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P2P BitTorrent Tool Could Replace Pirate Bay

With the US and other G8 countries trying to outlaw The Pirate Bay and its ilk, an anonymous reader suggests that a solution may have emerged out of Cornell University. A new open-source project called Cubit is an Azureus plugin that provides decentralized approximate keyword search of torrents in the network.

87 of 413 comments (clear)

  1. Dude. by Kingrames · · Score: 5, Funny

    They haven't even passed their unconstitutional law. And here you are already defeating it. You're supposed to give them a few minutes of satisfaction.

    --
    If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
    1. Re:Dude. by TRAyres · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Where in the constitution is the right to file share? Constitutional law isn't my field, but saying file sharing is a subset of freedom of speech seems like a stretch. I do agree though: this is closing the barn door after the horse gets out.

    2. Re:Dude. by sabrex15 · · Score: 5, Informative
    3. Re:Dude. by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Tip: The Constitution is a list of what powers and responsibilities the three branches of government have. The way you phrased your question (where is the right to xxxx) means you're giving them unlimited powers unless they're explicitely prevented. The correct question: Where in the constitution is Congress/the President given the authority to xxx.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    4. Re:Dude. by 0111+1110 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Where in the constitution is the right to file share? Amendment 9:

      The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
      --
      Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
    5. Re:Dude. by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Informative

      Where in the constitution is the right to file share? Constitutional law isn't my field, but saying file sharing is a subset of freedom of speech seems like a stretch. I do agree though: this is closing the barn door after the horse gets out.

      There isn't a right to share files but I'm pretty sure there's a right to free speech in there somewhere and a ban on "unauthorized information exchanges" doesn't seem very Constitutional to me.

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    6. Re:Dude. by Shakrai · · Score: 3, Informative

      Where does the constitution say we can't file share? Rights not specifically mentioned are automatically reserved to the people.

      Actually they are reserved to the States or to the people.

      "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    7. Re:Dude. by iminplaya · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The sharing of information IS freedom of speech, not a subset, despite fraudulent claims of ownership. The fraud may be protected by law, but it's still fraud. The law is supposed to protect everybody, not just specific commercial interests, as this one does.

      --
      What?
    8. Re:Dude. by Mr2001 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Freedom of your OWN speech is protected. Not to share other people's speeches without their consent. There is a big difference there. I'd say there's virtually no difference at all. When words are coming out of my mouth, that's my speech. It doesn't matter whether those words also came out of someone else's mouth a few years earlier.

      Of course these people own what they say (or in the case of music, what they produce). They produced it. That's nice and glib, but it doesn't hold up. A barber "produces" your haircut, so does that mean he owns it? A house painter "produces" the color of your house - does he own that? If I cut a piece of paper to a precise length, maybe even a length which paper has never been cut to before, do I own that length?

      It just doesn't make a lot of sense to speak of "owning" something which is an attribute of something else. A haircut is an arrangement of hairs on your head. A poem is an arrangement of words on a page. A painting is an arrangement of color on a canvas. You can't own an arrangement any more than you can own a length or a weight; the idea is ridiculous on its face.

      Just because you say it out loud once (or sing it at a concert) does not mean it instantly belongs in the public domain. Likewise, just because you say something out loud once (or sing it at a concert) doesn't mean you instantly "own" that utterance and, from there on out, should be granted veto power over whether anyone else can say it or sing it.

      How about you say or sing whatever you want, and they say or sing whatever they want, and neither of you tries to get in the other's way? That's freedom of speech.
      --
      Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
  2. Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    And with Guitar Hero replacing actual music, soon there won't be anything left to steal! Now *that's* innovation.

    1. Re:Good! by AmaDaden · · Score: 4, Funny

      30 years from now.... "Dude! Some of my friends and I found like these things in my attic. You can use them to make sounds and stuff. It's like video games but real! We were able to like play a song but it was like not a song from a game or the internet! It was like new!"

  3. This can't stop "graph takedown" attacks... by nweaver · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As I contemplated when AT&T started saying they want to fight piracy on the wire, the most effective way is for the ISP to cooperate with the MPAA, where the MPAA gives a graph of "These people are exchaning a large copyrighted file, block it".

    If ISPs move in that direction, this defense won't help, and thats probably the bigger threat for blocking P2P piracy, as there are always countries of convienece to set up piratebay like operations.

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
    1. Re:This can't stop "graph takedown" attacks... by Klaus_1250 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Nope. There are other things you can do of course. Reputation based schemes like Credence ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credence_(reputation_management_scheme ) applied to peers could help you boot off peers out of swarms with no or poor reputation. This would force certain organizations to build reputation up first, but keeping that will be a tough cookie. Won't be fool-proof, but will make it harder. Not many people will give RIAA/MPAA the thumbs up.

