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Researchers Warn of Possible BitTorrent Meltdown
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.'"
Might force more people to 'member-only' or subscription sites, for a short time, is all.
Meanwhile, isohunt (among others) is going strong.
Finally, could also push more people into IRC, which I'm sure the MAAFIA would just adore.
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.
Forgive the crudeness, but this is bull. Bit Torrent has survived a major tracker shutdown before (Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprnova.org). Traffic will redirect, other trackers will open in their place, and things will return to normal within a week.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
Argh. WTF. UI Design Fail.
Disable the beta index. It's beta for a reason.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
I had the same problem, until I logged in. Anyway I think it's an epic UI fail, because since when is it a good idea to alienate new users with this kind of crap?
If one close, ten will open...
I can't call that English
As I recall, one of the guys running the site said they had made arrangements such that the actual hardware is no longer under their direct control, so even if they are all found guilty, it would be outside their ability to shut it down, even if ordered to do so by a court.
My front page just switched over to only displaying headlines and hour ago, I have to click through to each article now to get the summary!
Didn't they already mention before that if something like this happened that they'd just move to somewhere like Antigua and just reopen again?
With Pirate Bay shut down that means that uploaders will move on to better trackers - PRIAVTE trackers - which have higher quality control, fewer trojans, and ratio requirements.
Whenever Pirate Bay goes down, let's everyone agree that bittorrent is dead. Say it very loudly when around RIAA types and look morose, say it looks like we're going to have to pay top dollar for entertainment, pantomime getting out your wallets. And for xod's sake, don't mention any of the other torrent sites. *wink*
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
the best option is a web of trust plus p2p application. This p2p would be used only to distribute tracker locations and or edonkey links, not the actual content. This way you would need no centralized web servers. Webservers are too easy a target for the MAFIAA.
With this an something like the kad protocol we would have truly distributed content distribution. Not only the files, but the urls for the files.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
Yeah no kidding. I noticed a week ago that it now requires me to login in order to view the "Moderation Comment Log".
This space is not for rent.
It is extremely annoying because I can't read articles at-a-glance anymore. I only click on articles for the comments and I only read comments and write comments if I'm heavily interested in this story.
I am logged in, I still see that firehose crap. They're not just alienating new users, I'm getting sick of this crap too. I don't even let slashdot.org run scripts anymore. It stalls firefox, and doesn't provide any desirable functionality. Once upon a time Slashdot had the best forum software around. Now, it's the worst.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Will seed to 1:1
Argh. WTF. UI Design Fail.
Craniorectals at work.
Before long, the site will become so laden down with useless cruft, it will slashdot itself. Someone needs to go back to basics and look at what's actually needed. The balance was pretty good a year or two ago - I think people have got carried away.
We've had a CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) - now I'm ready for a campaign for real HTML.
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!
in my defense I would like to point out that:
1. I am wardriving this through a poorly encrypted WiFi connection that some guy or girl put up in their apartment.
I wonder if it's like my open wifi connection. I'm quite happy for people to come onto mine so I can have a damned good look through their computers. Depending on how bad I'm feeling, they might go away with an unexpected present...
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Slashdot has a pro-windows philosophy after all! Fair and balanced coverage ftw.
If there is truth to this, then the IP trade groups will go after TPB harder and faster now.
The servers is not in sweden, so it's impossible for swedish police to shut them down, and 'the pirates' has no reason to do it themself.(Impossible to prove that they are still running it.)
However the Swedes can put them in prison for aiding and facilitating. They've not done themselves any favours in respect to an "I'm innocent, I don't know what content is on there" with their replies to takedown letters. You can be damned sure that the prospect of doing additional 1-2 years jail time for not complying with a court order to shut them down will see a new found ability to do that. Would you be prepared to spend 12-24 months in prison on top of what you'd already been given just to keep a website going? I know for a fact, I wouldn't.
What you're missing is that the court doesn't have to prove they are still running it. The fact the site is up will be sufficient to prove breach of a judgement.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Uncheck the box, and you can return to non-beta bliss!
Go to Preferences > Index and disable Beta Index (should be the first checkbox). I've had mine disabled for a long time and I never see any significant changes to the UI I know and love.
Idle is still green though :P
Learn to use RSS already.
Are you sure? Flagfox says the IPs are swedish.
They did have backups in other countries the last time they were shut down though.
