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Trackerless BitTorrent Beta Posted
jgarzik writes "BitTorrent development is occuring at a furious pace. At the beginning of May, an Azureus update added distributed tracker and database features. Yesterday, Bram updated BitTorrent to include support for trackerless torrents in the new BitTorrent 4.10 beta."
Will this eventually leave the BSA and others with no BT tracker sites to shut down, so that their only option will be to go after end users or to DOS the P2P networks themselves?
I know how bit torrent works - how does trackerless bit torrent work? Don't you still need a starting point?
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
Well you click on the link in the article and read the stroy to find out.
How does this work... how do you find peers to download from? Are they included in the .torrent file? IF so ain't that a big risk... if MPAA start collection peers informations? I guess it's encrypted but it can always be broken.. anyways if anyone have more info on how it actually works please inform me :P
I'm really glad to see this coming in the mainstream BitTorrent client. At the moment it can be hard to use the distributed tracking system because of its dependence on Azureus as a client. A lot of people have been making noise about this, and hopefully now that its in the main client, the developers of the other BitTorrent clients will make implementing support for this more of a priority.
Business Voyeur
Go Ahead, mod me redundunt.
"This distributed tracker is an Azureus only feature."
So if other clients are working on other ways of distributed tracking, wouldn't this mean bittorrent would be different for every client and there would not be one "bittorrent" that worked with everything?
Bittorrent is now another step closer to becoming just another eMule clone.
Plenty of geeks with big pipes to host trackers for linux releases...
But lets say your band releases an album online, or your movie club makes a film... You've only got a geocities website and the desktops of your members.. With tracker-based BT you had to talk someone into running a tracker for you... With tracker-less that limitation has been removed.
The entire point of BT is to make it so that you can (as long as there are seeders) download something without the server getting swamped. Since all torrents have to have a tracker, everyone downloading has to contact that tracker. If you get a popular enough torrent you can easily kill a tracker just like any other server. Going to a trackerless setup eliminates one of the few bottlenecks in the BT setup.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
What's needed is some kind of distributed HTTP overnet that works; that can handle dynamic content semi-intelligently, and MUCH faster than freenet/frost sites.
Power to the Peaceful
Anyone confused by the parent should realize it's an allusion to Primer.
Sorry to rain on anyone's parade.
Actually,
It's kinda handy if the tracker goes down. Additionally, if you don't want your torrent to operate in this distributed fashion you flag the torrent to not operate in distributed mode.
It's more like a hydra in this fashion...
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
The only good reason for trackerless torrents is to prevent the **AA from shutting down infringing filesharing. I am a fair-use advocate, but I don't see the legitimate purpose to trackerless torrents that cannot be fulfilled by trackered torrents.
Um, now people with shared hosting, blog sites, and free or included web space with their ISP or Yahoo Geocities / Angelfire / etc. (or otherwise are unable to set up a tracker) can now publish videos and other large files with bittorrent without trashing their TOS limits. Sounds legitimate to me. How many of these types of sites has Slashdot shut down by pointing to them?
This doesn't seem to accomplish much in the way of providing anonymity if everyone in the swarm still had to go through the same starting node somewhere.
.torrent file without having to connect to a tracker (which you may not hae access to).
.torrent without needing a tracker.
I don't think the idea was to make an anonymous torrent; I think it was to make it easier for bloggers and websire owners to post a
Joe Six Pack wih webhosting can now post a
That would be much more useful... if each socket connection does a key exchange. Much harder for your ISP to snoop.
What did poor people ever do for me? Nothing! That's what.
This work will hopefully cause anonymous p2p filesharing to become widespread. This will, in turn, render music companies obsolete.
Less lobbying, less facist laws and less greed notwithstanding, this also helps in the big picture by promoting and strengthing open source software development in general. This has many benefits, some we've seen, and some we have yet to realize.
These people may not be working in the front lines, they're still contributing.
A lot of coders I know never had a college education, nor any friends with similiar mindsets. Projects like this help adolecents chose a path for the first part of their lives. It can be argued that potential coders who _don't_ find projects like these never get into programming. Some of these people may work themselves back into blue collar status, where some can start the cycle of not being able to read/eat/work all over again.
Someone should write an extention for Firefox that gives the download manager bit torrent support. Combined with trackerless torrents, it's likely a lot more sites will start using torrents.
I am a fair-use advocate, but I don't see the legitimate purpose to trackerless torrents that cannot be fulfilled by trackered torrents.
**AA are not the only enemies of free filesharing. That's a very US-centric view of the 'net. What about propagating samizdat literature und news within dictatorships? A trackerless torrent could help save some lifes. Even if it saves only one life, would be well worth it!
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Then rather shortsighted you are. If I take a home video and want to share it with my friends and family, previously I would have had to upload it somewhere and spend money on web hosting. Now, with trackerless BT I can easily share this file without having to worry about web hosting or running a tracker. I just have to email the torrent file to people and run a BT client on my machine.