      Then there is small world theory. Downloading stuff through trackers from people you don't know is somewhat silly. You should be able to get the same content (though a bit slower) through semi-trusted contacts. The only way to defeat that is infiltration by certain organizations, but, rather tedious and difficult.

      You can also create a scheme where you us peers as proxies. Instead of downloading something directly, you ask a peer to relay a bunch of encrypted anonymous bytes for you. Will slow down speeds well over 50%, but difficult to defeat.

      There about a billion more ways. The fact that they are not implemented yet, is simply because most p2p-apps/networks don't want to start an arms race.

      --
      It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
    2. Re:This can't stop "graph takedown" attacks... by kvezach · · Score: 2, Interesting

      At which point some clever individual finds a new variety that circumvents such attacks.

      Thinking a moment about it, I could envision (for instance) a peer-to-peer system that uses rateless codes along with a protocol on top of UDP, and an anonymous DHT. It wouldn't be BitTorrent anymore, but it could work like this: The one who wants files sends his IP through the anonymous DHT. Those with files transmit a nonce to that IP, and the requesting person replies (so as to prove he's giving the right IP). Then the senders transmit packets as given by a rateless erasure code encoding of the original file, and mark the packets with a fake source IP address. This works because erasure codes don't need any regular ACK-type feedback. Now add something like EigenTrust (or a robust variant of it) on top of the DHT to get rid of fake file uploads, and proof the erasure code against the case where some "senders" just pretend to have the file and send noise instead (there's a paper of how to do this, but I can't remember its title at the moment), and you're all set.

      In the worst case, ISPs would implement egress filtering. That, itself, isn't a bad thing (as it prevents reflection denial-of-service attacks), and so in either case we win. And that was just a first stab; clever people could probably find some way of masquerading it as HTTPS, use secret sharing to say "but I wasn't really sharing the file, just a part of it", or whatever.

  4. Re:In *WHAT* network? by Dunbal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And when can we expect *that* to get shut down?

          Just a couple months after everyone has stopped using it and is using something else.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  5. Re:Kademlia by blueg3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    To my knowledge, Kademlia uses exact keyword searching, not approximate searching. While distributed hash tables are a fairly effective decentralized searching mechanism, it's tough to move them from exact-match searching to more general searching.

    Other DHT systems are also used to list peers for trackerless torrents and to find peers for particular files on networks like eMule (by searching by hash).

  6. Dupe (kind of) by Ankur+Dave · · Score: 4, Informative

    The article from yesterday about Verizon and Comcast's pledge to support Bittorrent also includes information about Cubit.

  7. A poor replacement. by hlt32 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Use of this will significantly increase the number of fake files uploaded.

    At least TPB allows file comments which allows fakes to be spotted pretty fast.

    Also, do not forget about the amount of traffic private torrent sites get - which this is not a real alternative to.

    --
    à_à
    1. Re:A poor replacement. by PC+and+Sony+Fanboy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      *private*

      Well, private trackers aren't exactly private. They're more difficult to get into, but they're no more private than most of the 'net...

    2. Re:A poor replacement. by cavemanf16 · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's called freenet, and yes, it's dog slow and no one uses it.

    3. Re:A poor replacement. by Omestes · · Score: 2, Informative

      correction: its dog slow BECAUSE no one uses it.

      Damn chickens and their eggs, or eggs and their chickens.

      --
      A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
  8. Re:Limewire/Frostwire? by blueg3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sort of. The main point of the Gnutella network (of which Limewire is a client) is searching. The network is inefficient, but it allows for arbitrary searching. This would be along the same vein as using a Gnutella-like network to share .torrent files, then using a BitTorrent client to actually transfer the data. (I haven't read the article, but I suspect their searching network is more efficient than Gnutella.)

  9. Re:Gnutella by blueg3 · · Score: 4, Informative

    * The network is much more efficient.
    * All this network is sharing is torrent metadata (.torrent files), while a BitTorrent client is doing the real transfer.
    * Their keyword searching system, while allowing for finding the k-nearest keywords, is not fully general like searches on a Gnutella-like system could be.

  10. Self Healing by Urger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -Joe Gilmore

    1. Re:Self Healing by WMD_88 · · Score: 4, Informative

      John Gilmore. :p

  11. Re:It needs Azureus? by blueg3 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No, it's implemented in an Azureus plugin.

    I see nothing in the design of their searching network that would preclude implementations independent of Azureus.

