Researchers Warn of Possible BitTorrent Meltdown

Posted by kdawson on Friday February 13, 2009 @02:45AM 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.'"

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High Time by b4upoo · 2009-02-13 04:48 · Score: 1, Redundant

It's the right time to develop torrent protocols that are multi source and multinational in such a way that individual governments can do nothing to disrupt them. We also need to protect those less able at computing by using untraceable ISPs and encrypted methods of delivery such that no accusation of infringement can be made.
So it's a call to white hats, black hats, gray hats and people who just love freedom to get busy, write the code and get it into the hands of just about everyone. Keep in mind that everyone from kiddies to grandmas like to download so stupid-simple interaction with such torrent systems is the right way to build.