Legitimate file sharing doesn't only include large organisations "sharing" files with their customers/users. There's a whole other side to it as well that you've most conveniently forgotten about in your rush to share your misplaced sarcasm with the world.
It's the classic question. How do you make "make"? How do you untar "tar"? How do you decompress "gzip"? How do you compile "gcc"?
.Z and non-compressed forms, as well as a shar file. tar is distributed as a shar file. etc. etc. etc.
...
The answer in all cases is to work around the problem by not storing the code in the format it supports. eg: make comes with a shell script to build the binary. gzip is distributed in
BitTorrent isn't all that large, so there isn't much to be gained by distributing it that way. It's best at file packages in the multi-hundred megabyte and larger range. The largest BT download is only around 1 MB
Essentially:
It is now easier, though not any more secure, to offer files. The creation of torrents and trackers is now rolled into one - but there's still location information in it.
It's implemented. It doesn't hide your ID, so illegal users still have the same problems.
Video Phone Blogs send video messages straight to the web.
OTOH, the lack of centralized control means that trackerless BT will likely be vulnerable to a new class of attacks that could make it possible to disrupt the download of a file you don't like. So, ironically, warez groups might stick to running trackers for attack resistance and Linux providers might move to trackerless for the scalability. It all depends on how scalable and attack-resistant trackerless downloads turn out to be.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Now wouldn't it be better to do the right thing. Rather than spending the rest of your natural lives trying to solve near impossible goals.
Trackerless torrents are less vulnerable to denial of service attacks and that's enough of a merit to warrant their development and use. What I'd like to know is what is the difference between WinMX and BT with trackerless torrents? P.S. That should be *AA or ??AA. Where did you learn your globbing techniques sonny?
People have lives OTHER than charity, as your presence here proves. As for this being less than honorable, that's the eye of the beholder. It's like the VCR, guns, or deep fryers. They can all be used for good or for evil. Just because they can be used for evil doesn't obviate they're good potential, nor should we ban them because of their potential for abuse.
jX [ Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler. - Einstein ]
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
You would need a bittorrent client to be able to use a torrent so it will be ironic that there would be a torrent.
My hacked site
I work at Habitat 40 hours a week, it's my job. I'm also a geek, and love the advance of new tech like this, enabling my friends in small bands and record labels to distribute their stuff without spending tons of cash on webservers and hosting.
Not everybody is good at charity; sometimes, someone's better at advancing science (in this case, computer science) than at helping the poor through traditional means.
Bittorrent is a brilliant system, and the fact that it's not saving any starving children's lives at this very moment does not mean that it's not a worthwhile thing. If we all concentrated, as you suggest, on charity all of the time, science would become stagnant, and we'd be in a far worse condition than we are now.
I don't know why I'm responding to this; the parent is obviously a troll, but just in case it's at all serious, I may as well reply anyway now that I've gotten this typed up.
I think you missed the point of the question. What if there are dozens of torrents for the "same" file (e.g. britney.mov) Can the different torrent swarms somehow know about each other or does each torrent divide the potential members of the swarm into non-communicating groups with lower bandwidth?
Bittorrent isn't designed for distribution of subversive or otherwise contraband content; it's designed to take the load off the backs of legitimate distributors of large files. There's nothing stopping the *AA from shutting servers down, and to the best of my knowledge this feature was not created with the intent of making it difficult for anybody to do so. Bittorrent might be optimal for quickly getting large files, but it isn't intended to protect anybody from anything; for that, you'll want to look into things like MUTE or Tor. The download speeds are not as high, but you aren't going to get caught.
Bittorrent, basically, is a content distribution system, not a copyright-circumvention system. The latter exists, but those need quite a bit more work before they get to the level Bittorrent has attained in terms of popularity and usability (and considering the purpose, this might be a good thing.)
Someone still has to host the .torrents.
Unless a group's .torrent files come out in a weekly zipfile. Then somebody has to host the .torrent of that zipfile (or put it on eMule), but it's likely much smaller and further removed from copyright liability.
Bittorrent's beta release is not really trackerless. Instead it implements a distributed tracker very similar to the one used in Azureus. In fact, both make use of the Kademlia distributed hash table routing algorithm, but both implementations are different just enough to make them incompatible with each other.
This begs the question, why wasn't this beta postponed until its implementation could be made compatible with the already existing distributed tracker implementation in Azureus? Both projects are open source and both are written in high-level programming languages: Python and Java respectively.
The *AA can still nail you for being a distributor of unauthorized Copyrighted material if you use Bittorrent. You are of course giving out copies to other users; so all the *AA needs is a list of IP addresses that are in the swarm. Granted, the *AA hasn't really done this. But if there's one thing that they have shown is that they are extremely motivated to find people who are involved, and hit them with a bill for a $2-3K settlement.