  12. Yes. What's unconstituional by Hankapobe · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I have to agree with the parent here.

    I've read the GP's post and I've been pulling out the Old Constitution trying to figure out where he's coming from.

    We, the US, are governed by the rule of law. And sometimes, the rule of law is very unfair for a few of us. BUT, it will correct itself eventually and to be honest, I prefer "eventually" to a bloody revolution. I mean "bloody" in the "folks are dieing in the streets" bloody - not the British version.

    1. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by Chris+Acheson · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Congress can create whatever laws they want. Sure, the supreme court can strike down those laws, but they can also let them stick, at their discretion. It's not like the supremes are any more accountable than congress is.

      I agree that free sharing of information (in all its various forms) is beneficial in a utilitarian sense. However, I think it's more important to point out that we do have the individual right to freely share information. The constitution and the law can infringe upon that, but they can't revoke it.

    2. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We, the US, are governed by the rule of law. And sometimes, the rule of law is very unfair for a few of us. BUT, it will correct itself eventually and to be honest, I prefer "eventually" to a bloody revolution. I mean "bloody" in the "folks are dieing in the streets" bloody - not the British version.
      The problem is that, for the moment, the will of the people is being overshadowed by the will of the corporations/rich/government/folks-in-power.

      Companies spend literally millions of dollars lobying the lawmakers. They give them various gifts, incentives, and outright bribes. Pretty much anyone elected to office, beyond the very local level, is in somebody else's pocket. Which means that the laws that get passed are not the ones that the nation as a whole wants, but rather what the people with lots of money to spend want.

      The only thing that we the people can do about it is oppose those laws at every possible opportunity, and oppose them loudly. Protest peacefully but loudly. Civil disobedience. Circumvent whatever technical hurdles are placed in our way.

      Perhaps this law is not actually "unconstitutional" in the literal sense of the word... I sincerely doubt if there's any text in there about a right to P2P... But I garontee that the founding fathers did NOT want us ruled by a government that doesn't listen to its citizens.
    3. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I prefer "eventually" to a bloody revolution. I mean "bloody" in the "folks are dieing in the streets" bloody - not the British version.


      "God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
      The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
      wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
      they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
      it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ...
      And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not
      warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
      resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
      to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
      in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
      time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
      It is its natural manure."

      by:

      Thomas Jefferson
      (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
      Source:

      November 13, 1787, letter to William S. Smith, quoted in Padover's Jefferson On Democracy, ed., 1939
    4. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by pablomme · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, we're governed by the constitution. Congress only has power to enact laws as stated within it. That's complete nonsense. The US constitution was written with the explicit intention of being amended, as it has been in 27 occasions. Actually, the constitution itself only sets up a basic framework, and it's the first ten amendments that give you any kind of rights.

      And guess who has the power to amend the constitution.
      --
      The state you are in while your HEAD is detached... - wait, what?
    5. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by r00td43m0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I completely agree with Thomas Jefferson, but the few of us (relative comparison) are the only ones who care, the masses are too busy watching American Idol, Survivor, sensational news to pay attention to any of this anymore. So recently I have really taken to an excerpt from Fahrenheit 451:

      Granger: "....When the war's over perhaps we can be of some use in the world."
      Montag: "Do you really think they'll listen then?"
      Granger: "If not, we'll just have to wait.....But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them."

      So even though we check slashdot everyday and post these stories and our replies. The masses will not listen until they want to. They would rather be tuned out to reality and no one can force them to tune in.

    6. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by fishbowl · · Score: 2, Insightful

      >it's the first ten amendments that give you any kind of rights.

      No.

      Something higher than government of men gives you rights.

      You actually believe that you don't have rights except for those specified in the Constitution?

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    7. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by Schadrach · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Bill of Rights doesn't give a list of rights you posess, it gives a list of rights that the government cannot take away under any circumstances. It's also stated in the constitution that any power not explicitly given to the federal government belongs to the states or the people.

    8. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by ksd1337 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      the masses are too busy watching American Idol, Survivor, sensational news to pay attention to any of this anymore. Eerily reminds me of Brave New World.
    9. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The proposed treaty (it's not a law, though new laws would need to be enacted to adhere to the treaty) does a lot of nasty things. It allows seizure and destruction of equipment used in copyright infringement. It allows for criminal charges in the case of infringement where there was no monetary incentive. It requires ISPs to give up personal information on alleged users without a subpoena (something that was tried before, and was struck down.)

      The first issue above could easily be violations of the fourth amendment (though there's precedent for seizing property used in the commission of a crime--slippery slope isn't always a fallacy.) The first and second examples above could easily be a violation of the eighth amendment. Criminal damages for copyright violation? Seriously? For centuries, it's been a civil violation.

