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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Who are you? Me?

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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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]

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?

[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.

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

[painQuin]

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

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.

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?

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: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.

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...

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.

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.

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

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: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: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.

Second?

[AnotherBlackHat]

The first fully automatic BitTorrent server.

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