tool for gathering food. There are many other such examples.

Guns today are designed and built for many different purposes, and their designs reflect it. Some are primarily designed for killing or wounding people. Military arms and many handguns fit this category, with many subcategories for particular environments and goals. Some are designed solely for supported target shooting, using very small bullets and enormously long, thick, heavy barrels. Some are designed for hunting, with widely differing designs based on the characteristics of the animal to be hunted and the environment in which it is hunted.

And, yes, the analogy between guns and BT is very misleading, except insofar as they're both tools that can be applied to many different purposes. But that is such a large category that it would be wise to pick a different, less inflammatory tool than the gun for the comparison. Like a hammer. Or a car. Or a TCPA Trusted Platform Module ;-)

Re:A step in the right direction...

[Carnil]

Maybe so, but sex using a preservative was indeed "invented" for recreational use, as it has few other uses.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[maxpublic]

It is used as a weapon of war.

It's also used (quite effectively, even according to the FBI) as a means of defense against violent human predators.

I have no problem if you don't want to carry or use a gun. Go ahead, be prey - your safety isn't my problem. It isn't even the problem of the cops, according to recent court rulings. But you don't have any business trying to turn me into prey just because you can't stand the notion that I may not be as spineless as you are.

Max

Re:A step in the right direction...

[cybercuzco]

It doesnt matter what its primary purpose is. The primary purpose of a sword is to kill, does that mean that I shouldnt be allowed to have a sword over my mantle? The primary purpose of botulinum toxin is to kill, does that mean botox should be pulled from the market? If people enjoy something, even if its primary purpose is something else, they should be allowed to do it, as long as they arent hurting anyone.

Re:A step in the right direction...

[maxpublic]

Right, so when redneck Billy Joe leaves his whole arsenal of personal firearms under the bed in his trailer, and one of his kids takes one to school and kills your kid, are you still going to stand up for Billy Joe's rights to have guns?

My kid has a far better chance of drowning or dying in a fall than getting shot. You won't, however, see me campaigning to outlaw swimming pools or ladders.

Unlike you I see an actual value in gun ownership: self defense.

I'd have to say the number of citizens who've SUCCESSFULLY fended off a burgler/rapist/murderer with a gun is MUCH lower than the number of people that use guns to go shoot up schools/stores/people, etc.

According to the FBI somewhere between 200,000 and 800,000 violent crimes are prevented every year because the intended victim was carrying a gun. The gun is actually discharged in less than 1/10 of 1% of these cases, and most of the time the discharge doesn't result in an actual injury. So you're dead wrong in your assumption.

The FBI no longer publishes the study in question, but there are plenty of others that support these statistics. One of the most scientific and widely-reknown is "Firearms and Violence: A Critical View" by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences; you used to be able to get a pdf version of their report online and I have a copy of it myself. Unless you're going to go completely whacko and contend that these folks have a huge pro-gun bias I suggest that you use this study (along with all the others cited in the paper) to educate yourself on the actual defensive use of guns in the U.S. and its efficacy in preventing violent crimes.

Max

Re:A step in the right direction...

[susa-no-o]

That is totally, completely ridiculous. You are almost three times as likely to die if there's a gun in your house than if there isn't. If guns had some amazing self defense value where only .1 % (!) of the time you had to actually shoot it, then the mortality rate would be lower because if there's a gun in your house, you could defend yourself from murder better. Just from googling it (which apparently you can't be bothered to do), I believe you're referring to "Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review". In this paper, the conclusion is that there is no strong evidence that right to carry laws either increase crime, or decrease crime. They conclude that more research must be carried out. I'm inclined to agree. Guns don't increase crime, but they don't decrease crime, either. If you want to go around waving a gun, thinking it makes you safer, go ahead, but don't blame me when that gun blows up in your face.

Yeah, but where's the Spyware

[__aawfbm2023]

I don't think Exeem has anything to worry about.

Re:Yeah, but where's the Spyware

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

In Azureus, Tools -> Console

It's recording everything I do!

Torrent distribution

[Joakim A]

Torrents could be distributed in the swarms too. Possibly according to user preferences if the swarm has many torrents/many types of data. Could get really nice. We do need a python version though..

(Cant access the linked sites due to company policy (they allow /. :) so i don't know if this is supported.)

Re:Torrent distribution

[Errtu76]

We do need a python version though..

No we don't. This (java) version works perfectly already. Why does this _need_ to be ported?

Re:Torrent distribution

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the screenshots: Azureus has an IRC client embedded! This is where I draw the line and say that this program is seriously bloated.