      The third example has other impacts. It violates various presumed rights of corporations and individuals (the general right to withhold information from the government in absence of a subpoena), and the assumed rights of privacy which some people believe is inherent in the Constitution due to the first, third, fourth, ninth, and fourteenth amendments, taken collectively.

      The law also allows for ex parte searches of computer equipment, which has 4th amendment implications, too, though it's not as strong a violation.

      No, the laws required to adhere to the terms of this treaty are unconstitutional. It's only a shame that we've been sliding away from constitutionality of laws over the past few decades.

    10. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Something higher than government of men gives you rights.

      Who/What would that be?"


      Chuck Norris.

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    11. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Your conscience. At least mine is the ultimate decider for legal and illegal, not some law. Following unjust laws made unjust governments possible in the first place.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    12. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by neomunk · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're absolutely right about that, but I'd like to point out that if the Air Force's recent little botnet experiment expands to the public, you might see the Third Amendment tested here soon.

      Should be interesting.

    13. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by scipiodog · · Score: 4, Informative

      The Bill of Rights doesn't give a list of rights you posess, it gives a list of rights that the government cannot take away under any circumstances. It's also stated in the constitution that any power not explicitly given to the federal government belongs to the states or the people.

      Mod Parent up!

      So many people in the US don't seem to understand this point. If they did, I personally think we'd be in much better shape overall.

      The point of the US Constitution is NOT to delineate peoples' rights - it is there to explicitly state the ONLY circumstances in which the government can infringe upon them.

      The Tenth Amendment specifically clarifies that powers that the Constitution does not delegate to the United States and does not prohibit the States from exercising, are "reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

      Essentially, all rights not mentioned in the Constitution one way or the other, no matter how obscure, are still in force.

      --
      http://clightnirish.wordpress.com/
    14. Re:Yes. What's unconstituional by Roxton · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The only thing that we the people can do about it is oppose those laws at every possible opportunity, and oppose them loudly. Protest peacefully but loudly. Civil disobedience. Circumvent whatever technical hurdles are placed in our way.


      Excellent comment, but I just wanted to add to this. Vocal opposition is important, but we have an obligation to get our society's social infrastructure to the point where we can do more than that.

      One thing we're seeing is grassroots funding of candidates via small dollar donations. That's a big deal, and I think everyone has an obligation to pitch some money at candidates this election cycle.

      How sad is it that we had to pass a law to get cell carriers to allow phone numbers to be transferred when a user switches carriers? We need to find a way to, as consumers, bargain collectively with corporations without relying on the traditional congressional apparatus. In principle, it's 100% libertarian, removing the ideological reservations that some people have about public control of corporate activity.

      The theoretically unbounded channels and abolition of time slots promised by on-demand media are setting the stage for independent journalism. We need to solve the problem of how people are going to get paid for content, and we need to make sure that the studios are no longer the gatekeepers for the content enabled on a growing number of Internet-enabled set-top boxes. Those challenges are certainly not unsurmountable, however, but we need to be cognizant of them.

      Thanks for reading.
  13. But... by Xenna · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...we still need trackers, right?

    X.

    1. Re:But... by blueg3 · · Score: 4, Informative

      No. The decentralized-tracker problem is a ton easier than this problem, and there are already multiple decentralized-tracker solutions. Decentralized trackers are just done with simple distributed hash tables. What they've done is make a fancier DHT system for finding "near matches".

  14. Re:Gnutella by blueg3 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think there is already a mostly-unused torrent-tella-like system. It's really a very good solution, since Gnutella provides very powerful searching and BitTorrent provides high-bandwidth data transfer. This is actually more like using eMule's Kad to share .torrents.

    As I mentioned somewhere else, though, people won't move from the index site + centralized trackers + a BitTorrent client until enough indexes and trackers get shut down that they need a new solution.

  15. Re:In *WHAT* network? by blueg3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It seems to work the other way. It'll get shut down about a year after a better solution is developed and about a month before everyone starts using that better solution.

  16. Encryption doesn't help... by nweaver · · Score: 4, Informative

    Encryption doesn't help. You can participate as clients of a swarm to get the identity of the members of the swarm, which is the information the ISPs need to block the swarm.

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
  17. Nonsense by Chris+Acheson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We, the US, are governed by the rule of law. Sure, if by "rule of law" you mean "arbitrary decree of unaccountable rulers".

