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Researchers Warn of Possible BitTorrent Meltdown

Posted by kdawson on from the domino-effect dept.

secmartin writes "Researchers at Delft University warn that large parts of the BitTorrent network might collapse if The Pirate Bay is forced to shut down. A large part of the available torrents use The Pirate Bay as tracker, and other available trackers will probably be overloaded if all traffic is shifted there. TPB is currently using eight servers for their trackers. According to the researchers, even trackerless torrents using the DHT protocol will face problems: 'One bug in a DHT sorting routine ensures that it can only "stumble upon success", meaning torrent downloads will not start in seconds or minutes if Pirate Bay goes down in flames.'"

7 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Tag this FUD by Spazztastic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The internet is resilient, and someone somewhere will pick up the slack that could be left by TPB going down. There's enough trackers out there to lend a hand.

    Solution? Support The Pirate Bay. Don't download? Support them anyway for the things they do to battle the MAFIAA and other evils.

    --
    Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
    1. Re:Tag this FUD by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Someone broke the rule a while ago. That's why all the major ISPs stopped carrying the good groups.

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      This guy's the limit!
    2. Re:Tag this FUD by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because all that traffic is now being divert onto the Internet at large via commercial usenet services and bittorrent. Having it local to the ISP means their network usage stays local to their own infrastructure.

  2. Not difficult to see the bias here... by flagg9483 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    1. Tribler designs P2P client that pushes decentralized tracking. 2. Tribler publishes research which predicts doom and gloom for the future of centralized bittorrent trackers. 3. ??? 4. Profit!

  3. Well one thing is for sure by MikeRT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If there is truth to this, then the IP trade groups will go after TPB harder and faster now.

  4. Re:UI Design Fail. by poena.dare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Slashdot has really made me learn to hate CSS. (or bad CSS programmers)

    Simple Design + Low Bandwidth + No Icons + No Boxes + Large Browser Font
    and I still
    get a narrow
    story column
    and a ton of
    wasted
    whitespace.

  5. Re:Bit Torrent has recovered before by Jafafa+Hots · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I was a policy maker and knew of a communications network that was this easy to setup and this hard to disrupt and shutdown, I'd want to ensure it stayed around, especially when times are less stable.

    You're making the unfounded assumption that policy makers WANT communications networks that are hard easy to set up and hard to disrupt (control) or shutdown.

    They want to control what you see and hear while preserving the appearance of freedom and choice. Will it be profitable for the elite if we invade a helpless country? Our "free press" will ensure that while flipping channels you'll get both sides of the story. 1: "they are a major and immediate threat and we need to invade immediately with massive force and occupy them permanently," or 2. "they aren't quite that big of a threat, we need to invade more cautiously with a smaller force and only occupy them for a few years."

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    This space available.