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The Pirate Bay to Become a Distributed Storage Cloud?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the volunteer-to-make-your-computer-run-slower dept.

eldavojohn writes "After announcing the sale of The Pirate Bay to Global Gaming Factory X, it was unknown what would become of TPB. Details of the future plans have been released. 'According to Rosso, GGF plans to build a massive "storage cloud" on top of TPB that would use individual users as storage system's nodes. Apparently users can opt out for being part of the decentralized storage system, but then they'd have to pay a monthly fee for the service. More resources the user is willing to commit for the service, the cheaper the monthly subscription fee will be ... GGF's plan is to harness the resources users are willing to allocate to the cloud service and sell that computing power and bandwidth to 3rd party companies, essentially creating a service that could be used as a content delivery network (system that most large sites — including ours — use to deliver static content, such as images, software downloads and stylesheets, faster to the end user) or even as a web hosting cloud. As the service would use P2P technology, it could bring massive savings to ISPs, as the delivery of content to an end user would be provided from the closest possible "node," most likely from an user within the same ISP network.'"

131 comments

  1. No. by Rix · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Running a tracker is hardly special or unique. If you put up a paywall, we will simply go elsewhere.

    We're happy to share bandwidth with each other, but we're not going to let you resell it.

    1. Re:No. by Ricken · · Score: 1

      At first I thought they would PAY users that contributed alot of their bandwidth and computing power, but it sounds like they're not gonna go that way at all. Am I wrong?

    2. Re:No. by mini+me · · Score: 1

      I assume they return the favor by letting you use bandwidth and computing power of other users. It may ultimately be a zero-sum game, but it does have some interesting properties. Like being able to temporarily use the power of, say, 1000 computers if you let someone else use the power of your computer later.

    3. Re:No. by bertoelcon · · Score: 1
      No, I am not using your cloud as a botnet. Where did you get that idea?

      At least they could all be helping number crunch more, I think the DRM and Encryption communities will have a field day with that.

      --
      Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
    4. Re:No. by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Which would be useful for researchers, but not home users...By the time you'd exported the process to the "cloud" (I fucking hate the word "cloud" now, my god what an overhyped buzzword) you'd probably already be done with it locally. The biggest problem with distributing processing is exporting the right kind of processes...You don't want to lock up your whole cluster because it's waiting for input from some single machine.

      And researchers already have a variety of free seti/folding/etc applications that take advantage of free cycles, so what real benefit can TPB offer?

      Hell, Sony already went down that road with a vengeance when they put Folding@Home on the ps3.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    5. Re:No. by KronosReaver · · Score: 1

      You can be sure it will be structured so that only X% of the transfer given to them is returned to the people giving it, that is the whole point. That way they get to sell all the leftover capacity.

      The thing is, do you really want to set up a web site to use "Cloud Storage" when most of the computers in the cloud are run by 14 year old kids who in addition to hosting that image or stylesheet are also downloading a couple of new movies at the same time they are trying to seed back enough to keep a positive ratio on that private tracker while burning a few new CDs for a friend and getting in some PvP time in WoW?

      Seriously, Cloud anything is a great idea but the only time you PAY for it is when it is a mission critical service... and how likely is it that a cloud of PUBLIC Tracker users that don't have the sense to go private, or the couple of bucks to not have to share are going to be able to provide a quality service?

    6. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bla bla bla...

      Just tell me where's the new TPB site, pm me. I won't tell.

    7. Re:No. by CarpetShark · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Running a tracker is hardly special or unique. If you put up a paywall, we will simply go elsewhere.

      Yep. Also, I'm not aware of any part of the bittorrent protocol that provides the facilities for payments etc. that they're fantasising about. No one is going to give up their myriad bittorrent clients for some unproven and proprietary p2p system by the people who destroyed their favourite site, even if its free. And if it's not proprietary, it'll be forked to remove the paytard stuff.