Re:Torrent distribution

[JanneM]

No we don't. This (java) version works perfectly already. Why does this _need_ to be ported?

It doesn't _need_ to be ported. There are at least two possible reasons to do so anyhow, one "moral", one pragmatic:

* It's difficult to distribute the Java runtime environment for some Linux distributions due to licensing issues. That means that for some of the most popular distros, installing Azureus is decidedly non-trivial for someone that's not fairly familiar with non-standard installation.

* If you are using no other Java app on the system (I don't), the footprint of Azureus + JavaVM is very sizeable. Having something run under a VM that's in use anyhow makes the app use much less resources.

Bonus reasons is that more alternative clients will shake out bugs and issues with the system, and will encourage further experimentation and exploration of the system and the UI.

At the same time, porting it (or reimplementing in another client) takes away exactly zero from the Azureus developers or users. It's a win-win situation.

Re:Torrent distribution

[afd8856]

Because it needs X to run. I want to run it remote, in console version.

Re:Torrent distribution

[JanneM]

"only ./run-it" is enough to bring most people to a screeching halt. Not to mention you first have to figure out that you need something named Java, that you get it from Sun's website and then figure out on that site what you are supposed to download (which really isn't trivial even if you do know what you are doing - is it EE, RE or DE? Do I need stuff like JavaBeans?).

For all intents and purposes, if it can't be pulled down and installed automatically as part of the application install process, that precludes the use by the large majority of users.

Re:Torrent distribution

[ratpack91]

you can run azureus headless and control it from the web interface- link

Re:Torrent distribution

[golgotha007]

ALthough Azureus is one of the better java written applications I've used, it still feels like java.

Everything updates just a little slow. You can be downloading via torrent something and have like 18%.
Then, go to another workspace and then later when I click back onto the Azureus workspace, it still shows 18% for about a second, then bam, all the values update. It's not my machine (p4,3.0ghz, gig ram).

Azureus, as an application, totally rules. It would be excellent in C or even python.

Re:Torrent distribution

[JanneM]

Many projects means developers will be spread thin, negating the old "Many eyes make all bugs shallow". Developers for Azureus will have to work harder to implement new things and fix bugs, since developers who could have helped them are working on other projects.

These would be developers who really know and like working in Python - rather than Java - to begin with. If they didn't do a Python reimplementation, they would do another Python project, not help on Azureus.

And as I wrote, doing a reimplementation does help shake out bugs and mistakes in the protocol and implementation.

Re:Torrent distribution

[Errtu76]

I didn't look at the screenshots. I do have the application running at home, so i can tell you that this client is a plugin. And according to my knowledge of plugins, it means it can be disabled.

Correct me if i'm wrong. I start to doubt as well now (not that it's bloated - only an (minimalistic) irc client doesn't make an app bloated) wether or not it can be removed/disabled.

Re:Torrent distribution

[jridley]

I'd like to see it ported to something other than Java. I really like Azareus's interface, and it works well, but it scales horribly. I really can't use it. I tried it out and it seemed good, then I tried using it as my main service, and it just destroyed my system. Try seeding 30 or 40 torrents out of a modest (2GHz, 1GB RAM) machine sometime. It's horrible. If you're web browsing, editing/encoding video, using PhotoShop, scanning film, etc on the same machine, you'll be crying.

By contrast, BitComet (or multiple BitTornado instances) can do that and I don't even know it's running.

If all you're doing is leeching, then Azareus is great. I do recommend it to people. But BitComet is more scalable. I also use BitTornado for a day or two on new torrents, because BitComet doesn't super-seed.

Re:Torrent distribution

[k98sven]

GNU Classpath and JamVM are smaller and faster than Suns JRE but they may not run Azureus yet.

No, JamVM (although extremly small ~200kB) isn't anywhere near as fast as the Sun JRE. JamVM is an interpreter, not a JIT VM. But it's fast as far as VMs go.

If you want a Classpath-based VM which is fast you should look at Jikes RVM or Kaffe, or perhaps consider compiling to native with GCJ.

Azureus uses native GUI widgets by way of the Eclipse SWT so if JamVM supports the required communication methods between VM and System alright, then it won't be too hard to run.

JamVM handles native calls without problems. I've run Eclipse and other SWT apps on it myself.

However, Azureus doesn't run on Classpath yet. It's very close to it.. But there's still one or two small issues with the Classpath libraries. If someone wants to help out with this, email the classpath list (classpath@gnu.org) or drop in on #classpath on FreeNode. You'll be 'liberating' Azureus and helping free java at the same time.

