New Auto-Seeding Torrent Server Released

ludwigvan968 writes "The University of Texas New Media Initiative in association with Google's Summer of Code program have been working on a project to make sharing files over the internet easier than ever before. Summer of Code intern Evan Wilson just released Project Snakebite, the first fully automatic BitTorrent server. Just as with a normal webserver, you drop files in a folder to share them. Snakebite takes care of generating torrent files and running a tracker and a seeder for each file. Additionally, it builds a user-customizable link page with all of your files. It will even register your Snakebite server with an easy to remember URL for people that can't remember their IP. Snakebite is free and open software and is currently released for Debian. It's fully portable to both Windows and OS X and the developers just need some help packaging it."

Comments

OK, but is it anonymous?

[mlwmohawk]

Sharing files is almost a capitcal crime in the U.S.A.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[James McGuigan]

When sharing is outlawed only outlaws will share

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Klaidas]

Illegally obtaining files that are copyrighted is a crime NOT just in the USA. It's a crime everywhere.
Everyone knows that. Do you?

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[truedfx]

Illegally doing anything is illegal. If it's not illegal, and you do it, you're not illegally doing it. Duh.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[IAR80]

If you are suspected of filesharing you should be sent to Guantanamo.
----
http://world4.monstersgame.co.uk/?ac=vid&vid=47010 693

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

Actually, obtaining files that are copyrighted isn't a crime anywhere (that I know of) even the US. It's reproducing (ie: uploading) that's illegal, not the downloading.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[legoburner]

BitTorrent as a basic client will never be truely anonymous by virtue of the technology involved. Only by using private VPNs (like The pirate party one or by using additional software higher up the network stack like Tor can basic anonymity be enabled.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[legoburner]

higher up the network stack

Or lower down the network stack if you are not standing on your head

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Zigg]

Actually, enabling people to easily share their own torrents could help promote legitimate use of BT.

I've been personally involved in several situations where large, legal files needed to be distributed among a small group of people--unfortunately several didn't have the know-how to set up a tracker, and others simply didn't have the time to figure it out. A tool like this could enable every one of us to start it up on our own.

The one thing that I think it needs to also have is at least minimal security against discoverability--a password on the torrent listing page, for example. Would also be cool if you could control who was using the server, but I gather BT isn't too well-adapted to that requirement? Not sure.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[bcattwoo]

You can have my warez when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[QMO]

So...uploading makes copies of stuff, but downloading doesn't.

"Truly you have a dizzying intellect." -Dread Pirate Roberts

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[mlwmohawk]

Illegally obtaining files that are copyrighted is a crime NOT just in the USA. It's a crime everywhere.Everyone knows that. Do you?

I know the law quite well, and I have had to advise many engineers on the subject. My comment was not about performing an illegal act with intent, I am speaking about mere accusation and the damage that causes in this country. RIAA identifies you as a "file sharer," via bit torrent.

Make no mistake, jail is the least of your worries. Just being accused by RIAA or MPIAA is enough to bankrupt you and make sure your children don't go to collage.

The "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worray about" mind set is foolish. We *ALL* have something to worry about, and being anonymous is vital to maintain a free state. Which, IMHO, the U.S.A. is no longer.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[gatzke]

So the MPAA/RIAA are only going after file sharing people? Not leeches. I thought they were hitting up everyone, but maybe they were just getting distributors.

So you would be totally safe if you only download stuff and never upload?

Except for child porn, which is not ok to download.

I think you have to assume they could know everything you do online.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

The person who owns the original media is the one whose generating the copy. The downloader is receiving it. An analagous situation: a guy is selling ripped-off copies of DVDs from a market store. Someone buys a copy. It's the seller (the distributor, the one who reproduced it) that gets busted, not the buyer.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Amouth]

if some one walking down the street and hands you a cd that was copied.. can the cops walk by and get you for it????

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Columcille]

Somehow I don't feel at all threatened by the MPAA, the RIAA and the like. I have nothing whatsoever to worry about from them. And I don't need bittorrent software in order to remain anonymous. And yes, things like this can potentially be used for honest purposes - but let's be honest, torrent and the like is primarily used for the illegal distribution of music, movies, and software.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Who are you? Me?

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[dk-software-engineer]

Bull. There is nothing wrong or illegal with sharing some files. (Unless there are special circumstances that makes it illegal, such as copyrights or some kind of legal agreement.)

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Illegally obtaining files that are copyrighted is a crime NOT just in the USA. It's a crime everywhere.

Your statement has nothing at all to do with what the parent said, which was:

Sharing files is almost a capital crime in the U.S.A.

No mention of illegally obtained files. Get it?

People like you are at the root of the problem in USA, trying to criminalize an excellent transfer technology just because some people are using it for purposes which you don't like.

Well tough, people like to share things, and sharing itself is a socially positive thing, live with it.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

So the MPAA/RIAA are only going after file sharing people? Not leeches.

Yep

So you would be totally safe if you only download stuff and never upload?
I think you have to assume they could know everything you do online.

It's easy to find the distributors - their IP has to be advertised in order for them to distribute stuff. It's harder to find just the leechers. Of course, in a swarming application like BitTorrent, everyone is an uploader as well as a downloader, so it's easy to get peer IPs once you connect to the swarm.

However, I believe it's currently only illegal to upload - after all, you can hardly be charged distributing X-Men 3 if you never actually had a copy of X-Men 3. Copyright is a prohibition against distributing, not copying - it was originally setup for the protection of publishing houses, so that if they bought the rights to a novel, a rival publishing house couldn't just run off it's own copies without the expense of buying the rights. In those days, publishing was a large and expensive business, and it wasn't really conceivable that the laws be used against individuals; individuals had no way practical ways to publish. In the mdoern era, however, individual publishing has become dead easy.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[advocate_one]

downloading doesn't reproduce??? scuse me... but it seems like there's now more than one copy, the one on the server, and the one you've "downloaded" onto your computer...

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[SpecTheIntro]

Sharing files is almost a capitcal crime in the U.S.A.

That's really the $1 million question. And it's pretty obviously not, as far as I can tell--a publicly accessible website is not the best way to hide your personal information. All the RIAA or MPAA needs is an IP address to file suit against you; this is like handing it to them on a silver platter. You'll be hard-pressed to claim you "didn't know you were uploading files" when you have a webpage that indexes the copyrighted material you chose to share.

However, this program has great implications. It's a much more efficient way of distributing content than setting up a download server, and it eliminates the normal hassle of configuring a server and tracker. Just imagine how much crappy talent is out there, waiting to be discovered but for lack of a cheap, simple distribution model. Future Jackass! stuntment, your grail has arrived.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear this all the time but it strikes me as the same sort of "did you know that LSD has strychnine in it" conventional wisdom that drug users are fond of passing around. Not that I'm equating file sharing with drug abuse, I just think that what you're saying is accepted as truth only because it's been repeated so many times. I'd be interested in hearing what an expert has to say about it.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

Oh, and where did the new copy came from? It was copied from the original. Where is the original? In the uploader's possession. Who duplicated the item? The uploader. Who sent the duplicate? The uploader. Who received the duplicate? The downloader. Which is illegal, duplicating and distributing a copyrighted work, or receiving it? Duplicating and distributing.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Kjella]

Actually, obtaining files that are copyrighted isn't a crime anywhere (that I know of) even the US. It's reproducing (ie: uploading) that's illegal, not the downloading.

Better read up again, the Napster case is a good example. Uploading violates the "distribution" right - like sending your own pirate radio broadcast (ignoring FCC and other issues). Downloading, i.e. taking that transient stream and making a permanent copy is a violation of the "reproduction" right. It is not fair use like your VCR because it's a copy of an illegal stream, and the taint follows the copy. You could argue you had good faith reason to believe that it was a legal stream you were copying, but I doubt it'll fly and in any case "good faith" copyright infringement also makes you liable.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[ThePengwin]

The sheriff never stopped the outlaws in the old western movies, because the outlaws were always one step ahead :)

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[skoaldipper]

So the MPAA/RIAA are only going after file sharing people? Not leeches. I thought they were hitting up everyone, but maybe they were just getting distributors.

Good question. I presume MPAA/RIAA tactics are not that much different than typical law enforcement of the illegal narcotic smuggling trade; always set the bait for the big fish, but lob a few sticks of dynamite every so often at the little fishies swimming in the lake. Hopefully, the little fishies will get the message. Either way, the effect of such deterence by such means is still debatable for either the DEA or RIAA.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[danpsmith]

Actually, obtaining files that are copyrighted isn't a crime anywhere (that I know of) even the US. It's reproducing (ie: uploading) that's illegal, not the downloading.

That's all fine and dandy, but the definition of "downloading" is blurred using Bittorrent. You are both downloading and uploading the file at the same time, in this respect it could be seen legally as both receiving and reproduction at the same time if you stretched the definition far enough, and therefore illegal.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[telchine]

>Sharing files is almost a capitcal crime in the U.S.A.

But for those of us that don't live in the Land of the Free, this is a great idea!

It could help to legitimize bitTorrent. It makes it far easier for the average webmaster to utilise bitTorrent downloads. I'm sick of servers that just don't have the bandwidth to provide large files (eg Game Demos, Video files), but do so anyway. It's very rare that I get speeds faster than 200KB/sec from a web server. If those servers provided bitTorrent downloads, it'd be better for the users.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Kjella]

BitTorrent as a basic client will never be truely anonymous by virtue of the technology involved.

It never was... instead it's a very simple, effective way to share files. Everything from suprnova to the pirate bay hasn't been about anonymity or secrecy - it's about being doing it in so great numbers the risk is neglible. The users hav been distributed, the link sites and tracker sites not so much. This makes it a lot easier to set up a tracker site, meaning less centralization so they'll have to take down many more servers to make any significant impact.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[denebian devil]

Yeah, it breaks down like this: okay, it's legal to buy it, it's legal to own it and, if you're the proprietor of a music or video store, it's legal to sell it. It's illegal to seed it, but, but - but that doesn't matter 'cause -- get a load of this, alright -- if you get stopped by a lawsuit, you can just claim it was someone else using your IP address.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

Yep, I mention that here. There are currently swarming applications in production which guarantee that each person has only an incoherent part of the complete file. For example, you might have every 10th byte of a file. When somebody requests a copy, various arbitrary parts are copied from a list of seeds which combine into the actual file on the downloaders computer. The idea is that every 10th byte of a media file is fairly indistinguishable from noise, and is not copyrightable. Likewise, a list of seeds that contain which peers contain portions of a file would not be copyrightable. The idea is that nobody would be able to sue any of the uploaders for copyright violation.

That seems like a bit of a house of cards to me; I can imagine it wouldn't take too much work for a reasonable intelligent lawyer to demonstrate that the very existence of such a system indicates intent.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[cortana]

The downloaded illegally copies the data from his network hardware to his computer's RAM and hard disk.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[MerrickStar]

Hve you never heard of possesion of stolen property? I realize there are differences making the analogy difficult, but there are parrallels as well. Just because the law says the uploading is the crime, don't count yourself invincible because you only download.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[denebian devil]

Are you trying to argue that in receiving the information, you (via your computer) not complicit in the copying? Your computer is shouldering absolutely no part of the grunt work?

Not to mention the fact that when dealing with downloading music, I think it's harder for people to claim that they "didn't know" the music was ill-gotten. In the case of a burned DVD/CD being sold by a vendor, it can be more or less obvious that the DVD/CD is burned depending on how good their reproduction of the disc, label, packaging, etc are, and where they are selling it (e.g. in a store vs on the street). But have you ever seen those people give those discs away for free? Yet you can get music files online for free. If the music was being distributed legitimately, would you really expect them to just be giving it away by the thousands? (I'm setting aside for a second artists giving away single or limited quantity "promos" to advertise a new album. The sheer quantity of music available through torrents and download programs exceeds that kind of innocent giveaway scenario)

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[elrous0]

Actually, Guantanamo is soooo passé these days in the intelligence world. It's the detention facility for TOURISTS. There are dozens of much better, more secretive facilities to send them to now where the New York Times and Supreme Court will never find them. Only poseur intelligence agencies still disappear their detainees to Guantanamo.

-Eric

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not stolen, its copyright in... why do i even bother.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

No, I'm arguing that the person culpable (not necessarily the same as responsible) is the person who is offering the item for download. When you download something, your computer sends a request for data. The remote computer is the one that locates that data, and sends a duplicate down the wire to you. At the moment, asking someone for a illegal copy isn't illegal. Giving someone a copy is. That isn't to say it'll be that way forever; I expect the laws will be changed as soon as someone can be bothered prosecuting a downloader. For the most part, it's more efficient to sue and take down the uploaders - take the uploaders out of the picture and file-sharing dies. They're far fewer than the downloaders, it's easier to track them, and easier to prosecute them.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Fordiman]

No.

It's the 'making available copies to others'

It's really just a way of figuring out who gets the finger pointed at them: he who provides the shares, or she who gets the shares.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless "(like" is a new emoticon I'm not aware of, you forgot the close parenthesis.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Fordiman]

There's no paralell law, so it doesn't apply. Stop trolling, Mr. RIAA flunky.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[gatzke]

But with bittorrent, you are distributing as you download (unless you use a hacked client) so you are illegal.

Other P2P applications would depend what you share with the world.

Just because publishing others copyright material is now dead easy does not make it legal or right.

What about allofmymp3? They are not in the US, so our copyright does not bind them. Assuming they are legal in their homeland, are you safe I wonder?

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Fred Porry]

Yeah, so theres no problem, because who would want copyright-protected files? My Grandfather singing and dancing, thats the stuff they want! Paris Hilton's new song or even pornography that is copyright-protected by law? Come on, seriously! ...

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Fordiman]

http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/

You didn't get it from me.

*whistles and walks away*

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Fordiman]

Spoofing is difficult or impossible for any actual data transfer.

Meanwhile, have you ever seen the RIAA's method of litigation? The evidence is paltry. It's the potential legal fees that cause people to settle.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[qkslvrwolf]

Oh, for the love of pete, somebody mod this up.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[JesseMcDonald]

Only by using private VPNs . . . or by using additional software higher up the network stack like Tor can basic anonymity be enabled.

Or lower down the network stack if you are not standing on your head

Actually, since VPNs are in the Network layer (packet-level) and Tor falls somewhere between the Session and Presentation layers (stream-level), Tor is higher in the stack than VPNs:

• Application Layer (top) [HTTP, FTP, Telnet]
• Presentation Layer [SSL, TLS]
• Session Layer [TCP]
• Transport Layer [TCP, UDP]
• Network Layer [IP, ICMP, IPsec]
• Data Link Layer [Ethernet, 802.11, PPP]
• Physical Layer (bottom) [10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 802.11b/g, DSL]

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[hacker]

Only by using private VPNs (like The pirate party one) or by using additional software higher up the network stack like Tor can basic anonymity be enabled.

If by "basic anonymity", you mean lack of trusted anonymity or NO anonymity, then we all agree. It is a pretty simple (and common) matter to become a maliscious Tor node. Google it.

"So I'm totally anonymous if I use Tor?"
"No."

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[legoburner]

oops you are of course correct. Seems I was actually standing on my head when I wrote the grandparent post.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Mister Whirly]

Sweet, now all we need is for someone to design a system where everyone downloads but nobody uploads!

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[tumbleweedsi]

In the UK it is a crime to be in receipt of stolen goods. The prosecutors can use all sorts of things like price/packaging and reputability of the merchant to establish if the buyer was acting in good faith or not.

That means if you buy stolen goods from a high street store then you may get off but if you buy them in a pub at a discount price then they could prosecute you.

IANAL.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Fordiman]

Ah, what about sharing ISOs?

The assumption that anything on P2P is copyrighted is an issue. Deal with it.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[computational super]

It's not anonymous, and apparently it never will be. Although it seems like anonymous file sharing would be a straightforward problem to solve, the FreeNet project has been working on this for, what, five years now? They have yet to produce anything usable, or even anything approximating usable. Others have tried as well, and none has produced anything that can actually be used for actual file sharing. I'd like to help, but at this point, I wouldn't even know where to begin...

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[tepples]

new, unspoiled land

Unfortunately, you missed the boat by about a century.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[l33t_f33t]

technically it's stealing actually, so it is illeageal to download.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Eivind]

You're sorta wrong, sorta rigth.

Having every 10th byte of a file would be just as copyrigthable as having the first 10% of the file. Atleast there's no logical reason to treat the two differently, especially not when the *purpose* in both cases is to collect pieces until you've got a complete file.

The swarm-technology you talk of *may* still be able to reduce legal liability (though it's hard to say without court-cases), but that's because they work differently;

They split a file in such a way that it can be mathemathically proven that aslong as you've got less than a certain treshold number of pieces, you can say nothing about the file whatsoever, except the filesize.

*THAT* is why you may get away with legally distributing such pieces, especially if you can show that you did not know, and could not know, what the pieces combine to. If a complete file requires 1000 pieces, you can distribute 999 such pieces and have no way whatsoever of knowing *anything* about what is in the file.

The moment you have 1000 pieces though, you can reconstruct the original file.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[dk-software-engineer]

Believe me or not, sometimes, some people are actually interested in downloading legal stuff, and some times they do it over P2P, and sometimes that P2P is bittorrent.
I CANNOT say that sharing files in general is illegal, it's not.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but... Don't forget that the BitTorrent protocol handles downloads a bit different. The downloader using a bittorrent client is also uploading pieces of the file to others while downloading it.
Don't you think this could be considered as distributing. I think if presented correctly in court by some clever lawyer it will make a case against the downloader as well.

Or is there no such thing as a "clever lawyer"?

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Asphalt]

Spoofing is difficult or impossible for any actual data transfer.

Someone used my wireless router. What's "WEP"?

Seriously, I can hit 5 unsecured access points right from where I sit.

People who don't know how/don't bother to secure their wireless routers number probably somewhere in the hundreds of thousands.

IP spoofing is no longer necessary to use someone's IP address. All it takes is a $29 wireless card.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

But, as is the constant cry on this site, copyright infringement is not theft. I don't know how well they could stretch stolen goods to cover goods that infringe copyright.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

Technically, it's copyright infringement. Argue about the morality of the two being equivelant all you like, but anyone whose been prosecuted under the law for these things has been prosecuted under the offense of copyright infringement, not theft.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously someone didn't get the Pulp Fiction reference....

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Amouth]

what.. every one needs a little competition every once in a while :)

don't worry I don't come up with them that often...

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

Having every 10th byte of a file would be just as copyrigthable as having the first 10% of the file. Atleast there's no logical reason to treat the two differently, especially not when the *purpose* in both cases is to collect pieces until you've got a complete file.

The difference is you can play the first 10% of a file (under most encoding schemes) and get a complete segment of a copyrighted work. With every 10th byte, there is not way you could play that get anything resembling any part of a copyrighted work, unless you also had some of the 9 other bits. If it was possible to call that copyrightable, then any pattern of bits could be copyrighted, as they can all be transformed into a copyrightable work with sufficient information.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[penguin_dance]

I don't think that point is correct--I think it's just more likely that the powers that be will go after the distributor than the collector because it's more cost effective legally. But the DMCA has taken away our rights to a fair use copy in digital media.

However, the point is moot--if you're using bit torrents you're automatically UPLOADING as well as downloading. May be harder for the RIAA, et. al to track though since the bits are coming from several different locations instead of a single source in regular P2P.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[larytet]

try gomyplace - you connect to the public reverse proxy, no static IP is required, no torrent files, your PC/Mac/Linux will upload the file only once

and more - link to the file is a static URL, can be sent in e-mail, for example. downloader does not need any torrent clients

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[ehrichweiss]

No, it's the downloading that's illegal too. I've had to deal with DMCA Takedown notices(from the side of the ISP receiving them as complaints) from people downloading. Don't fool yourself into thinking you're safe because you're not sharing.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[delinear]

Somehow I don't feel at all threatened by the MPAA, the RIAA and the like. I have nothing whatsoever to worry about from them.

Yes, of course, because we all know that if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Jugalator]

The Relakks service (which is not a service by the Pirate Party, just endorsed by them) is only "anonymous" until the police comes knocking on their door with a crime that would give a high enough penalty. 2+ year jailtime and they can do any form of traffic analysis on site as they want. The Relakks site also states this in their FAQ, btw. Any form of jailtime penalty and they can request personal information, and it's possible IP addresses are considered that. Perhaps they don't keep logs to spite them, but then Relakks may be guilty of violating data retention laws, etc, etc.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Doctor Memory]

He's no fun, he fell right over!

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Hve[sic] you never heard of possesion[sic] of stolen property? I realize there are differences making the analogy difficult, but there are parrallels[sic] as well. Just because the law says the uploading is the crime, don't count yourself invincible because you only download.

Ummm, what!?!

Just because the law says attacking people is a crime, don't think you're invincible just because you only play baseball with that bat. If you're not copying something you're not violating the copyright and, thus you're not committing a crime. No one is convicted of downloading. Stop spreading this FUD.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[AnyoneEB]

The tracker can simply deny access based on IP address. That way the .torrent would only be useful to users who logged into the tracker site and downloaded the torrent (at which point the tracker could add that IP to the list of allowed IP addresses). I assume that feature is not implemented in the article's tracker, but I have seen private BT trackers, so it is possible.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[jj_gallo]

"The one thing that I think it needs to also have..."

What I'd like have is the option of it creating ed2k links for inclusion on the eMule network. Optionally why not create a Freenet and magnet hashes as well?

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[hesaigo999ca]

if its done properly of course it will, you would have to log into multiple proxies, through a zombie network, execute a remote install of the software unto lets say some library in canada where file sharing is still legal, then set up the configurations, allow for everyone to see it, slashdot the location and then create your own user account that almost everyone uses to download from, there, free anonymous downloads , dont forget to cover your tracks....usually set someone else'e fake tracks instead so as to send them on a wild goose chase until they realise it was the wrong person...i usually like to send my boss's home ip address in these cases...

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Sloppy]

large, legal files needed to be distributed among a small group of people .. The one thing that I think it needs to also have is at least minimal security against discoverability--a password on the torrent listing page, for example. Would also be cool if you could control who was using the server, but I gather BT isn't too well-adapted to that requirement? Not sure.

Or just gpg encrypt the files before sharing them. If some stranger wants to donate some bandwidth to help peer the files, be happy about it. :-)

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[wasabii]

Sorry, but in the US there are many different charges which could be filed against a downloader. Receiving stolen property. Participating in a crime. Conspiracy to commit copyright infringement. And probably many others.

Of course, like anything, only things people consider a real threat will bother being enforced.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can hardly be charged distributing X-Men 3 if you never actually had a copy of X-Men 3

Sure you can. My ex-girlfriend tried downloading Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (while it was in theatres) via BitTorrent on my PC. When I came home and saw it in the queue, at 0.0% and 0 bytes DL/0 bytes UL, I said "I don't want this Hollywood crap," and stopped and deleted it. A few weeks later, I get a letter from my ISP saying Warner Bros. wants my internet access stopped for DMCA violations. Listed is the "offending" file Charlie_And_The_Chocolate_Factory_Xvid_Cam.rar which I never downloaded a single byte of, and therefore couldn't have seeded a single byte of. Luckily my ISP just sent me the letter as a warning and didn't cut me off. All that just for connecting (unsuccessfully) to the tracker.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[linuxrocks123]

> Make no mistake, jail is the least of your worries. Just being accused by RIAA or MPIAA is enough to bankrupt you and make sure your children don't go to collage.

Oh quit the melodrama. If you're really soooo concerned about having your kids' college fund being taken away, put it in an independent trust so creditors can't get at it. Duh.

IANAL yet.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Columcille]

nope, nothing at all to worry about.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[waxwing]

All of the monsters have been lulled to sleep with drugs and loud music - except for Glutamoto! What a monster!

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

Getting issued with a legal threat is not the same as a conviction. That has nothing to do with the law, it's just the MPAA threatening your ISP. If it did come down to a court case, the fact that you hadn't downloaded anything would probably get you off scot free.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Pinback]

So, if you see pirated media, shoplift it?

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Pinback]

Might as well go after the person that sold the materials to make meth out of. After all, the ingredients are now a part of the crime.

I'm suprised that people don't encrypt all payloads, and ship the keys separately. Even the **AA would get tired of downloading TB of unencryptable junk.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

Probably get you a less severe penalty too.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[fbjon]

Unless "(like" is a new emoticon I'm not aware of, you forgot the close parenthesis.

It's a smiling, winking pinocchio with a promotional cap for the new IE 7.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[NumerusSpy]

I don't know why you would bother either. The idea that downloading copyrighted media is a crime has been debunked on slashdot so many times it's getting boring.

civil offense NE criminal offense

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[NumerusSpy]

did you know that LSD has strychnine in it?

Makes me wanna chew some Ratsak. You will equate drugs and file sharing when the Bush admin announces it's latest "War on Torrents".

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[Eivind]

Yeah, sure. But still, the encoding actually used is much more clever; It ensures that even if you have 99% of the file, you cannot say *anything* about the content of *any* part of the file. There's not a *single* bit of the file that you can guess with better than 50% probability. You know *nothing* about the file, except the file-size.

I agree that every-10th byte is *sligthly* better in this regard that 10% first bytes. However, there's no reason to use every-10th when theres encoding-schemes which are even better than this. (cryptographic secret-splitting techniques is what)

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[l33t_f33t]

I'm not here to argue about moral equivalents, and to my point the law is irrelevant anyway. By sheer definition owning the copyright to something means you have intellectual property. If you take their property without permission it is stealing, therefore copyright theft is theft, it's as simple as that.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

If you take their property without permission it is stealing, therefore copyright theft is theft, it's as simple as that.