    8. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cloud is actually an apt term, consider condensation of discrete molecules into larger entities, which then re condense into droplets and are let go, much like how water evaporates, becomes clouds, then turns into droplets and drops back to earth and the cycle repeats.

      It's an apt term because networks, computer clusters, etc, follow a similar pattern.

    9. Re:No. by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 1

      You know why they call it the cloud, right? It's nothing as high flown as you might like to believe. It's because the area outside the local network, the great and terrible interwebs, is always represented as a cloud in network diagrams.

      So the "cloud" is an obvious term for networking people. But at its heart, it's complete bullshit. All you're saying is, "Let's pull resources from the 'Here there be Dragons' portion of our diagram!"

      In logic 101, when we were all amateurs, it was allowed in the test to use a "magic" operator to signify that there was some logical step needed to get from A to B, but that we didn't know what the fuck it could be. Kinda like showing your work in math. Ifyou were on the right track and missed something, you'd get partial credit.

      What did the magic operator look like? Looked like a fucking cloud. People need to stop saying, "We'll export all our needs to the cloud!" because what they're really saying is, "We hope to god you don't realize that we have no idea where we're going to get the resources we need."

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    10. Re:No. by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      What's the legal situation if they do put up a pay wall?

      It is certainly harder to claim non-profit status when you charge people.

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
    11. Re:No. by jonbryce · · Score: 1

      They are trying to set up another Kontiki. Kontiki networks only serve legal content, and sometimes you have to pay for it. Customers don't like using their bandwidth in that way.

    12. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Velcro is sometimes called hook-and-loop. A black person's wooly hair, especially in the form of an afro, is a substitute for the "loop" half.

      So, if a nigger jumped on the bed, he'd end up hanging from the ceiling. That's why putting velcro on the ceiling will stop him.

    13. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't want to lock up your whole cluster because it's waiting for input from some single machine.

      I can see it now. The nuclear research scientist:

      "Seed, please!!!"

    14. Re:No. by jpop32 · · Score: 1

      Yep. Also, I'm not aware of any part of the bittorrent protocol that provides the facilities for payments etc. that they're fantasising about. No one is going to give up their myriad bittorrent clients for some unproven and proprietary p2p system by the people who destroyed their favourite site, even if its free. And if it's not proprietary, it'll be forked to remove the paytard stuff.

      I have no clear idea of their bussiness model, but I can certainly imagine the way it _could_ be done. Have plain old vanilla private torrent site. You can accurately track who DLs and ULs what. Your ratio is a price divider. So, if you UL 4x as much as you DL, you pay 1/4 of the monthly fee. And if the monthly fee is something reasonable to begin with, and they had a library of titles comparable to what TPB today has, I bet a lot of people would just jump at the chance.

    15. Re:No. by Mista2 · · Score: 1

      And then we will be backt to "it will be this price and released in this time in your region." Fuck off, I'll just goe somewhere else. Where is the next tracker?

  2. SO for nothing by geekoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    you will store other peoples data on my machine?

    OK, sign me up.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:SO for nothing by Razalhague · · Score: 1

      If by "nothing" you mean "being able to download movies and music legally", then yeah.

    2. Re:SO for nothing by jpop32 · · Score: 1

      you will store other peoples data on my machine?

      What if that 'other peoples data' was a Battlestar Galactica Season 4, that you already have on your disk right now? And, possibly, currently already seeding like mad so you'll get your ratio up on some private tracker?

       

      OK, sign me up.

      Indeed.

  3. I for one welcome by 4D6963 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I for one welcome the first alternative that would pay me to use my storage.

    --
    You just got troll'd!
    1. Re:I for one welcome by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Would they pay you what it's worth? That's the real question. I mean, you'll have to keep your gear on, and be okay with them maxing your bandwidth, you'll have to buy new drives when they thrash yours to bits, and chances are, they'll pay you pennies.

      It's one thing to do something like Folding@Home where all they're doing is swiping cycles and some ram space...That's just a bit of electricity, little extra heat in your house. Actual magnetic storage is a whole different world.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    2. Re:I for one welcome by Fozzyuw · · Score: 1

      What do you think it would be worth for you to do it?

      If you got an extra $10/$50/$100 month? It's an intriguing question.

      --
      "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
    3. Re:I for one welcome by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      $100 a month probably wouldn't even cover the increased bandwidth costs that's even if your ISP didn't have a clause stopping you reselling bandwidth (which nearly all do).

      Then you've got the early failing hard drives, the problems of getting up at 4.30am because one of the machines crashed, suffering penalties for downtime, etc.

      Basically they want me to run a data centre for them I'd expect *at least* $1000 a month.

    4. Re:I for one welcome by jheiss · · Score: 1

      Well, since you can rent nodes on Amazon EC2 for $70/month or so I think the market value of a home computer on a crappy DSL line with all the attendant flakiness is maybe $10/month max. The model of paying folks for usage of their home computer has been tried a few times, but I think it is doomed to fail. The money isn't significant enough to attract users.

    5. Re:I for one welcome by electrosoccertux · · Score: 1

      I envision something more like hosting a chunk of, or the whole, file; while using aggressive caching to keep the next 100MB of the file in my RAM. I've got 8GB, so why not? With slightly more computation-intensive tracking, I could seed that 100MB to 100 people, instead of seeding bits of 10GB to the cloud.

      I'd love for Netflix streaming and this company to get together. Have 15 people host a movie, and 3 to 5 could be watching it at once. My computer would coordinate with other seeders' computers and I'd send 5MB, he'd send 3MB and someone else would send 4MB; and we'd all complete sending that in 1 minute, but combined it would be enough video for 2-3 minutes (or something).

    6. Re:I for one welcome by Pentium100 · · Score: 1

      I run Primegrid on (almost) all of my computers. It would be interesting to know, that my main PC (2x Opteron 270) uses ~100W less power if I shut down BOINC and the CPU clock reduces from 2GHz to 1GHz.

    7. Re:I for one welcome by Razalhague · · Score: 1

      Basically they want me to run a data centre for them I'd expect *at least* $1000 a month.

      No, they want you to run a small fraction of a data center.

  4. privacy nd data security?? by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 1, Insightful

    what happens if someone formats their pc nd the cloud data on it as well??

    also, it might be possible to access the data stored by the cloud on ur pc...

    couldnt this also be used as a botnet for DDos attacks if it is hacked??

    1. Re:privacy nd data security?? by Ricken · · Score: 2, Informative

      what happens if someone formats their pc nd the cloud data on it as well??

      As I understand it, there will always be a few copies somewhere else of the same stuff that's on your pc, so if the cloud can't reach your stuff, it'll just go another way.

    2. Re:privacy nd data security?? by Jaysyn · · Score: 1

      I assume this was figured out when the Coda file system was developed.

      --
      There is a war going on for your mind.
    3. Re:privacy nd data security?? by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      what happens if someone formats their pc nd the cloud data on it as well?? also, it might be possible to access the data stored by the cloud on ur pc...

      These are the kind of problems that actual computer science (as opposed to software engineering or IT) is used to consider and solve.

      I can't remember exactly how they do it (probably because I didn't know the exact details in the first place), but there are probably mathematical theories proving that you need x number of copies distributed across various machines in such and such a manner to have 99.99999999999999999999% (or whatever) chance of recovering that file.

      And I'm guessing it's probably not as simple as simply having X straight copies of a file in different locations either; it's probably distributed in a more convoluted (but mathematically sound) manner as well.

      And if the system uses a pseudo-filesystem, then the underlying distributed storage system will probably be block (rather than file) oriented, so parts of the same file on different blocks will probably be stored differently.

      The other issue you raise- privacy- is possibly another factor; IIRC they'd want to distribute the data in such a manner that a given person didn't know whose data they actually had, and also that having access to that part of the data alone would be unlikely to provide anything meaningful, so it can be mathematically proven that a 14-year-old hacker wannabe having your data on his computer isn't a security risk).