Re:Torrent distribution

[X.25]

No we don't. This (java) version works perfectly already. Why does this _need_ to be ported?

Erm... because you can't run it in the background over SSH session on another server through 56kbit link? Or just choose any other reason...

Downloaded using these new torrents

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad Pirates
Whatcha want, watcha want
Whatcha gonna do
When sheriff RIAA come for you
Tell me
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna dooo
Yeaheah

CHORUS:
Bad Pirates, bad Pirates
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do
When the RIAA come for you
(Repeat)

When you were twenty
And you had bad traits
You go to College
And learn the golden rule
So why are you
Acting like a bloody fool
If you get hot torrents
You must get cool

CHORUS

Using it now

[fgl]

After upgrading a few hours ago, I opened up the appropriate UDP prts as requested (pol;itely I might add) & watched the number of clients that I was trackerlessly connected to rise from ~50,000 ot more than 76,000
I've used it for a long time now, but the latest itteration just seems to go beyond the call of duty.

Re:Using it now

[Handpaper]

Is this a 'visible hosts' number or do you actually have 76000 open sockets?
I'd love to see Win95/98 try to handle that :)
Waiting for netstat to finish it's output could be fun, too.

Re:Using it now

[fgl]

Its the Estimated number of peers I can see.

Re:Using it now

[willdenniss]

It's UDP so there's no sockets anyway. Datagrams are connectionless and have far less overheads.

76,000 would still kill most apps though...

Will.

Why not ANts?

[Nehle]

This kind of thing is not new ANts P2P is a decentralized, encrypted anonymous protocol that works in the same way as BitTorrent. From the page "ANts P2P realizes a third generation P2P net. It protects your privacy while you are connected and makes you not trackable, hiding your identity (ip) and crypting everything you are sending/receiving from others." Why not give that a try?

Kind of been done...

[Gilesx]

This is a little like Shareaza.

Shareaza has support for Gnutella, Gnutella 2, Edonkey and Bittorrent. As it provides a "bridge" between these networks, it means I am able to search for torrents from the two Gnutella networks, and edk. When I have this torrent, I can open it using the bittorrent part of Shareaza, and if that torrent is down, Shareaza will still hash the torrent and attempt to download the appropriate files from the Gnutella and eDonkey neworks. It's a nice idea, and really unites all the various p2p methods, using each method's strength to give an all round solid result.

I'm surprised that it's taken Azureus this long to catch up, and I'm sure we'll start to see a lot more bittorrent clients either offering their own solutions to this issue, or as in the case of Shareaza, using existing p2p networks to give backup to the Bittorrent protocol.

Azureus is fast

[illtron]

I gained a lot of respect for Java apps when I tried Azureus for the first time. It was at least 6-7x faster than the official client or Tomato Torrent on OS X, and it connects to way more hosts for me. Like I said, I'm on OS X, so I've never tried exeem.

Making it easier to get to torrents is all well and good, but let's keep in mind that most of the *legal* stuff available through bittorrent is easy to find as it is.

Trackerless & bittorrent sites with login

[Anonymous Coward]

How will the trackerless stuff interact with sites that require login? In the normal case you would login to the website and after that the tracker only allows you to connect from the same IP, but does the new trackerless thingie allow anyone to connect to these swarms? Might be (way too) good way to get past share ratio requirements.

Re:Trackerless & bittorrent sites with login

[WhiterThanWhite]

There are a relatively large number of BT sites that require you to be a registered user before you can connect to their tracker. That being said, the latest Azureus seems to be able to sidestep logins once the packets leave the original site: There is no "secret security handshake" with the original site. Sounds like a kind of virus, doesn't it?

Re:Trackerless & bittorrent sites with login

[Poromenos1]

It is, that's why several sites are banning clients that use this.

Lack of search...

[Aragorn992]

" or does the lack of search negate its effectiveness?"

No the lack of search is exactly what differentiates the BitTorrent network (though its not really a network is it? It piggy backs off webservers) from other P2P apps.

This is not anything new.

[solidox]

The bittorrent client BitComet has been doing this for a long time now.
Simply what it does is shares lists of peers between clients for matching infohashes...
It dosn't nessecerely decentralize it or remove the need for a tracker, as you need to get at least 1 ip from a member of the swarm (who has a compatible client)
It can help to get new peers if a tracker fails half way through, but you still need the initial peers ips from a tracker or similar.

Re:This is not anything new.

[Cramer]

Where "long time" is measured in days? It was only released a month or two ago (v0.56+ as I recall.) Azureus has had DHT in the CVS tree for many months now. Proir to the full release, there were only a few thousand running from CVS builds. Now there's nearly 100k and growing within the DHT tree.