But you don't take their property. You duplicate it. When you steal something, you have it, and the victim no longer does. When you infringe someone's copyright, you have a copy of it, and so do they.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[l33t_f33t]

You could argue that if I had 2,000 identical DVDs (why, I don't know), and you took one that it wouldn't be stealing, because I still had the DVDs. Every single copy of the song which an artist made belongs to that artist, it's their intellectual property. When buying a CD you buy the right to use that copy. If you download you haven't bought the right to use that copy, and therefore have stolen it.

Re:OK, but is it anonymous?

[LordLucless]

No, because after I took one you would only have 1,999 DVDs and I would have 1. If I made a copy of one of your DVDs, you would have 2,000 DVDs, and I would have 1. I understand what you're saying, but you're wrong. One is theft, one is copyright infringement. They are both illegal, but they are both different. The only people trying to push you're definition are the *AAs, who are trying to equate them because people know stealing is wrong, but are more ambivalent about copyright infringement.

Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[thehunger]

With an unattended, fully automatic, open torrent server, how are you going to stop it from being filled with trash (ie. pr0n, infected files, illegal material) etc?

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trash? That's my gold!!!

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[Jussi K. Kojootti]

Why would remote uploading be enabled by default or even possible?

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[szembek]

Who said other users are going to be able to upload files to share? I think allowing all users to add files would be something that you would have to specifically set up in your own configuration if you wanted it. This is just an easier way for a user to share files on their own website using a torrent.

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[SpacePirate20X6]

Exactly right. As opposed to maintaining a tracker on a server, and then separately seeding the files, this solves the problem for you, assuming you have sufficient bandwidth and disk space. This essentially combines the best of direct downloading and distributed downloading; ensuring content is always available, while minimizing the bandwidth used to distribute the content.

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[legoburner]

A moderation system? Using the 'file' magic to determine and block file types? Virus detection software? Dedicated team of administrators?
I dont think there is a silver bullet answer, but a combination of the above would be fairly effective.

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[teflaime]

Porn is trash? Since when?

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[b1ufox]

With an unattended, fully automatic, open torrent server, how are you going to stop it from being filled with trash (ie. pr0n, infected files, illegal material) etc?

install WinXpSP2/SP3 :).

It by default limits the amount of ports you can open for such clients... (duh :()

so that there is no communication at all with your client.

I wonder who gave Win Developers such a bright idea of block most of the ports...gigz :D

try improving the not so impressive design smart guys ...:)

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[inKubus]

apached module anyone? I could just see it now:

<?php
 
torrent_link("/files/file1.mpg", "This is File 1.");
 
?>

You just stick the files you want in some dir, maybe have a little admin script to upload new files and manage your seeding, mysql table that has a list of the torrent info, torrent_link generates the .torrent file and an a href and you're good to go.

Re:Automatic + Open = Garbage in?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not any different from any httpd or ftpd. If I want to share a bunch of trash, nobody cares.

Source

[baadger]

For those wondering where the source code is (the website isnt really your typical open source project breed), this app is written in Python. Something quite interesting the article failed to mention.

Re:Source

[Anonymous Coward]

For those wondering where the source code is (the website isnt really your typical open source project breed), this app is written in Python. Something quite interesting the article failed to mention.

Your post isn't for those wondering where the source code is, it's for those wondering in what language the app is written.

An answer for those wondering where the source code is would state where the source code is.

Re:Source

[XMyth]

The app IS the source code......or did I just blow your fucking mind?

(Sorry, just got done reading my America the book calendar)

Re:Source

[painQuin]

It seems that Python is the language of BitTorrent...

Re:Source

[Tim C]

Python is interpreted, not compiled. When you distribute a python app, you are distributing its source.

Re:Source

[houseofzeus]

He did both. Python is an interpreted language.

Re:Source

[nkh]

But they fail to mention where to download those files/app/source code for those who don't use Debian and here is the url: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tristero/

Re:Source

[Anonymous Coward]

Bram Cohen likes python
Bram Cohen wrote BitTorrent
Google likes Python
Google likes BitTorrent
Bram Cohen likes Google
Google likes Bram Cohen

Google and Bram Cohen is Guido van Rossum's bitches! :-)

Re:Source

[TeknoHog]

Python is interpreted, not compiled. When you distribute a python app, you are distributing its source.

Actually, it's possible to compile Python into Java-style bytecode or native binary. See Psyco for example.

While it's true that Python is mostly used as an interpreted language, it's not a part of the language definition. Conversely, there are interpreters for languages like C++, I've used one as a part of the ROOT system. ROOT users often compile into native binaries when their code is getting into production level. The same goes for Matlab, for example.

On the other hand, I believe that distributing software as source is much better than the binary, even if you don't have a GPL-like permission to modify/distribute it further. I believe one reason why the www got mainstream is that pages were distributed as source, so people could learn HTML from each other.

Re:Source

[Terranaut]

Not all /.ers are language or network nerds, some specialize elsewhere, so they wouldn't know about Python being an interpreted language.

I wish nerds would for once break away from the "Duh, everybody should know that!" attitude when faced with those with little or no experience of any subject.

Re:Source

[GooberToo]

Not true. There are many ways to distribute a python application without providing the source code. Simply providing the .pyc or .pyo file does it. Granted, that is still the byte code, but that's not source. On top of that, there are many installers which can turn a python application into a single binary application; where, the python runtime, standard library and code (possibly byte code), are all bundled.

Long story short, distributing a python application does not always translate into providing source.

Re:Source

[XMyth]

Did I say or imply "duh"? The "blow your fucking mind" part was a joke. If you thought I actually meant that as an insult then I can't believe you bothered replying to such a moron (me).

Re:Source

[Terranaut]

Most people who insult in jest tend to add a smiley to indicate the emotion that the message was intended to carry, as tone of voice doesn't relate that well with text ;-)

Re:Source

[Frightening]

so people could learn HTML from each other.

Ha! Have you visited myspace.com? I am trying to forget the things I learned there, but the memories are too...bright.

People don't learn html from each other, they torture each other with seemingly innocent tags that turn into nightmares. Please don't raise this issue again.

Re:Source

[trawg]

That is interesting to me - except probably not in the sense that you mean. I'm looking for something similar, except performance is a key issue and BitTorrent-as-python (I run the mainline BT tracker and client and it really struggles performance-wise with some of the more popular files).

This system sounds really great; I'd love to see it as a tightly written C application for maximum performance! I will keep waiting for utorrent for linux in the meantime :)

first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hrm... Hurricane Electric (and probably many other hosting companies have been doing this for a while now.)

http://www.he.net/faq/bittorrent.html
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/24/232622 8

I think the linked url should say that it's the first OpenSource fully automatic BitTorrent server ?

Re:Python's don't bite

[baadger]

Actually i've noticed alot of OEM Compaq's here in the UK have Python runtimes preinstalled on arrival...I suspect some of their help and support software is written in it but I never bothered to invenstigate

I guess

[szembek]

I guess this might be good for people who want to distribute legal products through a torrent. I've used bit torrent, but only for leeching. It just doesn't seem like enough people are setting up their own torrent servers to make this software that worth while.

Re:I guess

[BadAnalogyGuy]

As the linked page says, the major problem with setting up a torrent server is actually setting up a torrent server. This software will essentially eliminate that hurdle and becoming your own server/seeder is as easy as dropping files into a specific directory.

What is needed, of course, is more people interested in sharing their work, but SnakeBite should at least get a few people to crawl out of the woodwork.

Re:I guess

[griffjon]

That's kinda a chicken-and-egg argument; people aren't setting up BT servers on their own, therefore we don't need software to make it easy? If something's overly complicated, people will do it less. This lowers the barriers to setting up your own tracker. Now, hosting your own tracker on your website or personal system is not something you want to do in the current situation with RIAA and MPAA - if you're sharing music/movies/etc. - but if you're sharing things, like, say, your remastered Knoppix project, or you want to give your friend a CD of photos and not sneakernet it, or, say, you're a renegade record label trying to get buzz and distribute some promotional tracks, and don't like having to pay for insane bandwidth for song and/or video downloads; this is a much better solution that most current methods - setting up a private folder on a web server (best), trying to email or IM the file (prolly will break, and is 1:1).

I think the more end-user tools we have available for p2p, the more legitimate uses will crop up.

Re:Python's don't bite

[LiquidCoooled]

Bullshit.

The original bittorrent client is written in python and lots more are as well.
take a look here.

Re:first post?

[Kresh]

Nope. Not even after all these years.