      Bear in mind that I know jack **** about the theory underlying this (I'm not a mathematician) and it might be misleading- it's based on extrapolating vague memories of stuff I learned bits of a few years ago as part of my degree- nothing more. But I think it's in the right ballpark.

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
    4. Re:privacy nd data security?? by ammorais · · Score: 1

      A solution for your problem as been developed for a long time now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freenet

  5. huh. by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I thought that the news was that they had stopped being one...Now that they're legit, they're just another torrent tracker for free/unencumbered IP that isn't hard to find a torrent for anyway.

    Is their slow descent into irrelevance really deserving of multiple articles a day? They just posted the first satellite images of the Apollo sites, isn't that a bit more worthwhile?

    --
    ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    1. Re:huh. by Dan541 · · Score: 1

      This is about media.

      Media rules the world!

      --
      An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
  6. Airplane! by broggyr · · Score: 1

    "I say... let 'em crash!"

    --
    Irony? Yea, it's like goldy and bronzy, only it's made of iron!
    1. Re:Airplane! by WayHomer · · Score: 1

      Surely you can't be serious? ... I am serious, and don't call me Shirley.

    2. Re:Airplane! by icannotthinkofaname · · Score: 1

      Calm down! Get a hold of yourself.

      Oh, you'll handle this? Alright....

      --
      Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
  7. Hosting someone else's illegal content by seifried · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, I really want to be part of something where I am hosting other people's content and have no real control over it, for free! Especially when some of that content may be illegal (in the criminal sense) in the jurisdiction that I live (child pornography, etc.) or violate civil acts (such as health data, copyrighted material, etc.).

    1. Re:Hosting someone else's illegal content by Krneki · · Score: 1

      If it is encrypted how are you supposed to know what are you hosting?

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
    2. Re:Hosting someone else's illegal content by seifried · · Score: 1

      That's exactly the problem. I don't know. But if the police shut down some criminal/child pornographer/whatever and then find this installed, download the files and see my IP addresses there is a good chance that if they are feeling in a bad mood I might get dragged into this as well. Being right doesn't really help here if my life gets turned inside out. Again, the idea of providing free services at significant personal risk and no benefit to myself to a commercial entity that makes money off of this strikes me as completely insane.

    3. Re:Hosting someone else's illegal content by Krneki · · Score: 1

      Just don't be the first one to do it, wait a little for the dust to settle and join the raid.

      --
      Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
  8. Are they really serious? by b0ttle · · Score: 1

    How the hell are they going to guarantee the keeping of the data? What if I delete the data from my storage? Of course they could make redundant pieces on other nodes, but that doesn't solve the problem.

    1. Re:Are they really serious? by jhfry · · Score: 1

      Of course they could make redundant pieces on other nodes, but that doesn't solve the problem.

      Actually it does. Assume that the content provider, say Download.com, is managing a seed for a particular download. You, and thousands of others like you, download the content and seed it as well. Do I care if you delete the file and stop seeding? Or, it is determined that more seeds are needed so your machine is configured to download a portion of the file and make it available, even if you delete it, or halt the download, it doesn't corrupt the original seed or the hundreds/thousands of nodes who have that same part of the file you did.

      This model makes perfect sense for distribution, not so much for primary storage or archival purposes. Think of it as torrents with centralized management that can force you to seed some/all of a file.

      --
      Sometimes the best solution is to stop wasting time looking for an easy solution.
    2. Re:Are they really serious? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OMG, I just deleted all the porn on the cloud. I knew I had something good since it was getting accessed so often.

    3. Re:Are they really serious? by thms · · Score: 1

      How the hell are they going to guarantee the keeping of the data?

      By using a closed and hard-to-reverse-engineer (think Skype) binary as the linchpin of this setup. It will checksum files, report back to the server and then somehow penalize you for deleting stuff or "cheating" otherwise, e.g. by offering less peers.