The way AZ is doing things, a tracker is not required at all. If you can find one peer, you'll be able to find the entire DHT tree. Btw, this is currently an azureus only thing -- you won't learn of any non-az clients this way.

Tor

[natrius]

It also looks like they integrated Tor into the client, which should lead to fairly interesting results. When a client as popular as Azureus has anonymity built in, I think some people might be angry.

When the **AA see an IP address downloading from an infringing torrent, they direct their lawsuits towards the account holder for that IP. This puts people running Tor at risk of being sued. Is "It wasn't me, it was another Tor user" a valid defense? Are people going to be held accountable for the traffic that passes through their Tor server?

Re:Tor

[moonbender]

Oh. The Tor guys won't like that. People figured out how to run BT over Tor a while ago (I tried it myself in January after seeing a presentation on Tor). Google for anonbt and you end up on a subsection of the Azureus homepage, saying:

Please *DO NOT* use Tor for routing peer-to-peer data traffic, it can not handle the bandwidth. They have indicated that they will make efforts to ban such usage if it continues, which will likely affect both legitimate and unwanted use!

Re:Tor

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that is exactly what TOR is for. There is no way(except sophisticated traffic analysis) to prove what traffic is yours. This should stand up in court, as TOR just routes encrypted traffic. The EFF actually runs their own TOR onion router, and I wouldn't be surprised if they got involved in any sort of lawsuits involving TOR. Although, as soon as the dopes in Congress and the whitehouse understand this technology, and get lobbied by the RIAA, it may not be legal for long.

Re:What?

[xtracto]

Be realistic. Yeah, Bittorrent has plenty of legit uses. But do you really think that's what most people use it for? I'd say most are looking for porn, movies, software, etc. Look at it this way, guns can be used to hunt for food. But the truth is, 99% of gun use is against people. You can argue about their legitimate use and bad rap 'till you're blue in the face, but the legitimate uses are statistically outweighed by bad ones. The same applies to Bittorrent.

I agree with Parent, why do /. mods always mod down any p2p software critics? It is supposed to be an open forum! too bad I just used 5 mod points if not I would have modded up GP... INSIGHTFUL, maybe you do not like it but, it has some truth.

Java 1.5

[mattr]

You MUST install java 1.5 on linux.

JPC

[Dakisha]

I was also interested to see they included 'Joltid Peer Cache (JPC)' - in their words "Joltid Peer Cache (JPC) is now integrated into Azureus. For users whose ISP support this, JPC should allow faster downloads, while helping the ISP reduce its bandwidth costs. The JPC Plugin is safe in the way that your ISP won't know what you are downloading, and can't use it to spy on you."

Given that torrents are supposed to account from anywhere between 30-70% of all internet traffic, depending on who you believe - this could go a long way towards easing bandwidth consumption issues. Of course, I have no idea how many ISPs are actually using this, the website http://www.joltid.com/index.php/peercache/ is rather limited in it's information, and a google for the name reveals that there is still some question over the legality, so a lot of ISPs are keeping their heads down and using it on the quiet.

For flash traffic, such as a new game demo being released - or even torrented anime, which often sees in excess of 10-20 thousand people downloading it within 48 hours for the more popular series, this could save ISPs a lot of money.

Re:JPC

[Dakisha]

Indeed - but a lot of people are now distributing these files via bittorent instead, thus current caching systems get bypassed.

This just allows torrents, which supposedly account for much more bw than http - to also get cached. This has nothing to do with lazy web developers, etc. I think you missed the point :)

Newbs can't download or install anything

[Safety Cap]

That's why Gentoo prompted me with an url where i should download it (manually). Even for newbies this should be doable.

You obviously have neither parents nor an Uncle Bob who "knows computers" but who is always ringing you up for advise.

Re:Newbs can't download or install anything

[willdenniss]

You obviously have neither parents nor an Uncle Bob who "knows computers" but who is always ringing you up for advise.

I do, several.

None however run Linux, (nor use bittorrent). With OS X, Java is already there. With Windows it is really simple to install. Will.

eXeem

[aleatory_story]

I heard about eXeem a while back when SuprNova disbanded... the creator's next project or something. I also heard that it was being backed by spyware companies... so I haven't jumped to try it out. Could someone who has tried out eXeem give their thoughts about it?

Completely different market

[Kjella]

BT is not anonymous, nor are these attempts at decentralizing BT. They are simply a match-making service pairing off peers. Ants (and Freenet+++) try to create an anonymous network, which means acting as data proxies.