    And sometimes, the rule of law is very unfair for a few of us. BUT, it will correct itself eventually and to be honest, I prefer "eventually" to a bloody revolution. I mean "bloody" in the "folks are dieing in the streets" bloody - not the British version. This is pure fantasy, and is the kind of thinking that leads to bloodshed. If abuses are not resisted through active, vigorous civil disobedience, then your "eventual correction" IS a bloody revolution.
    1. Re:Nonsense by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is pure fantasy, and is the kind of thinking that leads to bloodshed. If abuses are not resisted through active, vigorous civil disobedience, then your "eventual correction" IS a bloody revolution.
      Sssh! Don't tell him. I prefer the bloody revolution version.
    2. Re:Nonsense by jcgf · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Digital files can be copied without depriving the original owner of theirs, be it software or music. Your money was taken from you leaving you with less (I hope your insurance covered it).

      Now just imagine once 3d printers become cheap enough for the common household... Manufacturers of small cheap trinkets had better be worried because their time is next.

    3. Re:Nonsense by neomunk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem isn't that filesharing is like stealing a credit card, it's that some people are 'propagandized' enough to THINK that filesharing is like stealing a credit card.

      Seriously, the first posted reply to this comment by jcgf points out why, but in his or her brevity jcgf doesn't bother to point out what everyone who's actually THOUGHT about this already knows: P2P is NOT inherently to be used to spread copyrighted information. Download a popular linux distribution with bittorrent and you'll max out your pipe (at least with residential broadband, 6MB down here), proving conclusively that P2P isn't remotely 'evil' no more than a gun is evil (in fact it would be LESS so, if both weren't EVIL==0).

      The next point that you are (purposefully) ignorant of is a point mentioned in the summary of the article we're discussing; namely that wikileaks, a site that would be ludicrous to accuse of 'piracy' or 'theft', is going to come under the same draconian shield as distributors of Brittney Spears' new album (those evil unrepentant bastards). Now, I know that -some- people (those who very much enjoy their rose-colored lenses) are offended that wikileaks has the audacity to disrupt the 'socially acceptable' order of things, and will latch on to the flimsiest of pretexts to shut it down, but even they know they're trolling, but they're willing to troll for 'a good cause'.

      Or, to sum this up: Quit trolling about piracy. You KNOW by now (as I've seen you be told numerous times) that your arguments are completely based on distortion and FUD, you're just making yourself look fanatical.

    4. Re:Nonsense by debatem1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I love this logic- support the existing law or you are against an orderly society! We have the ability to change laws for a reason- bad laws get passed. And it's not unpatriotic or immoral to suggest that a law needs change. Bottom line: if you agree with a law, say why you agree with it instead of pretending that changing an unpopular law is morally equivalent to destroying the rule of law.

    5. Re:Nonsense by Chris+Acheson · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'll certainly defend your right to keep your real property, but information isn't property, never was, and never will be.

    6. Re:Nonsense by jim.hansson · · Score: 2, Informative

      I worked on one way back in 1998, it was used for scanning teeth.
      not the one I work on but newer and smaller http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2007/0805-digitial_dentist.htm

      --
      preview button, my computer does't have any preview button
    7. Re:Nonsense by mbius · · Score: 4, Insightful

      the creator is obviously and naturally entitled to owning their ideas

      A student of the "paraphrase what he said and negate it" school of rhetoric, I see.

      Anyone who has tried to make this work -- fairly -- realizes it can't. Trying has brought us to legal reductio ad absurdum, with USPTO overwhelmed by nonsense concept-squatting and the court system burdened with eight-figure (hence, "important") infringement suits.

      In a perfect world, maybe the ancient Greek who figured out the major scale is entitled to royalties on every piece of tonal music ever "invented" (and for Jack Valenti's duration of "forever minus a day"). The rest of us realize that's idiocy: does the practically negligible difference in intonation from changing temperament count as materially different? What about timbre? Who ought to own the 12-bar blues?

      Your suggestion our legal process need concern itself with the pockets on my jeans is ridiculous. I challenge you to argue "Amazon's" 1-click claim is any less so.

      None of "original," "idea", "implementation" is well-defined. Even the comparably hyper-cooperative world of math publication sees hot debates over independent discovery. We therefore conclude "ownership" in this context is neither obvious nor natural. Enjoy your Monday. You will, no doubt, condemn any corporationy corporation, that is caught violating GPL

      In much the same way I believe murder is wrong despite my willingness to shoot a guy who breaks into my home. Doing the best you can with the cards you're dealt doesn't make you a hypocrite.

      --
      you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
      Prime UID Club
    8. Re:Nonsense by mOdQuArK! · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If musicians don't want their music copied, then they shouldn't release their music.