      Sure sounds interesting though, and I hope an open specification of this or something similar comes out of it, though identifying leechers and freeloaders in such a setup would be a lot more complicated, I could only think of a computationally intensive method, demanding a new checksum with a salt inserted somewhere among the data. And doing the same for shared computation short of computing it twice is impossible.

      If this becomes an open and free standard (and I had an actual SDSL 10/10Mbit connection) I would trust (encrypted) backups there a lot more than on my USB-Stick or my Server - Linus' quote would finally become true!

    4. Re:Are they really serious? by shentino · · Score: 1

      Sounds like GoogleFS

  9. Wow, talk about a metric ton of FAIL by Em+Emalb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this is megafail. Ultrafail. Failure to the 3rd degree.

    So it's either let us use your computer to store other people's crap on it, or opt out and pay us?

    You hear that noise? It's the sound of a company becoming irrelevant at the speed of the internet.

    (sounds kinda like a drunk Mel Gibson screaming about Jews, doesn't it?)

    --
    Sent from your iPad.
    1. Re:Wow, talk about a metric ton of FAIL by v(*_*)vvvv · · Score: 1

      Couldn't have put it better.

      The last thing anyone wants is to host other peoples data with an open pipe to a commercial web site.

    2. Re:Wow, talk about a metric ton of FAIL by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Wouldn't be such a bad deal, if I'd continue to get the same service as TPB today only legally - pretty much unlimited access to all mainstream media. Trouble is, that's not what GGF is selling because it's not theirs to sell. All they have is a brand name and a torrent indexer/tracker that is ready for another hydra trick, chop of TPB and two new heads appear. I don't think the deal will ever happen though, the deal will just fall apart and the train wreck left over won't be worth anything.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Wow, talk about a metric ton of FAIL by jpop32 · · Score: 1

      Couldn't have put it better.

      The last thing anyone wants is to host other peoples data with an open pipe to a commercial web site.

      Guess what? Whenever you're seeding a torrent, you're doing exactly that. And thousands upon thousands of people are jumping at a chance to do it. And they usually get absolutely noting in return (except maybe a better ratio somewhere).

    4. Re:Wow, talk about a metric ton of FAIL by v(*_*)vvvv · · Score: 1

      You are right. The major difference is in the proposition. Seeding a torrent is easier to accept than this proposed commercial model. Even when the technical details may be virtually the same, the way in which it is presented can make all the difference.

  10. Selecting what you store by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Can I store credit card information only on my computer?

    1. Re:Selecting what you store by Garridan · · Score: 1

      But then, nobody else could use your credit card. P2P is all about sharing. Don't be a leech.

  11. Sleep by gmuslera · · Score: 1

    Could that cloud have hidden, or implicit, or just a consequence of its architecture, that could mean a massive DoS over all of it, and that means your personal PCs? Just the risk of that could make the idea less attractive.

  12. Why Even Buy TBP Then? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I mean their concept sounds interesting, but how does buying The Pirate Bay help you with that? Virtually every user has already left because of the legal pay model, and they can't use much of the existing database because it's basically all illegal content. So they get a once famous domain name for $7.8 million. Great deal.

    1. Re:Why Even Buy TBP Then? by BitHive · · Score: 1

      It's a great deal if you're tired of owning the world's most publicized bittorrent tracker.

    2. Re:Why Even Buy TBP Then? by masmullin · · Score: 1

      There is a huge userbase that is already sharing large amounts of content on it. This company wants to commercialize the userbase.

      I doubt that they will get rid of the illegal content, because that would drive away the userbase they want to sell. So what I think is going to happen is that your TPB experience will remain pretty much the same (you may have to sign into that VPN system) but TPB will use a certain amount of your HD and bandwidth for their own purposes. If you use a small amount of "personal resources" you'll have to pay for the VPN service, if you allocate a lot of "personal resources" you wont have to pay a dime.

      Question is: what are the definitions of small and large in the above paragraph.

    3. Re:Why Even Buy TBP Then? by Dogtanian · · Score: 1

      Er... I think he meant it wasn't such a good deal for the *buyers*!

