Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
nothing
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.
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.
Warhammer forums
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.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
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.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
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.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
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.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.
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.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Its not stolen, its copyright in... why do i even bother.
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.
http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
You didn't get it from me.
*whistles and walks away*
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
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:
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
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.
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
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.
I thought he.net had the first fully automatic BitTorrent server
.