Great automatic folder sharing

[LiquidCoooled]

How long until people start seeding "Inbox.dbx" or "Outlook.pst" and other fun files we all remember from p2p days?

Re:Great automatic folder sharing

[Jugalator]

I used a "Googledork" search from johnny.ihackstuff.com and after ~30 minutes found a ~10 character randomized root password (yes, the user name next to the password was "root") on a public web page, along with a login form there. I almost considered replying to your post in saying that it's not just about P2P when it comes to these things and giving the link, but thought it would be too evil. The admin(s) at Apollo3 has some security reviews to do though. :-p

Re:Great automatic folder sharing

[Anonymous Coward]

> I used a "Googledork" search from johnny.ihackstuff.com and after ~30 minutes found a ~10 character randomized root password (yes, the user name next to the password was "root") on a public web page, along with a login form there.

Umm, are you sure that wasn't the password's hash? :-)

Look out Google

[Goodgerster]

Next case: RIAA versus Google; Google is accused of funding piracy
Next case: Google versus the United Kingdom; Google is accused of funding the manufacture of items useful to terrorism (as the Federation Against Copyright Theft tells us, piracy funds terrorism)
Next case: RIAA versus Canonical; Canonical is accused of supplying Azureus, a piracy tool, to people
Next case: RIAA versus GNOME Foundation; the GNOME Foundation is accused of supplying a GUI library to piracy tools

WHEN DOES IT END?

Re:Look out Google

[hcob$]

Next case: RIAA versus Google; Google is accused of funding piracy
Next case: Google versus the United Kingdom; Google is accused of funding the manufacture of items useful to terrorism (as the Federation Against Copyright Theft tells us, piracy funds terrorism)
Next case: RIAA versus Canonical; Canonical is accused of supplying Azureus, a piracy tool, to people
Next case: RIAA versus GNOME Foundation; the GNOME Foundation is accused of supplying a GUI library to piracy tools

WHEN DOES IT END?

Right about the time you get off that slippery slope fallacy.

Re:Look out Google

[Columcille]

It probably ends when we stop inventing lawsuits that haven't happened/won't happen.

Re:Look out Google

[nnn0]

it ends when due to a false attack from outer space, we all agree to set up an one world government.

Google and Piracy

[nstlgc]

I might be eligable for a tinfoil hat at this point, but I wonder how big Google's interest in piracy is. Yes, I know, BT is has legal uses, but they're sure not taking any steps to make the illegal sharing of information harder.
Piracy is a tough enemy for companies who make money off there software, and seeing how Google does not fall into this category, raising the ease of piracy-related actions might be a way to fight their opponents on a level they themselves can't be fought at...

Re:Google and Piracy

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Piracy is a tough enemy for companies who make money off there software,

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt! Incorrect. Piracy is irrelevant for the majority of companies that make money from software. (Most software written is single use, business logic type custom apps).

and seeing how Google does not fall into this category,

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzt! Incorrect again. Google makes a hell of a lot of money off their software - just not by selling it.

Re:Google and Piracy

[nstlgc]

Next time, try to actually reply to the point made instead of picking on poor choice of words. It sounds pretty logical to me that when talking about Google's competitors, I'm not talking about line of business applications and the likes.
Actually, don't bother to reply. It was just an idea that came to me and I thought it might make for an interesting discussion on the possibility of such practices. Your trolling isn't helping too much.

Re:Google and Piracy

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Your trolling isn't helping too much.

Let me spell it out for you. A post suggesting Google sponsored this project to indirectly make money from piracy is a troll. A reply rudely slapping that post down is not.

Re:Google and Piracy

[nstlgc]

So any suggestion that goes against Google is a troll now? Sounds like you're more than just a Mac fanboy, fanboy!

Re:Google and Piracy

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

So any suggestion that goes against Google is a troll now?

Let me spell it out for you. A post suggesting any large company with bo history of encouraging piracy sponsored a project to indirectly make money from piracy is a troll.

Re:Google and Piracy

[Atzanteol]

Yes, I know, BT is has legal uses, but they're sure not taking any steps to make the illegal sharing of information harder.

Neither is wu-ftp, or Apache, or IIS, or any other application that allows one to download stuff from the inernet.

Re:Google and Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Strawman. Please stop making a fool out of yourself.

Re:Google and Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The buzzer sound has gotta be one of the most obnoxious ways to disagree with someone. Anyway, calling the parent post on this thread a troll is as close to wrong as any subjective measure can be. It wasn't inflammatory at all; the poster even had the courtesy to bracket their comments with a "tinfoil hat" disclaimer. It was clearly marked as conjecture to spark discussion, and a Google fanboy smackdown was completely undeserved and pointless.

I would argue that piracy is relevant to Google's competitors. While most software developed and sold are one-off projects as you suggested, that's not the bread and butter for Microsoft, IBM, and other retail developers. Piracy is *very* relevant to Microsoft, after all - Bill Gates' once spoke of a deep desire to "make the Chinese pay for software." Your assertion that it doesn't affect them at all is just plain wrong.

As we've seen Google move from being a mere search engine to posture itself as an ad-supported vendor of internet portal and productivity software, it becomes increasingly clear that they are attempting to offer an alternative business model for selling software services. It is not outside the realm of possibility that they would act to overthrow the status quo.

Re:Google and Piracy

[nstlgc]

Let me spell it out for you. A post suggesting any large company with bo history of encouraging piracy sponsored a project to indirectly make money from piracy is a troll.
Congratulations on your spelling skills, but you're still not making sense. Are you telling me a large company is void of any suggestions just because it would be a first time offence?

Down boy.

Re:Google and Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

As they've both unfairly accused each other of trolling, why don't you just walk away & leave the fanbois to it?

Re:Google and Piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, like the parent poster, I thought "it might make for an interesting discussion on the possibility of such practices." My hope was to extinguish the flamewar and move the discussion forward on its meaningful points. As usual, the /. community answers with ad hominem arguments.

Re:Python's don't bite

[Brando_Calrisean]

Oh my, you really are a bad analogy guy!

selection

[Captain Murdock]

And the selection is going to be about nothing until somebody makes an entirely user friendly Windows client. I'll stick to my current methods.

Re:sharing and shaving

[bcattwoo]

I assumed he was talking about his wife's cat. Come to think of it, I don't think I have ever seen a sheep with a pet cat though.

Re:sharing and shaving

[LiquidCoooled]

Speaking of shaving pussy...

I Said I Wanted a LINE Cut!

caveat emptor

[QMO]

FYI: morse@email.com is a test. If you fail, the men in white coats will come and get you.

Anti-Slashdot Effect for large content?

[BrynM]

Despite the posts trying to paint this into the next Napster/Limewire/P2P, I think it would be great for distributing large files that might get slashdotted/dug/whatever. I think it's a good way to have a sudden rush of trafic pay for it's own bandwidth. Sure, not everyone is at risk of a slashdotting, but it makes a good precaution. Since it's just some Python, I bet there wouldn't be too much trouble getting it up in a hury as the server starts to get hit (if you're lucky enough to notice). A bonus of planning ahead is that there's always at least one seed (the server) transferring at about the same rate a normal download would have for a single user in the first place. Scalable content rather than scalable servers. Interesting...

Re:Anti-Slashdot Effect for large content?

[ichigo 2.0]

This would however require some changes to browsers and the HTTP protocol. Because first having to download a site with bittorrent to your computer and then opening it with a browser sounds like a good way to get rid of 99% of your visitors.

Re:Anti-Slashdot Effect for large content?

[larytet]

try gomyplace - you connect to the public reverse proxy, no static IP is required, no torrent files, your PC/Mac/Linux will upload the file only once and more, links to the files are static URs and can be sent in e-mail or posted on message boards. downloader does not need any torrent clients -- goMyPlace.com

Re:Anti-Slashdot Effect for large content?

[inKubus]

Yeah, I see what you're getting at. Objectify content (like is already is, as a .html file or whatever) but instead of using HTTP to transfer it, you use the torrent protocol (or whatever's faster). The problem is that .torrent takes a few minutes to get a list of everyone, then you have to wait for slots to open up. Once it gets going it rocks though (hence the "torrent"). Maybe the protocol could reoptomize itself on the fly, just like the old ZModem days, where it chooses a block (frame, whatever) size based on the original file size. Thus if you were requesting a 10K file from the server, it would look at who had the file, and request 1K from 10 people, the rarest parts first. Actually, this isn't all that bad of an idea because we all carry around websites in our cache file anyway. You'd probably need a much more robust hashing system (torrent and most p2p rely on impropability of an intersecting hash rather than true unique hashes;) Having an extra 20 billion files in hash space would maybe affect that. Of course, the seeding host could just forward a list of the last 25 visitors and you could safely assume they have the right file in the cache..