That means
a) helluva lot more complexity in terms of making it work
b) lots of complexity in making it actually anonymous
c) massive loss of bandwidth due to proxying data around

Judging by the website:
"NOTE: The only way to speed up the ANts connection system is to let the net grow. Only with a reasonable number of high speed peers (i.e. peers that handles up to 30 connections) properly configured (firewall, ip etc.) initial connection can be easy and fast. So don't care about connection speed by now... let your node run and it will find peers or they will find it! DON't ASK TOO MUCH TO A NET MADE UP OF 20/30 peers..."

I call shenanigans. The demand will scale with the supply, in fact you start running into MORE problems with finding content on a large network, not less. See Freenet. Oh, and I hope the actual number of nodes is higher. With that few, you can map out the entire network and analyze it apart almost no matter how brilliant the software is...

Kjella

Haven't updated the OSX port.

[minshrine]

Was looking foward to using as as soon as i heard they updated.But looks like the OSX port is not avalible yet.Must be working a version that is compatible with Tiger.

Looks like a useful set of improvements

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, search for decentralised trackers might be convenient; but it would probably make it rather easier for everyone(read *IAA) to find all the good stuff rather quickly. Without search we've got a formidable tool; bittorrent efficiency added onto the standard "I know a guy who knows a guy" search method of the good old social darknet.

Breaking file share ratios at private sites

[shyampandit]

This tech should be very useful on the public trackers (no registration required) as the torrents will continue to work even when the tracker is offline.

But what about the sites where a ratio is enforced so people seed and not just leech? This might break it as the clients might not talk to the main tracker anymore.

Is it even possible to enforce share ratios with distributed tracking?

Re:Breaking file share ratios at private sites

[izomiac]

AFAIK the client still will still report its stats to the tracker. The only way this could be exploited is if people just stopped connecting to the tracker all together. Some sites are banning BitComet for this reason (since you can connect then manually change the tracker address to something invalid). Kinda pointless though, changing a useragent is simple, and if you want to leech then there are various clients that are better at it/falsify ratios.

Re:What?

[dAzED1]

maybe because of this line: "But the truth is, 99% of gun use is against people"

I'd have to venture a guess that 95% of gun use is against targets, 4.9% is against animals, and less than .1% is against people. I don't know where the hell you live, but whatever city it is - I promise the number of hunters in that area outnumber the number of people who shot a person in that same area by at least 100 to 1. Here at work with me (in NY, no less), about 1/4 of the people hunt. Not a single one of them has ever shot a person - oddly enough, having been in the military I am the one here that comes closest.

Re:What?

[dAzED1]

unless that city is Bagdad....not many animals around there, and lots of people shooting each other.

I don't understand...

[Cereal Box]

Wait a minute, I thought Bittorrent was OVERWHELMINGLY used for legitimate purposes, with only a small percentage of users having the audacity to (gasp) break copyright law (if you're to believe what's said on Slashdot).

Why the need for decentralized trackers? I don't get it! Bittorrent is supposed to be a haven for law-abiding citizens to trade Linux ISOs and Project Gutenberg text files.

Re:I don't understand...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if you decentralize the tracker you remove a sincle point of failure thus make the system that distributes ISO far more reliable.

Re:How is eMule...

[InvalidError]

Basicaly, they don't realise it, but they are coming full circle, and the outcome is just going to be a another eDonkey network. Which means, why not just use the existing one.

Here goes one reason: 9500KB pieces
Another: MD5-class hashes

The eD2k network uses oversized basic blocks and weak reference block hashes. Wasting up to 9.28MB because someone sent a bad bit is somewhat wasteful. So far, I have yet to see a torrent with >1MB pieces. Since MD5 is EOL, it is very likely that undetectable corruption exploits will appear in the near future (ViralG?). Killing legacy eD2k would be a good thing - those oversized blocks need to go, hopefully to be replaced by a scalable recursive tree hash.

Re:How is eMule...

[Hast]

Because eDonkey sucks?

Seriously every time I have tried to use that network I have quit the download after a day or so of waiting in queues. This is before getting anything at all of the file. It sould be faster to just go down to Germany or whatever by car and copy the file to a CDR and go back.

I know I'm supposed to be online for a while before the eDonkey style queues start working in my favour; but I just can't be bothered.

Also note that BT isn't like a typical P2P as you can't really search for files. This is in fact a "good thing" as it protects you from " Nbr_of_files * Loads_of_cash = You_are_bancrupt" type lawsuits.

AFAIK RSS+Bittorrent type functions aren't available in other networks. (Not that it'd be impossible to add; but it's quite natural in BT.)

