Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Latch Onto BitTorrent To Spot Connection Problems
alphadogg writes "Northwestern University researchers have developed a system that gives a heads up about traffic problems on the Internet, where there is no central management system. Their Network Early Warning System (NEWS), which latches on to a popular BitTorrent client, is designed to spot problems by encouraging feedback from end users who are experiencing problems. 'You can think of it as crowd sourcing network monitoring,' said associate professor Fabián Bustamante. He has a track record with BitTorrent users, having developed the popular Ono plug-in for speeding up P2P interactions."
From TFA:
The main goal of this plugin is to reliably find problems in the network and raise alerts about them. As a user, you want to be sure that you are getting the service that you're paying for and be notified quickly about network problems, especially those that can lead to compensation for service interruption.
As a user, so what if I know what the problem with my ISP's network is? I still have to call their crappy support lines, and wait the hours it takes their idiot technicians to fix the fucking problem.
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
Unfortunately this answers the wrong question. It doesn't tell me about network performance, it tells me about bittorrent application network performance. Big difference.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
I'm starting to get a couple of options for ISP now, and it would just be so awesome to hold up a graph and smile the entire time I tell them how badly their service/product sucks!
Call them up, complain, and ask for compensations.
More often than not, they'll credit your monthly bill just to keep you happy.
Azureus is OK...for a Java app...but Vuze sucks....
Constantly clicking HELL NO! on the:
"Do you want to update? OK? Oh Come on! do ya do ya? you REALLY wanna update now doncha? Ok?
button(s) every single use is old....
I do not use plug-ins in Torrent Clients, Firefox or anything else because you CONSTANTLY spend time maintaining them: "Client XYZ needs to restart to use the new thingy do you wanna do that thing now later, never, when hell freezes over, or when you are in a total rush to use this app so I can spend that 5 minutes updating?
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Azureus was great until they pushed Vuze down. Fuck that shit.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
The problem is that I don't want a content management system at all. All I want is a flexible torrent application with all the advanced configuration etc. I don't want any of that multimedia stuff.
In the same way, I want a media player that plays media. Nothing. Else. Things like rhythmbox and amarok drive me nuts as well... back in windows, the old "classic" winamp was perfect, foobar2000 was perfect, and in linux xmms was perfect.
Lately, it seems that there is a disturbing trend of feature bloat. Every program can do everything. I like lightweight functional applications, and always have.
Torrents are no exception.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
You kids! Get off my lawn. Kitchen sink apps are a great, if often bloated, showcase of ideas. In a perfect world the good ideas stick around in new versions or interpretations and the cruft dies out.