      That doesn't give them the right to control other peoples' real private property.

      Controlling what someone else may or may not do with something they have purchased is not something "creators" are entitled to, despite what some may think.

      More generally, if "creators" don't want their ideas spread, then they shouldn't make those ideas spread.
      They don't have the "right" to control other people spreading those ideas.

      People who "insist" they have the right to control what other people do with ideas should really get over themselves.

    9. Re:Nonsense by DavidShor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      there is an effect you are neglecting: as copyright periods increase, this effects incentives in two directions: 1) the obvious, expected profits increase, increasing incentive to work. 2) Writers can expect to profit longer off of their previous work, allowing them to "live off there previous work" Because of the decreasing marginal utility from money, effect 2 overpowers effect 1 pretty quickly. There have been some nice papers on this( google "optimal copyright period"), and the current estimate is that a period of around 14 years maximizes incentives to produce. Anything above that actually decreases the amount of works produced. (This is only for copyright, the formula for patents depends on the sector)

    10. Re:Nonsense by DavidShor · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Remember, writers and content producers are a very small percentage of the population, and should not have very high priority in social utility function.

      The only purpose of IP law is to increase production of information and research.

      And as it stands now, it's an empirical near-certainty that copyright periods are far too long to serve the public interest.

    11. Re:Nonsense by DavidShor · · Score: 2, Interesting
      I'd like to point something out, the rationale for property at all, is the exact same one as for intellectual property.

      Contrary to popular belief, property rights are a very modern invention, and large chunks of the world still do things relatively communally.

      Developed nations implemented wide scale property rights only in the late 19th century, so as to avoid "tragedy of the commons" situations by giving owners of property an inventive to maintain it.

      In other words, property rights were designed to overcome a market failure(Tradgedy of the Commons), much in the same way as copyright laws.

      Both IP and property rights have severe costs(Think of absentee landlords owning multiple homes while others are homeless), but when property designed, they can serve the public good.

      Conventional property rights are pretty well designed, IP laws not so much...

  18. Re:Limewire/Frostwire? by Klaus_1250 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gnutella (LimeWire et. al) has more than one way of searching. Through Ultrapeers, Ultrapeers and OOB-replies (e.g. not routed back through Ultrapeers) and Mojito (DHT).

    Using Gnutella to search/index .torrents is already a long time feature of G2 (Gnutella 2, though it is NOT the successor of Gnutella), with Shareaza being the main client for the G2 network (along with very basic support for Gnutella, BitTorrent and eDonkey2000).

    DHT-networks can be more efficient, but they are also vulnerable to attacks and pollution and are somewhat lossy.

    --
    It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
  19. Decentralized? No servers? No trackers? by xmuskrat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    We had applications like this previously to bittorrent that did not list files, and one of the big golden opportunities of not maintaining a file catalog was that you didn't really have the possibility of you having illegal content on it, it was just like downloading. You don't see companies like Microsoft or Mozilla getting pressure about the fact that people download copyrighted files there. Decentralized? As in no servers, no directories and no trackers for files? How do the individual nodes find each other? If you have something where nodes pass their knowledge of other nodes along (the longer you are connected, the more nodes you might potentially learn about) that could be interesting. But how can you have something totally decentralized? Can discovery truly work on a whole-internet-sized scale?

    --
    activestudios web design
  20. poison? by Deanalator · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think that the hardest part of adding search to any p2p system is that it is too easy for malicious users (*IAA thugs) to poison search results, and I don't see anything on their page that deals with that.

    To design a reliable search system, you need to have a good rating system, and a solid trust model. At the same time, you need to avoid making the trust model so tight that new users cannot get any search results (freenet).

    Also, I think it should be noted that a lot of bittorrent usage is moving towards the subscription model, so people should be able to search for channels as well, not just single files.

    I am interested in seeing where this project leads, but I don't think people will be completely abandoning the well organized, well moderated torrent sites any time soon, but it will be nice to be able to search quickly for files without needing to open a browser.

    1. Re:poison? by Tom · · Score: 2, Insightful

      it is too easy for malicious users (*IAA thugs) to poison search results, and I don't see anything on their page that deals with that. You could easily counter that with numbers and peer-reviews. PB already has a comment system that does a fairly good job of telling you about fakes. btjunkie has a rating system. There are solutions out there. None are perfect, but with enough numbers, you don't need perfection.
      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  21. pink floyd meddle by Rick+Richardson · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Download Cubit 0.31. Put in string "pink floyd meddle".

    Lots of hits. But no "pink floyd meddle".

    Maybe next year...

