P2P Now and Then

brajesh writes "There was an earlier story on Slashdot regarding eDonkey overtaking BitTorrent in P2P traffic. The BBC story was based on this press release by CacheLogic. To expand on this, there is a comprehensive analysis of P2P trends in 2005 by the same firm. The report makes some insights into the present and future of P2P, particularly interesting in the light of recent steps taken by BBC -BBC iMP and others. The analysis also makes some observations about the break-up of P2P content."

Comments

To summarize:

[Anonymous Coward]

- There is a lot of P2P traffic.
- This will not decrease.
- P2P packages will come and go.
- Industry had better embrace this.

Re:a new conduit

[Neil Blender]

I may sound like an idiot for saying this, but does anyone ever get the impression that p2p is going to be the new conduit for the oppressed ( oppressed being everyone subject to coorprate america).

I'm sorry but not being able to get music and movies for free is not oppression.

Why P2P is not like the printing press

[Nom du Keyboard]

Printing presses are large, expensive, hard to hide, and easy to suppress. This is why they have such high Constitutional protections. Their problem is that whomever anc afford and control the press controls the news. For The People this is a double-edged sword.

OTOH, P2P is small, cheap, everywhere, and hard to suppress. While it cannot merit the need for such heavy handed protection yet, it disseminates information broadly and uncontrollably. For The People this is often a good thing!

method?

[adminispheroid]

The first question that leaps to mind, which none of the posted info answers, is how the heck do you compare gnutella to bittorrent? I mean, the gnutella network is used only for indexing, and the transfers are done by http, whereas bittorrent is for transfers (and there is no indexing). Did they take this into account? If so, how? Not clear to me how you'd figure out which http traffic was gnutella-related.

I don't know squat about eDonkey and Fasttrack, so I don't know how these considerations apply to them.

Re:a new conduit

[Raindance]

Maybe. There's nothing inherently egalitarian about the internet.

Lessig's "Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace" touches on this. Code is law-- how the 'net is structured determines how it's used, with the nigh force of law.

The internet is fairly favorable to the "little guy" right now, but Lessig says there's nothing inherently unchangeable about the internet's Code. The battle for the internet *has not been won*.

Hardware for P2P User Identification

[airherbe]

CacheLogic, the company which did this "comprehensive analysis" of P2P also happens to sell network hardware which does "Deep Packet Inspection" (read the specs on the device here).

Innoculously, the technology can efficiently route packets to ensure better QoS, elimination of network congestion, and even provide cached streaming.

But, one has to wonder if this technology, when used by the likes of the RIAA/MPAA would allow massive consolidation of data on P2P users. The above device specifically analyzes the content of the packet -- it's not a far cry that a company would create software for a device like this, which could automatically detect "flagged" files/hashes, and report them to "copyright owners" who have subscribed to the service.

Re:Can somebody enlighten me?

[suitepotato]

I run eMule on Windows and aMule on Linux (Fedora Core 3). I've downloaded over 100GB from that network so far of various things..

• Always make sure to share some of your files with people. Don't move them out of a shared folder the instant you finish getting them. Don't squelch all uploading to others. That's considered "leeching".
• Always make sure to check the file availibility. If the numbers are close to 1-5 you're not going to be getting it quick. If they are 0 showing online, you may wait forever.
• Always check for the same file being listed under another name with larger availibility. Many files will be out there in different incarnations and the correct version will usually be the one with the most people sharing it.
• Always make sure not to set everything to High priority, only those things which truly are and always make sure to swap all A4AF to an important file every so often. The clients tend to forget to recheck every so often for hosts popping online since the original download was entered.
• Always make sure on broadband connections to carefully control upstream usage as unfettered upstream usage is a good way to get choked by your provider. I keep mine to 25% of my upstream maximum.

eMule/aMule work fine for me. Way better than bittorrent ever has.