With an economic bounty like that, the only thing the Lawyers of the *AA are lacking is a way to automate the technology. From what I hear, that technology is coming. Supposedly some of it is in beta test now.
The only defense one might hope for in the U.S. is a scheme which added plausible deniability. That's not here yet with BT; and even if implemented, would undoubtedly result in a slowdown of downloads.
Personally, I think your best bet if you are concerned is to use an offshore ISP.
Considering 99.9% of guns are never used in the commission of a crime, all you have to do is open the blinders on your eyes.
Let's start with hunting, varmit removal, and self-protection. We won't even have to get into just plain fun.
Guns are used for legitimate purposes hundreds, probably even thousands, of times for every time they are used in the commission of a crime. BitTorrent is much closer to the reverse. Probably 5%/95%. Also, plenty of legitimate alternatives for BitTorrent exist. This is not true for guns. In other words, eliminating BT barely affects the ability of legitimate BT users to exercise any rights, while eliminating guns severely restricts the rights of legitimate gun owners.
The tool is what you make of it. Say a charity or human rights group wants to distribute a video but doesn't have the money to pay for bandwidth. Would you call it a waste of money then?
So that means that it's the other thousandth that kills 11,000 Americans each year. Try as you may, I really don't think that BitTorrent is responsible for that much damage. It's not like BitTorrent goes around and rapes your pets or anything if you use it.
Do you not still have a knife for self-defense? You can go hunting with a bow. Poisons, traps and pheromones work well for varmit removal and are overwhelmingly the preferred method. I have fun playing with Jacks. You don't need to punch holes in something to have fun. Well you might, and if that's the case I have a pneumatic drill you can borrow. But only if you ask nicely.
I'd also would like to know where that %5/95% statistic came from. Because it sounds like a rectal figure. You are forgetting all of the several hundred megabyte Linux ISOs BitTorrent serves. What about Windows SP2? It was available via BitTorrent after the release. Sites with large videos, such as AMV sites, offer torrents. Video Game Speedruns offer torrents more often than not. How about Project Gutenberg?
I think that you should open the blinders from your eyes, stop petting your goddamn gun and lauding the wonders of a fast moving hunk of metal, and rejoin civil society.
I'm not saying you shouldn't own a gun. Just for chrissakes realize that it isn't the be all and end all for the entire world.
And to all the BitTorrent users out there. If you find Fifi behind your computer with a ruptured anus two weeks from now... we never talked.
"Build a man a fire warm him for a day, set a man on fire and warm him for the rest of his life."
This drives me fucking nuts.
Y is an activity that saves lives, such as buying vaccines. X is a frivolous activity such as buying a DVD. People don't live their lives choosing Y instead of X every time because you end up with no life of your own.
And you only whine about it when X happens to be something that reminds you of the need for Y, or when Y suddenly occurs to you and you want to make a point. But every single time you buy a goddamn DVD, you're choosing X over Y. That's how life works. Every cheap novel you buy is a child who dies because you didn't spend the time to go out, find her, and help her. Come to terms with this before you start tossing it out as a random argument against a given X.
And why does Bittorrent even remind you about the need for charities? I mean, you've got a strange set of connectiosn going. I mean, pointless artwork in Central Park, sure, but why on Earth do you jump on a random technical project like this?
(Score:-1, Flamebait)
Oh, right. Some people. So there's a 50/50 chance you're flamebaiting or that you've just got a weird set of things that trigger thoughts of Y for you. Either way, spend some time thinking about these issues; it'll do you good. Maybe think about the kids dying as you sit there. Think about that each time you speak with righteous indignation about what people should be spending their time on. I'm not even telling you not to say what you're saying. I'm just saying give it some thought.
$10 can buy vaccines to absolutely save someone's life. With what rationale are you buying a DVD with that $10? I know why I do it. Do you?
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.
Just think what could be if all this human effort had been channeled through a charity
Just think of what a difference Mother Teresa could have made if she had gotten an MBA, passed the Series 7 exam, and went to work at a high-powered Wall Street firm.
If she dedicated her life to that job, working tirelessly around the clock at the expense of her personal life and giving up on the opportunity to start a family, she could have made hundreds of millions of dollars, and used some of that money to have a real effect on making the world a better place.
Oh wait, i forgot, it only counts as charity if it's sentimental and photogenic.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
"Only monopolies are holding up the prices- but the glut is coming and prices will drop." And the government is holding up the monopolies and the people are too stupid to stop holding up the government.....
- no sig here
But the people dont care.
They want to be hidden as well. Doesnt matter what the 'products' goals is, the 'consumers' want this feature.
Until BT provides this, expect the 'consumers' to continue to complain.
---- Booth was a patriot ----