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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?"
I don't think Exeem has anything to worry about.
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.
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
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.
Go Away! Not for Sale
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?
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.
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
" 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.
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.
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?
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.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
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.
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.
I.O.U One Sig.
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.
unless that city is Bagdad....not many animals around there, and lots of people shooting each other.
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.
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.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
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.
... 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.
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!"
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?
The image is a dream, the beauty is real. Can you see the difference?
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
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.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain