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Researchers Decentralize BitTorrent

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.

A Cow writes "The Tribler BitTorrent client, a project run by researchers from several European universities and Harvard, is the first to incorporate decentralized search capabilities. With Tribler, users can now find .torrent files that are hosted among other peers, instead of on a centralized site such as The Pirate Bay or Mininova. The Tribler developers have found a way to make their client work without having to rely on BitTorrent sites. Although others have tried to come up with similar solutions, such as the Cubit plugin for Vuze, Tribler is the first to understand that with decentralized BitTorrent search, there also has to be a way to moderate these decentralized torrents in order to avoid a flood of spam."

4 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. It's a good start... by Smidge207 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...and hopefully with this companies will start to use BT as an alternative to http/ftp. The downside is that you have to have a client, but I bet that browsers will have integrated BT support soon (the new Opera does, FF has a plugin). And the savings for the server range from a LOT to none, and even none can't hurt, since if nothing else you at least have a great download client able to resume downloads, download huge files, etc.

    =Smidge=

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    Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
    1. Re:It's a good start... by Goaway · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, this is pretty much exactly the opposite of what companies looking to replace http/ftp want.

      See, here's the thing:

      Bittorrent only does file transfer. All other p2p clients do file transfer and search.

      Bittorrent is massively popular. All other p2p clients are struggling to get anyone to use them.

      And what lesson do people learn from this? Apparently that Bittorrent needs search. These are hardly the first people to have tried this, and found that nobody wants it.

  2. Stupid Question by bendodge · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I know this is a naive question, but how does a client find any peers to query without a centralized server to get a list from?

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    The government can't save you.
  3. Re:Solving the wrong problems by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If you want data from the internet, somebody is going to need your IP address.

    Yes, but the computer that has your IP address doesn't need to know the data, and visa-versa. That's the whole point behind onion routing; you route through one or more neutral intermediaries, and use end-to-end encryption. Neither endpoint needs to know the other's IP address, and the intermediaries don't have any idea what data is being exchanged. With two or more intermediate nodes you don't even have to disclose who you're talking to.

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    "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat