BitTorrent Devs Introduce Comcast-Proof Encryption

Dean Garfield writes "An article at TorrentFreak notes that several BitTorrent developers have proposed a new protocol extension with the ability to bypass the BitTorrent interfering techniques used by Comcast and other ISPs. 'This new form of encryption will be implemented in BitTorrent clients including uTorrent, so Comcast subscribers are free to share again. The goal of this new type of encryption (or obfuscation) is to prevent ISPs from blocking or disrupting BitTorrent traffic connections that span between the receiver of a tracker response and any peer IP-port appearing in that tracker response, according to the proposal.'"

Comments

Re:Do arms races ever work?

[HiThere]

You could be right...but I don't think so.

Russia was, and China will be (is?) actually a threat. It's true that "Wall Street" subsidized the communist take-over from the Dumna, but it was more successful than they expected, and slipped out of their control. It was still a useful bogey-man up through the early 1950's, but then it became "too powerful", and became an actual threat. And they by then believed their own propaganda (always a danger in that kind of game).

Nixon was the one who defused the problem. He could, because he, having been involved in it during the earlier stages, still thought of it as a "paper tiger". (A reference to his "normalizing" relations with China.) Regan heated it up again, but in a diffuse kind of way (i.e., Star Wars. A first strike weapon, being sold and a defensive maneuver [one which wouldn't work for defense, though]. It probably also wouldn't work for offense, but nobody knew. Possibly nobody knows yet.) Russia tried to counter it, and the cost was so high that it pushed them over the top into bankruptcy. (Actually, looking at the costs a few years in the future caused them to enter bankruptcy before they had to, so they saved SOMETHING. I'll admit the timing really surprised me.)

But it's also true that all this is my reconstruction of what must have been going on. I can't prove it. I don't have any hard evidence. But I doubt that you do either.

So to my mind, this is an example of an arms race that one side "won". Won is in quoted, because in doing so we have grossly perverted the country. Perhaps you could say that Russia won the arms race, because their country improved, while ours decayed in wealth (as opposed to illth). But then they paid a higher price during the arms race... so maybe not.

Generally the countries that win during an arms race are the ones that manage to stay out of it. Generally the species that win during an arms race are the ones that manage to stay out of it. But there are exceptions. Humans were in an arms race against all sizable predators. I think that humans won that arms race...and even the non-competing animals lost. (The one against the virulent microbes is still in process, with the eventual victor uncertain...but the odds look good for the humans. The upcoming one against the sulfur bacteria is uncertain. So far most people don't even see it as coming, and I'm not specialist. [Synopsis: Global warming becalms the oceans. Benthic bacteria generate lots of sulpherous gases, which diffuse through the oceans, binding to free oxygen. Oxygen levels fall. Near and above the oceans they begin seeping into the air, and again the bind to oxygen. Oxygen levels fall. Likelihood: Uncertain. Seems to have happened a couple of times before.])

Arms races generally cause each side to develop a particular advantage to an extreme. As grazers become more difficult prey, their attackers develop stronger jaws and longer teeth, until you end up with saber tooth tigers and mammoths. But this extra weaponry and armament is so expensive to maintain that something external to the arms race kills off both sides.

Then there's the case of Athens vs. Sparta. That lasted a long time, corrupting both cities, until and external conqueror took them both. They'd spent so much time on attack and defense, that they hadn't any time for growth. (I think their populations had actually declined.) So Alexander had Greece as his first conquest.