      --
      "Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
  13. What's the Difference? by twmcneil · · Score: 1

    What makes this different from a Russian botnet?

    --
    "The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
    1. Re:What's the Difference? by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oooo! Oooo! I got this one!

      Q: What makes this different from a Russian botnet?
      A: It's in Sweden.

      Q: What makes this different from a Russian botnet?
      A: In Soviet Russia, botnet installs you! In Sweden, you have to install it yourself.

      Q: What makes this different from a Russian botnet?
      A: When your machine is a part of a Russian botnet, it's taking money from the RIAA. When it's part of the new "pirate" bay botnet, it's making money for the RIAA.

      Does anyone still care? Seriously? It was a good torrent tracker, now it's gone. End of story. They have no reasonable path to legitimacy, the trial judgment will sap the vast majority of their assets, and their userbase will vanish when they stop carrying illegal stuff.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  14. BOTNET! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, they have proposed a "white hat" "legal" botnet to use its power for good or whoever has the most money?

  15. TOS by swm · · Score: 1

    Does participation in the cloud violate my ISP's TOS?

    And if not, how long before my ISP changes their TOS so that it does?

    1. Re:TOS by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      If you're getting money, almost certainly (unless you have a business account) - resale is one of the first things that a TOS prohibits.

      Whether they consider 'free subs' as resale depends on the ISP/Lawyer concerned.

      Whether merely running internet services is against TOS depends on the ISP - certainly on some of the cheaper contracts this is prohibited but it's far from universal.

  16. So it's basically Freenet without the freedom... by Abstrackt · · Score: 1

    Can't wait to see how this one turns out.

    --
    They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
  17. weareborg tag by garnetlion · · Score: 1

    This is tagged weareborg. We are borg who are mainlining warez and will add the Jonas Brothers' catchy distinctiveness to our own.

    (There's a cyborg/Michael Jackson plastic-surgery obsession joke somewhere in here, but I'll leave it to cleverer posters to hash out.)

  18. Liability by swm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does participation in the cloud make me civilly or criminally liable for infringing or illegal material that is stored on my hard drive? Distributed from my hard drive?

    1. Re:Liability by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 2, Informative

      They could probably get you for contributory infringement - after all, you just became a node on a network called 'the pirate bay'. Also you're getting paid (albeit paid in kind rather than cash)... and as this is a 'legit' company they'll have to keep accurate records of all this - just waiting for the subpoena.

    2. Re:Liability by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      Actually, they wouldn't need to do that. A letter to your ISP saying you're involved in commercial piracy and your internet connection is toast.

    3. Re:Liability by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      Depends on if you, the judge and the jury as stupid enough to believe it!

      No, really! A rule that is made up by someone, is only as true as the people who believe in it.

      In reality of course, the person who did infringe the copyright, is the one to talk to.

      Or else you could sue the company building the street, for murder, because someone on that street got killed!

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    4. Re:Liability by Duncan3 · · Score: 1

      It's touchy now.

      But the second you take money from them, you're screwed.

      --
      - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
    5. Re:Liability by Mista2 · · Score: 1

      Now if this harrdrive is at my place of work, but I use the jacked wireless from the neighbouring company, and I still personally liable for the possibly illegal content uploaded by random users on the internet?

  19. Wua.la by spacefight · · Score: 1

    Sounds a lot like www.wua.la, 'nuff said.

    1. Re:Wua.la by Fumus · · Score: 1

      E-Hentai.org also does just what the summary describes with their Hentai@Home client. Without they paywall.

    2. Re:Wua.la by watice · · Score: 1

      exactly, wua.la is exactly what this described already. They also have content that is shared such as video files that can be streamed back. Now if someone figures out a way to get parity blocks on p2p automagically, then you'll wow me.

  20. It's reptivitively tautologically recursive. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Leaches leaching off leaches.