All that said, networks like eDonkey, DC et al certainly have their uses. So does BT (even if they add some distributed functionality to it).

I gotta say...

[trawg]

I find it in-fucking-credible that Slashdot editors are willing to post an item that includes comments to the effect of: "gee, I hope [insert name of software/network/strategy] allows us to easily replicate the behaviour of [insert name of some other software/network/strategy that has previously been shut down for basically doing nothing but providing a system for people to easily infringe copyright, and more often than not charging users to do it]!"

BitTorrent is great. p2p is great, in general. But continually highlighting how great it is for piracy (yeh, regardless of how lame the RIAA/MPAA are) just puts more negative attention on it and further affixes the concept of "p2p is bad" in people's minds, rather than what they should be thinking.

I don't know if slashdot editors actually are willing to edit posts rather than just put them up (I can see reasons for doing it and reasons for not doing it), but this post would have been just super without the last sentence.

Re:This is great

[IANAAC]

I hate when I stop a torrent, because I need to use my connection for something else...

Why would you have to shut it down for other things? You realize you can throttle the up/down torrent bandwidth within the application, don't you? In Azureus, you can change the values without having to restart the app, too.

Re:Bittorrent killed Enterprise!

[IANAAC]

I think that Enterprise was actually killed by P2P technology, such as Bittorrent.

I doubt it. Look at Battlestar Gallactice, which was downloaded left/right/up and down around the globe. It still managed to get renewed.

Nah, I think it's because Enterprise didn't know what direction it was going.

Gnutella + BitTorrent

[CarpetShark]

Seems to me that the most obvious way to decentralise bittorrent would be to just have a separate gnutella network solely for .torrent files, along with a hack in the client that automatically runs bittorrent on the downloaded files.

Gnutella has progressed over the years, and is the fastest P2P app I know for small files. It would handle searching etc. too, and if you've tried a client like gtk-gnutella, you know that high-quality filtering is no problem.

Re:Using it now -- Danger Will!

[AndroidCat]

What happens when you want to shut it down? I tried it out last night, and when I was done and gracefully stopped and removed the torrent, waited, and then shut down Azureus, my fricken connection was hammered with UDP packets.

Exactly how long does this decentralized system take to recognize that someone is no longer connected, don't want to talk and (especially) has perhaps handed the DHCP IP address to the next person? I think I'll give it another try, but if I get results like last night I'll either disable that feature or give Azureus the boot.

Re:This is great

[Kabal`]

Azureus has for a while now, cached the results of your last successful tracker scrape. So you could close it, then reload it later and even before connecting to the tracker, still have a bunch of IP's ready to try.

em..

[Stu Charlton]

Let's get some perspective. 266MHz isn't "a year or two" ago, it's been SEVEN YEARS since Intel released the P2 @ 266mhz. I have a 233MHz from that era, and you can barely even run Firefox on it (IE runs "OK"). Furthermore, 1997-1998 would be the era of Java 1.1 and 1.2, which were significantly slower.

These days, and since the year 2000 with the release of Java 1.3, Java UI's have been very usable. And Java is much faster than Python; it's comparing mixed mode dynamic compilation (Java) vs. interpreted (Python)! Pysco's JIT release in 2003 may have sped things up somewhat, but it's far from mainstream.

As for running on a 266Mhz machine, what's "plenty" of Python apps? Were they all graphical? I think you'd find graphical Python to be pretty pokey (pyGTK or what have you). Command-line Java is pretty fast.

Re:em..

[0xABADC0DA]

Dude your "business logic" is totally backward on this one. First of all, for an app like this users don't give a rat's ass about whether the window resizes at 300 fps with flicker or 10 fps without flicker; consider that kazaa was a hit even though it was ungodly slow. Sometimes it took seconds to switch tabs and it regularly took basically all of the computer's resources. People still used it because it just worked and it worked well.

Why do you think people stopped using the C-based bittorrent clients? It's because they didn't "just work". They didn't let you easily manage more than one stream, or throttle the bandwidth, or give nice-looking feedback on what parts were done, or recover from errors (ie not just die all the sudden), or support plug-ins, or have a built-in http server to check status, or work cross-platform, etc.

It would take a long time to make an interface as nice as Azureus in wxPython because writing widgets that display what chunks of the file are downloaded, the bandwith charts, etc and making it all update in realtime and stay consistent with your non-python core code would not be a simple task. Managing lots of multithreaded channels in C (or C++) and making it efficient and reliable would also not happen; your app would crash unexpectedly because doing that in those languages takes a lot of work. In Java it might take a day to add plug-in support and, if you wanted them to, the plug-ins could do basically any other part of the program could. That's essentially impossible in C, and very risky in a scripting language (since there are basically no sanity checks whatsoever).