Shut it down. It won't make any difference.
It will force coders to create a better system.
It will promote the use of another protocol/network that is immune to particular traits of law/jurisdiction that The Pirate Bay may fall foul of.
In the meantime, hundreds of pretenders will show up to take the flak and the sheer volume means that all that can be done is trying to shut them down one at a time with legal threats.
Just look at the history of ANY P2P system and it's pretty much identical.
Give it a few more years, the Internet will be nothing but the basis of a global, anonymous, reliable, authenticatable P2P system that everybody uses to do everything. We have the technology (Tor, CloudVPN, Bittorrent, DHT, etc.), it's just a matter of fine-tuning and prevelance. As an additional bonus, it then won't matter that some people are using IPv6 and some IPv4 - everything will be in this cloud of dark smoke that you can only see what enters and leaves and nothing inbetween. You'll be able to tell that User X shared an MP3 if you are able to see all of User X's traffic. You'll be able to see that User Y downloaded an MP3 if you are able to see all of User Y's traffic. But even compromising User X completely won't reveal to you who User Y is or was. Trying to masquerade as User X without their private key would be useless, so the best you could do (even with the key) would be to propogate false content to... who? Nobody would know - everything is just an anonymous connection from a dozen random peers.
The media companies and governments are, by a process of digital evolution, driving anonymous communications into necessities and they become more prevelant with each generation. Hardly anybody warezed back in the 90's as a percentage of Internet users - now most ordinary people know how to find and download illegal content in a few clicks. Each time the problem of "piracy" is "fixed", it crops up yet again, somewhere else, in a new form that's more convenient, faster, harder to prove and more ubiquitous.
Even in terms of general users - the only things that people ever ask me about when the subject comes up are "something like Napster or something". They've never used Napster but the fame of being shut down was enough to make them into a household name for free/illegal content. Do it to The Pirate Bay (whose name I'm already getting mentioned in conversations from people who I thought couldn't work a mouse) and the same will happen.
It doesn't mean that they *shouldn't* be shutting down The Pirate Bay, or that The Pirate Bay are somehow "right" or "heroes". They have taken advantage of an interesting legal technicality. It just means that you're not going to win with the sorts of tactics where you just try and shut the sites down. Maybe the opportunity for the media companies EVER winning has now passed and they'll never be able to anymore - who knows? But they are trying to catch fog in a net... this isn't a problem they can solve by shutting down a server - they need something else. I don't know what. They certainly don't. But until it exists, they are playing a losing game.
I like how the article says that bit-torrent will melt down if a torrent site goes down. Well duh? Wouldn't that be the goal of shutting the site down? What kind of a warning is that.
If anything it's just research that backs the copyright holders desire to shut it down.
That reminds me, can anyone tell me WTF the firehose is and why are we supposed to care about it?
You're missing a zero in that ratio, I hope? That ratio is an order of magnitude off from BitTorrent sainthood.
Thank you! /. is now usable for the first time in months!
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
...but private trackers will be strong as ever. We just have to move a little more underground to avoid the MAFIAA.
Before long, the site will become so laden down with useless cruft, it will slashdot itself.
Slashdot has already slashdotted itself.
Your ad here.
You are required to be authenticated. So much for anonymous readers.
Fantastic! Now the 4chan'ers can stay in 4chan, and maybe Slashdot will regain some of its quality user base.
If you agree with copyright law and think this is wrong that's fine but I'm having trouble understanding how you find them to be hypocritical. Their basic philosophy seem to be "Okay big content industry, you want to hold our culture hostage, let's see you try it!" Basically exhibiting the Ragnar Danneskjöld school of though.
There is no such thing as "the BitTorrent network". That's like talking about "the HTTP network". It's a distributed download protocol. It doesn't do search and different trackers and torrents are not interconnected in any way. Thus, it is not a network. The ability to use BitTorrent will not be harmed in any way by any one site going down.
Remember when everyone used suprnova and then it went away? The world of BitTorrent will be fine.
i would hate to see legal torrents disabled because of a few copywrite infringers, please think of the children ^^err The Linux ISOs...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Then use the RSS feed like any 'sane' person. All 'modern' browsers, and IE7, have integrated RSS feed readers, so you shouldn't complain.
Fantastic! Now the 4chan'ers can stay in 4chan, and maybe Slashdot will regain some of its quality user base.