I don't know, if properly implemented as an extension to apached and firefox you might be on to something that would pretty much end the need for large scale clustering of servers for any site. You have to make it totally transparent to the user. Maybe HTTP v5.1 will have it ;) Hell, if you want to get really crazy, extend IPv6 and use its multicasting capabilities along with the "get the rarest part first" capability of bittorrent to create a new protocol that automatically finds the packets needed out on the network after asking the server for a few K hash file of the content.

Phew, man, I wish I was up to speed on my statistics and fractal math. My head hurts, someone figure the rest out please.

Re:Anti-Slashdot Effect for large content?

[Wesley Felter]

Coral is probably more useful for anti-Slashdotting of regular Web sites. People serving large files are probably already using BitTorrent.

Correction.

[SpecTheIntro]

Ok, because I'm a moron, the quoted text should read: "But is it anonymous?" and not "Sharing files..." My mistake.

More and more like Gnutella

[ajs]

The more Bittorrent adds features, the more it becomes like gnutella. Fortunately, I have been able to just use Gnutella for the last couple of years ;-)

Bittorrent is great for very large, very popular files, but when you start dealing with small or unpopular files, I've never found an example where BT got me what I needed faster. Searching Gnutella takes longer than searching for a torrent on the Web, of course, but in the end, download times on very large files that aren't well seeded is radically different, mostly because of the larger chunk size and contingous second-block fetch in Gnutella.

Re:More and more like Gnutella

[ram4]

I welcome your informed opinion. I seldom encounter someone who actually knows that much about Gnutella.

Yes, Gnutella's architecture makes it a better sharing system than pure BitTorrent, for the simple reason that BT creates torrents for a single file, whereas Gnutella servents have been maintaining download meshes (the name of "torrrents" in Gnutella-speak) for many files at once.

One point that perhaps is not known by the general public is that Gnutella is going to have a Distributed Hash Table soon. Something that BT has for some time now, but the addition of a DHT to Gnutella will make magnet URIs finally work right.

The question is then: will it be faster to locate a torrent file or get your hands on a magnet URI that can be fed to any serious Gnutella servent to start a download?

I think Gnutella and BT have much more in common that what a superficial comparison could tell. The architecture is different, the technical implementation radically different, but in the end, both systems will be ultimately converging to something similar. BT will become searchable and Gnutella will have full magnet support, further blurring the distinction.

The only difference is that in Gnutella, you cannot just download a file via a command-line client the way you can do that in BT. But it's just that servent authors never bothered to implement it, and I believe this would be much like emacs/emacsclient: if you have a running Gnutella servent, it is easy to create a command-line tool that will contact that servent to initiate the download, the output being fed to the command-line tool instead of being written to disk, the command-line tool being in charge of writing the data to the disk.

In a sense, BT is simply a re-invention of the Gnutella idea from another angle.

Raphael

Re:More and more like Gnutella

[ajs]

One point that perhaps is not known by the general public is that Gnutella is going to have a Distributed Hash Table soon. Something that BT has for some time now, but the addition of a DHT to Gnutella will make magnet URIs finally work right.

That would be more clearly stated as, "critical mass of servents that support DHTs will be reached soon," as (as I understand it), the standard already allows for it, but implementations have been slow.

The question is then: will it be faster to locate a torrent file or get your hands on a magnet URI that can be fed to any serious Gnutella servent to start a download?

I'm not so sure that's even important. Even with fairly poor magnet support, Gnutella's primary feature is that old, less popular files, tend to exist in their entirety.

I could be wrong in my evaluation, here, but my stab at the reasons for this are:

1) Gnutella clients aren't typically launched in a "download this file" mode, it is launched in a "browser" mode, often leading to longer share times.

2) Gnutella downloads larger chunk sizes, leading to more complete coverage of files over the long haul.

The biggest problem with Gnutella now is spam, and for that, I can certainly agree that magnet URLs with DHTs will substantially improve the situation.

However, I have a substantial problem with the way DHTs are implemented, and I *think* that they will be easy to compromise in the general case for those willing to spend enough money on polluting the network (I could probably do it for under $1,000,000 if I'm right, and if I can do it, I'm sure the media companies will be able to).

Still, if the goal is to verify that an OS distribution or other legitimate file hasn't been tampered with, I think it should be sufficient (as pollution of such files would only result in unusable results, not the ability to inject malicious content).

Re:More and more like Gnutella

[yoz]

Yes, Gnutella's architecture makes it a better sharing system than pure BitTorrent, for the simple reason that BT creates torrents for a single file, whereas Gnutella servents have been maintaining download meshes (the name of "torrrents" in Gnutella-speak) for many files at once.

But BT's been able to do that pretty much from day one. You can get a torrent that's a folder full of files. (No, I don't mean a zipped folder) You can choose to only download selected files.

Great idea for legal torrents!

[MMC Monster]

I will definitely use this myself. I have some large video files that I want to occasionally want to backup from one computer to another. Home movies and stuff like that. Between the problems in filesystems (what filesystem has full read/write support on Linux, Win2K, and OS X?) and size, this is the best way for me to transfer files.

Though a nice tutorial on setting up a vpn among computers with dynamic IP addresses (I don't have a static IP) would be appreciated.

Re:Great idea for legal torrents!

[Anonymous Coward]

CIFS

Re:Great idea for legal torrents!

[gozar]

Though a nice tutorial on setting up a vpn among computers with dynamic IP addresses (I don't have a static IP) would be appreciated.

Check out Hamachi. Once you setup a network in hamachi, every machine gets a nice static ip address.

Re:Great idea for legal torrents!

[WebHikerOriginal]

Maybe you don't understand the Bittorrent principal - it's quite inefficient to use as a 1-1 transfer, and only pays off as the number of clients increase. There are much better solutions for backing up large files between 2 machines.

Re:Great idea for legal torrents!

[larytet]

try gomyplace - can work as a very simple standalone HTTP server or you can share the file between friends

In case of HTTP server you just run it and move the file to folder where you ran the application. Works for PC/Mac/Linu, requires Java

In case of daemon with proxy - GMP connects to the external public proxy. Links to the shared files are static URLs (your IP does not have to be static) and you can send link to the file in e-mail or post on message board

Re:Great idea for legal torrents!

[inKubus]

Though a nice tutorial on setting up a vpn among computers with dynamic IP addresses (I don't have a static IP) would be appreciated.

Try Hamachi. It works flawlessly and your IP on the VPN is determined by your login, not your actual IP. So as long as you're running it, you'll have the same IP on the VPN, regardless of the current state of your real connection. You install it, run it, choose a network name and password and that's about it. They have a central server that handles keeping a list of everyone in your network. Once it gets the list, it starts talking P2P.

Enjoy

Re:Great idea for legal torrents!

[Anonymous Coward]

FTP?

Copyright does include copying

[Kaseijin]

Copyright is a prohibition against distributing, not copying

In the US, copyright is a limited monopoly over reproduction, distribution, public performance, public display, and the preparation of derivative works (17 USC 106). Reproduction is controlled for the same reason you claim it isn't: when it was inefficient and expensive, personal copying was virtually unthinkable.

One small step for Bram

[spyrochaete]

This is a cool bundle of torrent utilities but it's really not anything groundbreaking. Azureus has had the ability to automatically start downloading when .torrent files are in a specified directory for some time now. Still, every increment of functionality means that many more people sharing their content so that's nice for everyone!

Re:One small step for Bram

[LordSnooty]

Er, this project is slightly different to Az's ability to auto-check a dir every few minutes... this sets up a whole tracker. Which is something that Az can do, but not many people will run that on a web server.

So if you only have "an incoherent part"...

[Anonymous Coward]

how do you actually use the file?

Re:So if you only have "an incoherent part"...

[LordLucless]

I assume you'd have a complete file somewhere else on your computer. The thing is that you only have an incoherent part of the file on offer for download.

Great for Home Videos?

[friedmud]

I've been thinking about setting up my own tracker to allow my family to download home videos from me...

I know that sites like YouTube are popular right now... but I really don't like the quality restrictions... and would rather family members could just download a nice sized full copy themselves so they could burn it to DVD if they like or whatever.

Bittorrent would be ideal for doing this... and this software sounds like just the ticket. All I would have to do is point my family at the page it generates... and when I finish editing a home movie drop it in the "upload" folder and wham... it goes out to everyone.

All it needs now is an "auto client" that you just give it the URL of the automatically created website and it will automatically download anything new that arrives (that's a lot of "auto" going on ;-) That way I could go around to all of my families computers and set them up with the software and then just leave it alone. Every once in a while they can look in the "Home Videos" folder for new videos....