So yeah, when you want to sell some complicated IT "solution", wxPython + C is a "good" choice. But for something like Azureus Java is really the best choice.

Re:What?

[Retric]

I think the amount of led shot off in WWII is more than has ever used for hunting. But, in the US most people use guns to hit targets or animals and not people.

As to target's I think more people shot at targets learning how to hit people than shoot at targets learning how to hit animals.

A few notes

[JPelorat]

Rather a lot of bullets are spent on paper and animal targets. More than 1% of the total, guaranteed.

A significant portion of the vs-person use of guns is justified and legal and occurs every day all around the world. Self-defense and apprehension of criminals being the two most common examples.

Using extreme exaggeration as an appeal to authority is self-defeating. Easpecially when you attempt to lay down 'the truth'.

My signature may be of some help in this matter.

OMG pretty

[Julian Morrison]

Seriously, if you want to know why Azureus is so damn cool, just click on the new "swarm" tab on a running torrent. Ye gods, but that's beauty! Perfectly abstract, instantly comprehensible, informative in realtime, mesmerizing as a screensaver. You have to respect the kind of people who'd think up something like that.

(Karma bonus turned off because this is OT, but damn, I just had to say that.)

Reputation Management in BitTorrent

[chris311]

I've just completed a Master's project on incorporating Reputation Management into BitTorrent. The idea is that if you give file slices first to people who are likely to stay connected and share, it will increase the overall bandwidth of the system and eventually increase everyone's performance. My simulation results show an average speedup of 5% for everyone in the network (good citizens get up to 15% speedup). I don't have a website, but if anyone wants to contact me about getting my research into the spec, I'd be happy to send you the paper.
clenfest@yahoo.com

mldonkey

[tepples]

Plus, there is no official support for non-Windows platforms.

The eMule client itself is not official. If you want official, look at eDonkey Basic for Linux. Or just use mldonkey like everyone else does.

Re:What?

[MBGMorden]

A lot of peopld shoot at targets just for the fun of it, not really doing it to learn to shoot people or animals. Clay pigeons for example. A very large number of people participating in that sport do not hunt, and it certainly doesn't train you for defensive (or offensive) shooting against human targets, but people still do it and have fun nonetheless.

Shooting can be FUN. Not violent. It's an activity that takes a lot of skill to do right. Learning windage adjustments. Learning the temperment of your weapon. Recording datasets and adjusting your loadings to shrink a target group. Bedding the action or recrowning a barrel. There is a lot of work to shooting accurately, and a lot of people enjoy that activity just as an activity, with no ulterior motive (no more than any basketball player, football player, or golfer has).

That's where I think the gap exists. There's a large group of people out there that have the unwaivering belief that guns are out there only to kill people. Target practice? Oh yeah they're training to kill people. Hunting? Yeah they're just satisfying a violent streak. They'll break and kill people eventually. Self defense? They're just looking for an excuse to kill people.

Despite so much evidence to the contrary you still have people with the severest case of tunnel-vision I've every seen.

Re:What?

[thedustbustr]

The gun analogy is flamebait. *ducks troll mod*

Re:What?

[SlashSnot]

Ummm, yeah. 99 out of 100 rounds purchased at Walmart are used against people. Maybe 99/100 P2P downloads are less than pure, but you are so far from insightful it hurts.

Finally...

[xRelisH]

those Paris Hilton Torrents wont be broken!

Some statistics

[Saanvik]

Good point, you should have done it rather than posting about it.

Here are some statistics for your hungry little minds.

From the Illinois Council against Handgun Violence

In 2002, there were 30,242 gun deaths in the U.S.

Digging a little deeper, from the Department of Justice

The number of gunshot wounds from assaults treated in hospital emergency departments fell from 64,100 in 1993 to 39,400 in 1997, a 39% decline. Homicides committed with a firearm fell from 18,300 in 1993 to 13,300 in 1997, a 27% decline.

And from the Burlington Free Press

Vermont's loss of hunters is part of a national trend. The number of hunters declined from 14.06 million to 13.03 million, or 7.3 percent, from 1991 to 2001, according to the Census Bureau and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The drop was greater in the West -- 9.6 percent, from 2.46 million to 2.22 million.

Not a direct comparison, but it's hard to find numbers detailing the number of times a gun was discharged at a person versus discharged at an animal or target. Nevertheless, it's pretty apparent the original poster was incorrect. The vast majority of shooting in the US is not at people, but at animals and targets.

