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Anti-Technology Technologies?
shanen writes "A story from the NYTimes about metering internet traffic caught my eye. I thought the exchange of information over the Internet was supposed to be a good thing? Couldn't we use technology more constructively? For example, if there is too much network traffic for video and radio channels, why don't we offset with the increased use of P2P technologies like BitTorrent? Why don't we use wireless networks to reduce the traffic on the wired infrastructure? Such technologies often have highly desirable properties. For example, BitTorrent is excellent for rapidly increasing the availability of popular files while automatically balancing the network traffic, since the faster and closer connections will automatically wind up being favored. Instead, we have an increasing trend for anti-technology technologies and twisted narrow economic solutions such as those discussed in the NYTimes article, and attempts to restrict the disruptive communications technologies. You may remember how FM radio was delayed for years; part of the security requirements of a major company includes anti-P2P software, as well as locking down the wireless communications extremely tightly — but there are still gaps for the bad guys, while the main victims are the legitimate users of these technologies. Can you think of other examples? Do you have constructive solutions?"
It's a matter of balancing control against efficiency.
Understanding the workings of an entire swarm is is not easy.
With a swarm it is harder to differentiate for "elite" customers who pay to get that extra bandwidth.
Where you are in the swarm will matter just as much as which connection you're paying for.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Bittorrent is *not* more bandwidth efficient. It is merely more efficient for the distributor. It uses at a minimum the same amount - normally more in fact, due to its forcing of uploads (many torrents throttle based on upload and few will let you block uploads completely) but it's spread across the users. It's also far slower than other methods.. so is only better if your time is worth nothing.
BT is a major problem the ISPs need to deal with - if you download something over usenet or FTP once it's done it's done. On BT unless you actively kill the connection it'll continue sucking bandwidth... that contributes to something like 60% of average ISP traffic being P2P, and why it's increasingly being blocked.