You can still post anonymously by checking the "Post Anonymously" while logged in.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
That'll show em.
You can be damned sure that the prospect of doing additional 1-2 years jail time for not complying with a court order ... prepared to spend 12-24 months in prison
Sir, the Swedish legal system does not believe in jail time. To get 24 months of jail time, you would have to kill someone. In cold blood. With an axe. And then set fire to them. And eat the remains. Even then, you're more likely to get an excuse from the judge than jail time. It is very very hard to get jailed in Sweden.
The folks at Piratebay will be convicted and they will face "dagsboter" (fines) of several million, I guess. But I don't think they will be serving a single day in prison.
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.
Traffic will only flow to other trackers automatically if torrent files have multiple trackers listed, which isn't all too common. A vast proportion of TPB users are random college kid types with little tech knowledge, and would not know how to find alternative trackers.
Additionally, there are dozens of small private/invite trackers which would not be affected as they have limited membership. Generally, these researchers have their heads up their asses.
Demonoid ftw.
And Tom's Hardware -- I can't use the CPU graphs anymore, for example.
I come here for the love
It's yet another concept the overlords think is cool, but no one else does (more specifically, it's a way to influence what stories get picked a la Digg). We shouldn't care about it.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
I doubt that anyone other than the thieving hypocrites would likely notice.
Assuming that by "thieving hypocrites", you mean anyone who wants to get free shit off bitorrent, you realise that covers most of the people here.
And I may be a hypocrite but I'm no thief.
Never mind that the Napster name survived and came back as another DRM'ed monstrosity. We still have the Gnutella protocol, free and unencumbered (poisoned, but we tech types can deal with that, eh?).
If TPB goes under (like SuperNova - can you say "mininova"?), there'll be plenty of other site operators ready to take advantage of their country's laws to make money from the opportunity this would represent. Trust me - even if TPB is forced to shut down (a questionable liklihood), there'll be plenty of others coming behind to pick up the profitable pieces left behind.
Data occupies space, has mass, exerts gravity. Even physically turning off TPB's servers won't make that data go away. Even if you nuke the servers holding the data and wipe all the hard drives, the data still exists (scattered about on the internet in some form or another). It'll be found (rediscovered) and used.
This is just another example of the existing media cartels (MPAA, RIAA, et. al.) trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle. They obviously haven't learned from their past experience with Gnutella just how difficult rebottling the jinn can be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_network A computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network. ...
Functional relationship (network architecture)
Computer networks may be classified according to the functional relationships which exist among the elements of the network, e.g., Active Networking, Client-server and Peer-to-peer (workgroup) architecture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer
having PirateBay go away will have no effect on the legitimate torrents
Legal torrent files are occasionally available on TPB; Linux ISOs for example. Granted, a vast majority of the content on that site is being shared against the wishes of the copyright holders.
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.
It's part of a long term experiment.
And yes, as long as I've been a member they have done something to make it worse.
Some of the experiments they have tried have been really hideous.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Where will the bittorrent community ever find EIGHT servers... this is insurmountable.
Not everyone who knows how to use RSS prefers to use RSS.
Mmm real ale. There's something that doesn't stall firefox itself. Maybe the ability to use firefox! :p
I'm glad to see that adventure in unusable front pages died quickly.
And yes, the Campaign for Usable Websites : CAMUW. First target: Slashdot.
I dunno about "quality user base" but I hope this, at least, discourages those damn Niggerbuntu and ninn1e posters, they're really getting annoying.
I still get a narrow story column and a ton of wasted whitespace.
Well if they used it, it wouldn't be whitespace, now would it?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
The ones who wants to shut it down do not have the power to do so. The only ones with that power is the people who runs it, and they are not going to shut it down, especially not as they've been continiously harassed by the ones who want it shut down.
They have redundant servers spread all over the world, some of them in server halls at ISPs that will not allow the police to just enter and shut them down. They also have several servers that are not active now, but which could be activated if need be.
Add to this that the last time they tried to shut them down, they recieved donations of new servers, money, server hall space and fast internet connections from both ordinary people and companies, emerging stronger than before and was running within three days. Now, they are prepared, and the same pattern will happen again. If attempts are made to shut them down, they will get more support and emerge stronger.