So, back on topic. The analogy was not a good one. A closer analogy could be made for handguns (handguns are not designed for hunting, but a lot of people do use them for target practice), but it still wouldn't be a good one.

You'd be crying anyway.

[BobPaul]

Try seeding 30 or 40 torrents out of a modest (2GHz, 1GB RAM) machine sometime. It's horrible. If you're web browsing, editing/encoding video, using PhotoShop, scanning film, etc on the same machine, you'll be crying.

If you were doing all of that on a 2GHz with only 1GB RAM, you'd be crying even if you weren't running Azureus.
--
Need Referals? The ref stops here

I don't see the point of this..

[d_jedi]

besides for scum sucking pirates. The story even hints at this use:
Could this and compatible clients be the replacement to SuprNova and Lokitorrents, or does the lack of search negate its effectiveness?"

ignoring the fact that Lokitorrent and Suprnova would still be in business if they had trackers to legal files (like Linux distros) instead of illegal pirated music/movies/software.

All of the pirates can go fcuk themselves. The more you hide, the worse the penalties will be.. and the more inclined content creators will be to use draconian measures to protect their intellectual property.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

With any amount of insight, it should be obvious by now that pr0n and w4r3z are the main force driving the demand for bandwidth and other hardware.

Whatever your stance on copyright issues and such, the fact of the matter is that the technological revolution that has put a PC in most any home in the so-called developed world COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED without piracy. What we call "p2p" today is just a relatively new way to do the same thing that has been going on since the floppy disk became standard.

I used to swap floppies via snailmail, long before any normal person had a modem at home. Which was perfectly cool, since neither RIAA, MPAA, BSA or whathaveyounot were legally allowed to inspect mail. I used to get thick envelopes full of floppies from Iceland, Finland, Germany, England, Italy, all over the place. And sent full floppies back. Chock full of warez from such fine groups as Pompey Pirates, Automation, Bad Brew Crew and others. I'm sure there are representatives for the "I used to bang rocks together to get ones and zeroes"-crowd out there who are getting ready to jump in right now and claim to have been trading fortran code written with a quilt pen for making punchcard nudie pics decades ago, or whatever.

Where would the PC be today without warez? Would 200GB hard-drives would be standard in workstations at this moment, if it weren't for good old warez? Would "Doom" have been a success if almost every kid on the planet with a computer had a pirate copy? Would people buy graphics cards twice the price of a standalone games console if they had to buy every title they wanted to play? Would the PC so completely dominate the computer games industry if it weren't for piracy? Would CD-burners ever have gotten into the home?

I can't say. Probably not. What I do know is that digital piracy has had a significant impact and has made all of us "consumers" spend our money differently. We have for instance neglected to buy as many copies of Britney Spears' ".. baby one more time" as we did Michael Jackson's "Thriller". Which you can interpret together with estimated downloads on p2p networks and say "kids aren't buying music any more, they're downloading it for free instead". Or you can try to grep reality and see that most kids spend their money on a lot more things now than they did. There are more shiny objects of desire to aquire than yesterday. The stars are standing shoulder to shoulder where before there were only a few, and when a star fails to sell any records, a new one is there before you can say "overhyped musically insignificant crap". Not only music artists and cinema tickets and rentals are avaliable any more. DVDs, cell phone content, handheld games, computer games, console games, online games, and so on.

I bet a good portion of the people who fail to show up at the screening of whatever "kung fu cop" movie is screening at the moment are at home watching something really good that they would have NEVER heard of were it not for piracy, like for instance this really good Thai martial arts/action movie which you would probably have never come across if I had not given you a tip: Ong-Bak.2003.DVDRip.XviD-VALiOMEDiA

(if you're l33t you'll know how to find it, if you're n00b you'll have to make some friends who can teach you how to be l33t. An excellent way to make l33t friends is to host an FTP server with loads of disk on a fast static link.)

The freedom of piracy means that people are able to experience the state of the art, even if they aren't aware of the product, can't afford it, can't find it, or maybe even are too stingy to buy. But so what, because through this sharing of data people are discerning the crap from the useful. People are recommending things to each other. Quality prevails in piracy, because it is natural selection. As people discover the new possibilities of various pieces of technology, they start to desire it. This sort marketing cannot be bought. For the companies that have good products at affordable prices and with good avaliability

I2P technology

[shoota]

Does anyone have a clue what this I2P techonology is and how the azureus plugin incorporates it into bittorrent. Thanks.