I think it's funny that people around here always cry "Bittorrent doesn't have to be for illegal purposes" and then any time a bittorrent story comes up all they can do is argue the finer points of what would/wouldn't be illegal/enforceable if you use the new tech... sigh.

Friedmud

Re:Great for Home Videos?

[Anonymous Coward]

aka podcasting -- just use RSS and a client that downloads all those embedded attachments. iTunes will do it...

Re:Great for Home Videos?

[larytet]

check gomyplace - no restrictions, your PC/Mac/Linux will upload the file only once, links to the files are static URLs, no static IP is required

Re:Great for Home Videos?

[Wesley Felter]

All it needs now is an "auto client" that you just give it the URL of the automatically created website and it will automatically download anything new that arrives (that's a lot of "auto" going on ;-) That way I could go around to all of my families computers and set them up with the software and then just leave it alone. Every once in a while they can look in the "Home Videos" folder for new videos....

Sounds like Democracy player.

Re:Great for Home Videos?

[friedmud]

True... but will it use bittorrent?

I know that solutions like this exist... but it was the bittorrenting that was interesting to me.

Friedmud

Re:Great for Home Videos?

[Sloppy]

Perhaps your family needs a private Usenet?

Debian package doesn't work with Sarge/Stable

[intnsred]

While it's great that the authors created an apt-get repository for easy Debian installs, be warned that the packages don't work with Debian Sarge/Stable. (The packages conflict with Debian Sarge/Stable's Python packages.)

The .deb doesn't work on Debian

[hacker]

Oops! Another case of not testing your software before you release it.

# dpkg -i snakebite-rc3.deb
Selecting previously deselected package snakebite.
(Reading database ... 100410 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking snakebite (from snakebite-rc3.deb) ...
Setting up snakebite (1.1) ...
Adding system startup for /etc/init.d/snakebite ...
/etc/rc0.d/K20snakebite -> ../init.d/snakebite
...
aphrodite:/tmp# /etc/init.d/snakebite start
Starting Snakebite...Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/snakebite", line 16, in ?
from BitTorrent.defaultargs import get_defaults
ImportError: No module named defaultargs
.

Re:The .deb doesn't work on Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems pretty common for most Python packages for me these days. Debian unstable broke Python 2.4 for me a couple weeks ago and it's still not fixed for BitTorrent. In fact, in order to get Python 2.4 to uninstall (and thus allow me to aptitude update/upgrade everything else) I had to manually install Python 2.4 from source, remove the package, and then go from there.

Yay.

Re:The .deb doesn't work on Debian

[rawtatoor]

>I had to manually install Python 2.4 from source, remove the package, and then go from there. Shouldn't be necessary. I had almost the exact same problem yesterday but with bittornado. All you need to do is uninstall the affected packages and whatever python packages it depends on. (Possibly dragging others with it.) Then reinstall what you just removed. I think the important part is removing the python packages.

Re:The .deb doesn't work on Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

The python package was broken and dselect depended on another python program to do the removal. Thus it couldn't uninstall the package because python wasn't working.

It's a genius move to use python to uninstall itself.

Re:The .deb doesn't work on Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

It's even more of a genius move to do that on Gentoo (and re-installing it afterwards requires you to be a miracle worker).

Re:The .deb doesn't work on Debian

[bmsleight]

Try installing package python2.3-ctypes

BMS

Re:The .deb doesn't work on Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

All kinds of dependency problems entangled with the default debian python. It really wants bittorrent_4.20.8_python2.3, which has all the depends on python-twisted, and others.

If you have plain bittorent installed, snakebite will install, but you get the error above.

After putting an hour into it trying to untangle the python depends, I'm about to give up!

Have fun,

Alan

LimeWire is not a network

[ram4]

At the risk of being pedantic, please note that LimeWire is NOT a network, as was Napster for instance. LimeWire is just the name of a Gnutella client, as BearShare or gtk-gnutella also are.

So the right wording would have been: "Despite the posts trying to paint this into the next Napster/Gnutella/P2P, I think....".

Raphael

The greater the demand, the faster the download...

[Arancaytar]

A system whose efficiency increases with the traffic load that is put on it - clever idea.

So how do I avoid "special circumstances"

[tepples]

There is nothing wrong or illegal with sharing some files. (Unless there are special circumstances that makes it illegal, such as copyrights or some kind of legal agreement.)

So if I write and record a song, and I want to distribute it over BitTorrent to promote my album, how should I verify that the song I wrote doesn't violate the copyright in something I heard 10 years ago on the radio?

Re:So how do I avoid "special circumstances"

[dk-software-engineer]

So if I write and record a song, and I want to distribute it over BitTorrent to promote my album, how should I verify that the song I wrote doesn't violate the copyright in something I heard 10 years ago on the radio?

Exactly the same way as any other kind of distribution.

Re:So how do I avoid "special circumstances"

[tepples]

[You avoid subconscious infringement of copyright] Exactly the same way as any other kind of distribution.

And what way might that be?

Re:So how do I avoid "special circumstances"

[dk-software-engineer]

[You avoid subconscious infringement of copyright] Exactly the same way as any other kind of distribution.

And what way might that be?

A completely different discussion. Go somewhere else. :)

This it what I would do: Think hard about it, then stop worrying. I guess that's what the pros do. Most music sounds like everything else in the genre, the same with most movies. I don't think this is something people worry much about.

allofmp3 and 17 USC 602

[tepples]

What about allofmymp3? They are not in the US, so our copyright does not bind them. Assuming they are legal in their homeland, are you safe I wonder?

Assuming you meant "allofmp3.com" (no "my"), the most common allegations of the site's illegality depend on so-called parallel import laws (17 USC 602 and foreign counterparts) and on an interpretation of saving the file on the user's hard drive as "reproduction".

Really Cool

[Koldark]

This is really cool and will be helpful for podcasters.

Re:Really Cool

[larytet]

check gomyplace - no need for BT client on the downloader side, podcaster uploads file only once, public reverse proxy does the rest

Re:The greater the demand, the faster the download

[Fordiman]

It's the whole idea bittorrent is centered around.

Of course, that, and relative anonymitiy have caused its use for piracy, but really, it's just a means of distributing large and/or popular files efficiently.

Just a BT plugin for browsers may be enough

[Arancaytar]

Firstly, the really large content often consists of videos, compressed files or other stand-alone files you would save and then open in another application anyway.

However, from what I've understood of how BT works, webbrowsing might already work with an BT browser plugin. The plugin would take the URL of a .torrent metafile, use it to download the content and then display it within the browser. This "extra step" of getting content via the metafile would happen beneath the surface, so it would look as if the page were loaded directly over HTTP.
This would only be necessary for large in-line resources (Flash, images, etc). Or a website could rely on it entirely, using HTTP only to serve the torrent metafiles.

The process could be improved even further if there is already a standardized URI scheme in place for BitTorrent content - but I don't know if there is.

Re:Just a BT plugin for browsers may be enough

[ichigo 2.0]

Plugins are modifications to the browser. :)

Re:The greater the demand, the faster the download

[Arancaytar]

Yeah, you'll have to forgive me for gawking like I've never seen the internet before. I'm just unfamiliar with P2P and never bothered finding out how BitTorrent actually worked.

reply

[Anonymous Coward]

In bit torrent.. everyone is an uploader as well as a downloader. doesnt this give you some degree of protection? like traveling on the highway at the same rate as everyone else. you are all speeding. but the cops cant pull you all over. Legally if they go after you arent they obligated to go after everyone ? wouldnt that make it harder for them?

Re:reply

[delinear]

Not sure about the US, but over here the police aren't "obliged" to go after anyone. It's entirely down to internal policy whether or not they go after anyone (some forces seem to prosecute everyone, others only go after speeders at certain times or on certain roads, or only if they exceed the limit by X MPH).

Even more so for the likes of RIAA/MPAA - since they aren't even legal bodies enforcing laws, they're wholly private entities bringing civil law suits against users. They can happily pick and choose who they want to sue. The "protection" offered is that of safety in numbers - they RIAA/MPAA can't sue everyone, so if you throw enough users into the mix the proportion who do get sued is statistically tiny. It's a bit like little fish staying in huge groups so that the sharks make less of an impact.

Are you 51% guilty?

[Anonymous Coward]

However, I believe it's currently only illegal to upload - after all, you can hardly be charged distributing X-Men 3 if you never actually had a copy of X-Men 3.

I have always wondered whether suits would be filed against people who never actually had a complete copy of 'less than legal' downloads. The files are completely useless if they are incomplete and how would anyone know if it was illegal in the first place. Would the MPAA/RIAA be agressive enough to go after those people who possess only a percentage of some file that could or could not be in violation? If so, you could circumvent the monitoring by torrenting 90% of a file and have people download the remaining 10% from a secure ftp.