  22. I heard this song before. by Lilith's+Heart-shape · · Score: 2, Funny

    And then the priests of Temples of Syrinx will hound them to suicide.

  23. Blah blah blah. by Duncan+Blackthorne · · Score: 2, Interesting
    They can legislate anything they want. They can even attempt detection and complete blockage of any bittorrent and gnutella network activity. Like TFA, someone will come up with something else, and they'll try to block THAT, and so on and so forth. They may as well just pull the plug on the internet and make it government-only then -- but wait, we'll just go back to SneakerNET then, won't we?

    MEMO TO WORLD GOVERNMENTS: You can't stop the signal. Stop wasting taxpayer money.

  24. Re:Getting Rid of the TPB by Hatta · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You realize that ridding the world of drugs is just as impossible as ridding the world of file sharers right?

    The solution in both cases is the same, legalize it.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  25. Google Spelling Correction by pleappleappleap · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I absolutely HATE Google spelling correction. It often tries to correct obscure words I haven't misspelled and gives me far too many irrelevant hits. It also forces me to go back and add quotes around everything. It sucks.

    I also don't like that they drop punctuation out of their search terms. Sometimes I WANT to search for ";;" or something.

  26. Re:You might want to read the bill of rights close by 0111+1110 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Somehow I doubt the founding fathers had "Dude, they should totally be able to pirate music, movies, and video games" when they were writing the bill of rights. You seem to be missing the point of the 9th amendment. The whole point was that just because "the right to make and trade copies of digital information" was not included in that ancient document written with quills does not mean that we do not have that right. The point of the constitution was to limit the "rights" of the government, not those of the people. Remember these were the guys who were willing to go to war and die over a minor tax. I'm not sure how sympathetic they would be to protecting the aging business models of mega-corporations with more and more draconian laws and even larger and larger police states to enforce them. I think they would consider rampant piracy to be by far the lesser of the two evils. And as far as file sharing goes, clearly the people of the world have spoken in its favor.
    --
    Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
  27. Good by Meneth · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The PirateBay admins themselves have been looking into ways to replace the Bay. This looks like a good alternative. However, due to the popularity of closed-source BitTorrent clients (uTorrent et. al), we'll need a stand-alone version of this Cubit.

  28. Re:You might want to read the bill of rights close by Danse · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Having said that, I think they did have some pretty interesting ideas on copyright, trademarks, patents, etc, ideas that would be called "Dangerous Subversive Liberal Commie Nonsense" nowadays, didn't they? That's kind of the point really. Current copyright law bears no resemblance to what the Constitution calls for. The goal was to ensure that the public domain was continually being enriched with new works. So they implemented an incentive for people to create new works, namely a limited monopoly on the distribution of those works. Under current copyright law, nothing ever becomes public domain and they have turned it into a perpetual right to milk a creation forevermore without ever giving anything back to the public that gave them that monopoly to begin with. As far as I'm concerned, copyright law, as it stands today, is unconstitutional.
    --
    It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
  29. Re:the US is pathetic by Arcturax · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There was. 1776 to 1783.

    --

    --Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
  30. Re:Limewire/Frostwire? by Klaus_1250 · · Score: 2, Informative
    --
    It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
  31. The ACTA agreement would also make this illegal. by plasmacutter · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The acta agreement calls for criminal prosecution of any facilitation of widespread copyright infringement.

    This means ANY p2p client, including open source, will come under the gun.

    azureus, newsreaders capable of binary download, limewire clients, and of course this tool.

    --
    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
  32. Re:Pointless by Abcd1234 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Tell that to Freenet. Or the old Gnutella network. Or any number of other completely decentralized networks.

    The only thing you need to participate in those networks is a seed peer. Yeah, that requires a central server to get to, initially (though once you're there your host cache will start to populate, and you're set). But once you're on the network, it's completely decentralized.

  33. Re:Gnutella by ThePhilips · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Didn't try that for a long time, but in past searching for (and downloading) torrents off the Gnutella worked miracles.

    It was in the times when there were no such sites like PirateBay or TorrentSpy or SuprNova. Private trackers were majority and were pain to use and were often down.

    Now it seems to be essentially same principle: search for torrent on one P2P network but download the content off another P2P network.

    --
    All hope abandon ye who enter here.
  34. Re:Ninth Amendment by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 2, Interesting

    For the millionth time in this post the Constitution does not grant rights to people. (It does recognize some rights of the people, but does not grant them those rights.) It limits what rights the government has. Anything not specifically mentioned is up to the state level or lower to sort out. Which is kind of what all those RIAA trials going on in different states is about.