I can even tell you how the trial will go:
* They will be found guilty in the first trial, as the judge and "nÃmndemÃn" (not a jury, but an advisory group of "trustworthy people") are politically appointed, and will get orders from their parties to convict.
* They will appeal. The next court is not politically appointed, so it will instead look at the law. Swedish law allows linking to possibly illegal content, and there are precendents showing that such an interpretation holds up in court. In other words, they will be found not guilty. This is also in line with tradition, as everyone accused of file sharing who have appealed to this court has been found not guilty.
* The public attourney may appeal, and once again get his butt spanked. It's not entirely sure that he will do this, though, as this court has the power to set precedents. Another file sharer have been paid large sums of money by the media industry to not appeal, as they do not want to lose here.
* The case will go to the European court, which, at least on paper, should test if the Swedish courts have followed Swedish law. If it does it's job, they will once again be found not guilty.
Also, don't forget that these guys are activists, they will not back away from a fight. I wouldn't be surprised if they were to appeal even if they won in the first trial, just to make sure that they won in a court high enough to set a precedent.
Worth noting is that there are strong evidence of taking bribes against Jim Keyzer, the corrupt police who headed the investigation. Roswall, the public attourney, similarly is also suspected of various kinds of corruption and breaches of protocol. BodstrÃm, the minister of justice who initiated this spectacle broke three out of our four constitutions in order to make this happen, and this will also taint the case.
Of course absolutely nothing will appear out of the series of tubes, now will it?
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
Anything you can do to secure the nodes on your LAN, an attacker can do better. I doubt you're running all (any?) of your PCs from a LiveCD, with 0 personal data on them. I doubt (though it might be possible) that you're running any sort of IDS, constantly looking for (and paying attention to any alerts regarding) ARP poisioning, or brute forcing, or the status any of the potentially vulnerable ports which are fully accessible inside your "trusted zone". Maybe you are doing all of the above, but probably not unless you're getting paid to do it, and have friends/family members working shifts around the clock.
Leaving your WAP open is just a bad idea, and relying on the belief that the person using your network is not as smart as you is setting yourself up for failure.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Despite the hype about the bittorrent "network" the first thing on Sweden's agenda should be the adverse affect on their peering relationships.
What about all the ActiveX IE6 was blocking at work last week? If the text hadn't been in English, I could have sworn I was surfing Korean sites.
ActiveX? C'mon, on this site too? Disgusting.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
i had 103:1 on a cbb soundtrack torrent once. I was only keeping it there as a record after a certain amount. Server seriously crashed later so i had to redl everything and my total ratio is like .6 from the 6:1 i had before. I should really backup my azureus files to keep ratios. I feel like such a leech
Yes, the comma works well, but possibly better might have been the use of the word "even", although enclosing the whole phrase in brackets would have been overkill.
Wish I had mod points for the finest subliminal dig at MSIE I've seen in a long time.
And here I always thought it was just adblock detritus...
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
"Windmills do not work that way!!"
I believe it was introduced after the better part of a decade of people whining about how they wanted to be able to "moderate" stories as well as posts.
another time for warez scene to save the liberties big buck tries to deny people.
no, this is not an uninformed zealot rant, and i am able to elaborate it with historic proofs and examples, but it is a friday night -> you'll have to do with your own memory.
Read radical news here
There are few better ways to piss off a judge than to go into court with an argument like this. You Are Not A Lawyer
If the WAP is on the outside of the firewall, on a DMZ or between a firewall sandwich, having an open WAP is just as secure as being on the Internet at all.
Heh... I turned off all the new stuff.. but now the subject and comment text boxes are shoved WAY to the right..and so the comment on goes past the edge of the browser window into the black border..
What browser? Working fine for me in Firefox 3.0.6. Wide story column and everything else seems fine once I turned off the stupid Beta index option.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Other *public* trackers might be overloaded, but meanwhile anyone who knows what they're doing will already be on an invite-only tracker.
And don't forget that this has happened before. Remember when Suprnova died? Other sprang up in its place.
Hopefully you don't believe that. If he's using it for his own traffic at all, then it's vulnerable to sniffing, mitm attacks, AP spoofing, reconfiguration, etc.