Re:Are you 51% guilty?

[LordLucless]

We sort of talked about that here.

Ah, this will return the internet to its glory...

[diamondsw]

The days of free-flowing porn, put up by bunches of amateurs with no web design experience, and not a pay site in sight!

Nice

[Daath]

How about that :)

Windows?

[d_54321]

Where is the windows version download? Seems to be disconnected at the site.

Re:Windows?

[larytet]

if you run win32 - check gomyplace, no need for BT, your PC uploads the file only once, public reverse proxy does the rest, links to the files are static URLs and can be posted on message boards or sent in e-mail

Re:Windows?

[quanticle]

According to the summary, the Windows version isn't finished yet. They need help in packaging the files into a handy .exe installer.

Re:Windows?

[d_54321]

Oh ok, thanks. I guess the combination of
a- summary not explicitly stating it wasn't finished (only that it is "fully portable" & "developers need help packaging it" (like everyone is supposed to know what that means)) &
b- this page stating that "Snakebite [...] works on [...] Windows" and "Here is where you download the .exe for Windows." without a link
left me somewhat naively hopeful and confused. (The ACTLab TV bastards getting my hopes up...)

Thanks again.

Second?

[AnotherBlackHat]

The first fully automatic BitTorrent server.

I thought he.net had the first fully automatic BitTorrent server
.

Re:Second?

[makomk]

I thought he.net had the first fully automatic BitTorrent server.

Yeah - it's more accurately described as "the first fully automatic BitTorrent server for your home PC" (and I bet that, now I've posted this, someone will come up with something older that does the same thing...)

gomyplace (OT)

[pedestrian crossing]

try gomyplace

Only one catch, you have to trust the proxy not to make a copy of everything you do/transfer...

Re:gomyplace (OT)

[larytet]

yes, indeed, in the same way you trust your ISP not caching BT traffic. the good news are that proxy hides your IP address and in case of BT you are exposed

for every task you can find a tool. just file delivery - reverse proxy with advanced caching based on the hash like one in GMP is probably adequate. and of course open source, GPL

Re:gomyplace (OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, indeed, in the same way you trust your ISP not caching BT traffic. the good news are that proxy hides your IP address and in case of BT you are exposed

Actually, I was thinking more of the other uses of gomyplace that are suggested on the web site, especially remote admin (thus the OT in Subject:). For one-shot up/downloads, fine as long as the file is not in any way confidential or sensitive.

It is assumed that you trust the proxy.

Ridiculous!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Actually, obtaining files that are copyrighted isn't a crime anywhere (that I know of) even the US. It's reproducing (ie: uploading) that's illegal, not the downloading"

But what if the guy didn't want to give me his copy of the copyrighted stuff and I had to shoot him with a speargun? I'm still okay as long as I don't reproduce it, right? Hoo, y'know, I was worried there for a second...

My main concern...

[bkhl]

...would be that with a locally hosted web page which says which files you are tracking, it will suddenly be very easy for the people that want to prosecute file sharers to link individual sharers to a specific torrent.

Re:Python's don't bite

[makomk]

The original bittorrent client is written in python and lots more are as well.

There is no way in hell this is off-topic. Especially since the article implies the original Bittorrent client is included with (and presumably used by) Snakebite, the torrent server we were discussing in the first place.

Good News Everyone....

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's fully portable to both Windows and OS X and the developers just need some help packaging it."
Might I suggest Bubbble Wrap..... I Love That Sh*t pop pop pop pop pop

Paranoid Speculation: easy. Evidence: hard.

[Sloppy]

they're sure not taking any steps to make the illegal sharing of information harder.

Taking any steps to make illegal sharing harder, would be a very dumb thing to do. (Unless they're working hard on an AI project so that you can have a lawyer inside your computer.)

You can't make illegal things harder without also making legal things harder. (Can you imaging how popular Apache would be, if the user can to jump through hoops to somehow prove to Apache that his website was legal?) Users aren't asking for their software to be made harder to use.

Piracy is a tough enemy for companies who make money off there software, and seeing how Google does not fall into this category, raising the ease of piracy-related actions might be a way to fight their opponents on a level they themselves can't be fought at...

I see your point, but yeah, it's pretty paranoid. You could just as easily speculate that Apple used the same strategy against Microsoft. MacOS let a user copy a file (which might be pirated Microsoft software!) just by dragging an icon instead of the user having to type a "copy" command. But Microsoft couldn't do the same thing to Apple, because their "copy" command could not copy a Macintosh computer.

Technology makes things easier. Some things that people do are bad things. Ergo, technology makes doing bad things easier. If you ignore all the positive uses of technology, you can always make people who work in technology, look like Bad Guys. Name any technology (not just Google) and I can come up with a paranoid twisted scenario for how the inventor obviously invented it in order to screw somebody over. (e.g. A disease vaccine was invented because someone in the KKK had that disease. Data sorting algorithms are developed so that in the event of a Nazi takeover, Jews can be more easily located. Interstellar drive invented so that tribbles can be transported to shredding machines.)

The problem is that there is no evidence that actually suggests Google has done what you are speculating. The fact that it can be perversely viewed as compatible with nefarious use doesn't matter, if there isn't any evidence to back it up. If, for example, Google starts modifying their software such that it is specifically tuned for sharing copies of MS Office (and the modification does not otherwise improve the performance of the sharing software) then you might have something. But it's hard to imagine such a scenario, unless it's something silly, such as the filename for a new project defaulting to "OFFICE.EXE". ;-)

Another Idea

[LuxMaker]

I would eventually like to see something similar to All Seeing Eye incorporated into a BT client. Files with the same exact name and/or cross-indexed with a hash check would be grouped as one entity across many trackers. I think this would be cool.

Mod up parent

[Anonymous Coward]

It does not work on debian system. Never mind the other rubbish in this article.

when is seeding a breach?

[Anonymous Coward]

As I see it, this article isn't the place for this whole "legality" duscussion, but I still can't resist making an observation: Wouldn't it be an "out" of prosecution for seeding, unless the *IAA could prove that you uploaded at least one complete copy of a copywritten work?

Good luck proving that against anyone but the original seed... Even if I DL 1.5G and upload 1.5G, there's no chance that I uploaded an entire copy of the file, given the way BT works.

So... what's next for BT? A way to allow multiple seeds to initiate a seeding?

Been there, done that

[tijsvdppc]

I wrote something like that a year ago: here. Took about week in the evenings. Why all the fuzz?

Apache module?

[KingGuru]

Very interesting idea. I was wondering if it might be possible to write something like this as an apache module and if it is possible, has it already been done?

Something like a directive in the Apache configuration file, where you define everything uploaded into a certain directory to automaticly create a .torrent in the same (or another) directory that will then get seeded?

I'm seriously very interested in any thoughts on this, since I might look into trying to code something like that...

Thanks!

Re:Apache module?

[redcane]

There was at one stage a "mod_torrent" for apache. A quick google shows there still is at http://mod-torrent.sourceforge.net/.

Re:Apache module?

[KingGuru]

Ok, thanks. If others got the same idea, then I guess it's not such a bad idea? :-)
I need to write some "smaller" assigments for university and I just thought this might be worth looking into.
The page is very much lacking information, should there be any reason why this wouldn't be possible or is it simply lack of time from developers?

Bzzzzzzzzzzt!

[YesIAmAScript]

Piracy is irrelevant for the majority of companies that make money from software. (Most software written is single use, business logic type custom apps).

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzt!! Although you definitely correct on a dollar basis, most of these custom apps are written by a relatively small number of consulting companies (esp. compared to the number of shareware/freeware authors). Thus, I think that although piracy is irrelevant for the majority of software packages, those packages are created by a minority of software companies.

Thus making your statement incorrect.

Was my lexical pick apart of your statement any more helpful to the actual point than yours of the GP?

Re:Bzzzzzzzzzzt!

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Was my lexical pick apart of your statement any more helpful to the actual point than yours of the GP?

OK - point taken, I just found the GPs post a little silly & offtopic, but I should reserve the bzzzzt noises for actual trolls.

Relakks provides Diversity against Police Attacks

[billstewart]

Sure, it's only anonymous until the police come, and if they're ordered to provide information under Swedish law they'll rat you out to the extent that they're required to. But if you're not Swedish, you're not likely to be causing enough of an international incident to get the Swedish police after you. (Doesn't mean that the RIAA won't try, and it's possible that they'll occasionally succeed. ) And the NSA may be able to eavesdrop on their internet connections, they can't force Relakks to give them any other information without going through formal channels.