    --
    "But this one goes to 11!"
  35. Old news by AI0867 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Tribler has been able to do this since 2006.

  36. Re:Pointless by Tom · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Whoever modded parent up is an idiot. Of course there is true P2P. If that's suitable for the distribution of movies is another question, but parent obviously has no idea what he's talking about. Yeah, at some point you need to "contact servers to get data", big news. P2P doesn't stand for "all clients, no servers" - in a P2P network, everyone is server and client. So "contacting servers to get data" is, you know, a little bit on the obvious and boring side.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  37. Re:Getting Rid of the TPB by digitrev · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Of course not. The issue here is that the total damage done because it's illegal is much greater than the damage done if it weren't. The solution is to control it, like you would alcohol and tobacco. Look at it this way, was the US better off during prohibition?

    --
    Cynical Idealist
  38. Re:Moderated Torrent site by Deanalator · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The problem isn't *IAA putting up fake websites on freenet, the problem is *IAA creating thousands of fake users that can all vouch for each other, and claim all of the real media is fake.

    Mediadefender has done this many times in the past (as proven by the email leak), and it is a common tactic that is most likely used by other companies in the business as well. This is a pervasive problem on even the most heavily moderated boards, and it is extremely difficult to deal with in an automated way.

  39. Get a real job by Chris+Acheson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Tough luck. Time for a career change.

  40. Re:You might want to read the bill of rights close by Stanislav_J · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Under current copyright law, nothing ever becomes public domain and they have turned it into a perpetual right to milk a creation forevermore without ever giving anything back to the public that gave them that monopoly to begin with.

    Even after the teets have run dry, and there's no more profit to "milk" from a work, they will still hang onto the copyright to prevent anyone else from possibly themselves gaining any benefit from it. Sometimes there is no effort even made to profit from a work -- there are quite a few older TV shows and movies and such that are locked up in vaults, sitting there making zero profit for their rights holders, usually because the remaining appeal of the work is considered too narrow to be profitable. (Too small of a customer base for a corporation's lofty financial desires.) If they are no longer making money off it, whether through market forces or by calculated choice, the work should pass into the public domain instead of being held hostage.

    --
    "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
  41. Then you are pretty fucking clueless aren't ya by way2trivial · · Score: 3, Informative

    Gosh- you haven't heard of it- it must not exist?

    they do-- in lots of form factors and pricepoints.

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=3d+scanner&spell=1

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  42. Oft Repeated Nonsense by mcrbids · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Digital files can be copied without depriving the original owner of theirs, be it software or music. Your money was taken from you leaving you with less (I hope your insurance covered it).

    Eh... duh? The issue isn't that "copying" a work deprives the original author of his or her copy. See the definition of "copy". You'll find that it's a very old word.

    The issue is that in so doing, you destroy the merchantability of the work in question. Since economics require a balance of supply and demand, and since copying can be done infinitely (killing any such balance) then economic restrictions are in place so that economic activity can continue.

    This is a *good thing*. If you want to do anything, push to have the copyright terms brought back the reasonable timeframe they initially were...

    Now just imagine once 3d printers become cheap enough for the common household... Manufacturers of small cheap trinkets had better be worried because their time is next.

    Hopefully, copyrights will apply then.

    --
    I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
    1. Re:Oft Repeated Nonsense by alexgieg · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The issue is that in so doing, you destroy the merchantability of the work in question. Not really. You just change it. Instead of making an economic calculation based on how many people wanting your intellectual production might see themselves obliged to pay for it, you'll do it based on how many people wanting your intellectual production are willing to voluntarily pay you for it. There will still be paying people, just in a somewhat smaller amount, and under a different distribution. The end result will be a changed market, not a non-existent one. But it's not possible to predict in which way it'll change.
      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    2. Re:Oft Repeated Nonsense by DavidShor · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Yes, producers will do this. But it's pretty clear that production of intellectual property, while non-zero, is going to be below the social optimum. This isn't that big a deal with music, which is mainly a positional good anyway, but is more important with things like microprocessor research.

      Mind you, there is a lot of economic evidence that our current copyright system decreases production(Long copyright periods produce income streams that can be lived off).

      But the solution, is to change copyright periods so that we can can as close to the optimum level of production as possible(Some estimates are around 14 years, there is a lot of literature on the subject).

    3. Re:Oft Repeated Nonsense by Peaker · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Long copyright periods produce income streams that can be lived off I think this is the minor thing stifling progress.

      The much more important issue is that virtually all progress is a derivative work. Long copyrights disallow the creation of derivative works of anything under copyright.

      Thus, virtually all potential progress is inhibited by long copyrights.