If he's not using it for his own traffic, then it's just a honeypot, and not "his wireless network" by any commonly understood meaning of the phrase.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Find a country with the following conditions:
1.Stable government (long-running dictatorship might work even better than a democracy for this since a change of govt might mean a change of views on IP)
2.Doesn't need the US or "western countries" to stay alive (which is why Russia failed with allofmp3, they need the WTO and the west to stay around)
3.Has acceptable pipes to the rest of the world
4.Government doesn't respect western IP laws
Just put the illegal stuff in such a country.
Maybe Cuba could work, they have a stable communist government, no love for the US (and the US has no love back) and are building some new fiber lines AFAIK. Only question is whether the Cuban government respects western IP or not.
What would the big media companies do against a server in a country that didnt respect western IP laws, would they pressure the government to invade? Ram through laws requiring US ISPs to IP block/null route these servers?
Here's a Stylish style I made that makes Slashdot not look like shit:
http://pastebin.com/f39655fa6
No existe.
This whole campaign against copyright infringement has taken on comedic overtones of monumental proportions.
I quit watching Saturday morning cartoons in lieu of keeping track of the MAFIAA's efforts to keep profitable buggywhip production going. It's like a Keystone Cops movie marathon.
Two of my Grandfather's oft used phrases apply here:
'Like trying to herd cats in a burning barn'
and
'Like trying to stuff a wet noodle up a wildcat's ass'
Pure hilarity!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Oh my God! I had completely forgotten about the pain in the balls that was Kermit . . . . I had a client I used to have to upload stuff to using Kermit after the close of business. You'd do it the same every time, whether it'd work would seemingly depend on whether she was wearing a skirt or pants.
This arrangement was made precisely to make sure that they couldn't shut Pirate Bay down even when forced or coerced by the judicial system.
Yes, the police and such can make your life hell, even if you're in the right. The people behind Pirate Bay know this, they are not stupid. They also know how easy it would be for the authorities to say 'we can make your life hell unless you shut it down'. Illegal yes, but easy, and fighting it in court takes a long time and loads of money. So they said, we have a long term commitment to keeping the Pirate Bay up, so we must make sure that even we ourselves simply cannot shut it down, not even if we wanted to.
Probably not. Where I live, there are almost 50 networks, about 10 of them have no protection and 20 have WEP. One of ISPs gave a WIFi router with their subscription. The WiFi was on by default and had no protection. I only see one of this type of network. From the configuration of his router (which also isn't password protected not that it would take a lot of time to find a default password) it looks like the person doesn't even use the WiFi connection...
Hmm. You, Sir, make a very good point there. Unfortunately you've just given me a lot of work, finding out how closely that theory fits with the numbers. I don't suppose you could back it up with numbers (say, how much goes to banks that won't feed back to citizens vs. how much goes directly to welfare programs etc.) and save me the trouble?
A lot of shows are not worth buying on DVD because one viewing is your lifetime fill of them.
But are they worth renting from Netflix or a foreign counterpart?
Seriously folks, Gameboy games dont have this problem.
But only because Nintendo no longer manufactures Game Boy Advance games. If you want to pirate handheld games, it's all DS now.
Hey Hollywood. Get rid of DVD's. Just use proprietary hardware for movies
Proprietary? DVD players are already non-free hardware. DVD's physical layer is patented, as are the MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital codecs.
Freenet is quite usable at the moment, and there is a fair amount of file trading going on. It can easily handle whole albums in a few hours and DivX rips of movies in a day or so, depending on popularity.
Once you install it, download the FMS (Freenet Messaging System) application, which is like anonymous Usenet, and make requests or offer uploads.
The benefit is that no-one, not even your ISP or government agencies can see what you are uploading or downloading.
It is also designed to be very difficult to censor. Currently it uses UDP for communication between Freenet nodes, with no real fingerprint to the traffic, so it is difficult for ISPs to filter without affecting things like VoIP or gaming.
Should UDP filtering become more prevalent, it will move to another form of transport, ultimately ending up as steganography, where it disguises itself as some other encrypted protocol.
Anyone at his ISP, anyone with physical access to the telecom CO or anyone at his ISP's ISP has exactly the same ability to do MITM and sniffing.
I knew an admin who worked for a tier 1 network provider years ago who liked to play games with people on IRC. First he'd reconfigure a core route to broadcast a higher priority for routing their netblock through his ISP. Then all their IP traffic was at his mercy.
This kind of thing is trivial.
So yes, your network security is no better than anyone who has a WAP attached to their outgoing network connection. Assuming otherwise is stupid.