  21. 'Bout time by COMON$ · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I have wanted someone to translate a torrent network into a storage cloud for quite some time. I am a network administrator and I have an immense amount of storage wasted by PCs and servers. 80GB local hard drive only using 5GB, translate that to distributed storage across hundreds of nodes...I could have a large storage cloud consisting of terabytes on my network if some creative programmer would create a storage cloud like this closed to just my network.

    Does anyone know why this hasn't been done?

    --
    CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    1. Re:'Bout time by scubamage · · Score: 1

      Because the additional read/write/seek time involved would kill the lifetimes of your disks. It would minimize the amount of places for the hard drive to move data in the event of a predictive cluster failure on a portion of the disk (disks usually have extra space so that if the drive detects a cluster is going bad, it will attempt to store the data outside of that area - why there have been firmware hacks to sometimes squeeze a few extra gigs out of a hard disk). It costs extra power. It will also cost you in terms of performance if the servers have a mission critical purpose.

    2. Re:'Bout time by Sir_Lewk · · Score: 2, Informative

      It'd been done for a while, by dozens of people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_file_systems#Distributed_file_systems/

      --
      "linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
    3. Re:'Bout time by VeNoM0619 · · Score: 1

      I'm sure it has been done, but coming from a business perspective - that is sadly a terrible idea. Depending on your redundancy, this is in no way a place to store data (cause what are you really using it for? backups, mission critical storage that should be left on a server?).

      If any of the machines go down, or the user takes it offline (reboot/laptop/virus/whatever), you lose that portion already. Even accounting for redundancy, lets say 3x, you would cut the available space by 3. But even then, what if a virus spreads on your network.

      But this assumes you are storing business related information on your business' hardware. What would you store on it that isn't a backup/mission critical?

      --
      Disclaimer: I am not god.
      We may not be created equal
      But we can be treated equal.
    4. Re:'Bout time by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 1

      I can think of two or three ways that it HAS been done. Generally though, you can't just farm out the storage space, you have to virtualize the whole machine, and once you have a whole network of virtual machines, then you can set them up to migrate data and processes.

      The reason most people don't do it that way is that hardware is wildly cheap, and that there aren't that many applications that can take advantage of the processing power (and I'm guessing that if you needed the cycles, I wouldn't need to be telling you this stuff). Likewise storage space: the problem with distributed processing is that your data is, by necessity, stored redundantly, so that 5GB that is being used is suddenly 25GB spread across a dozen machines.

      Even if you export the OS and all the applications, you're still going to have to deal with data migration issues, and, depending on your network, and data volume, it may come back around to being cheaper to store and run everything locally.

      The plus is distributed processing and redundancy. A machine dies, and you just put a boot cd in a new machine, and plug it into the wall, or hell, net boot it. Trivial.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
    5. Re:'Bout time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What would you store on it that isn't a backup/mission critical?

      Porn. Although, your favorites would be backup on multiple mediums. But that's just me.

    6. Re:'Bout time by dargaud · · Score: 1

      One word: COW ! (Cluster Of Workstations). The basic idea is that you run a cluster off the free cycles while people use their workstations normally. You could run Mosix like that a decade ago. The problem was that it was highly unreliable. If you started a job normally, it would stay on your workstation. If you prefaced it with a special command, it would run on the entire cluster (if it was multithreaded) or on the fastest available node (if it was single thread). 'Fastest' being defined as a combination of CPU, I/O and network speeds, reevaluated regularly. It's too bad it didn't gain widespread acceptance.

      --
      Non-Linux Penguins ?
    7. Re:'Bout time by COMON$ · · Score: 1

      Two words my friend "Tiered Storage"

      --
      CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
    8. Re:'Bout time by jpop32 · · Score: 1

      Because the additional read/write/seek time involved would kill the lifetimes of your disks.

      No, it wouldn't. Says Google. Look it up.

  22. The RIAA couldn't kill TBP by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But greed has, almost overnight.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  23. For Free, sure. by nurb432 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't mind running FreeNet, where I'm helping host others content for free to help out 'the cause'. But a pay service on top of this? No thanks.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:For Free, sure. by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 2, Informative

      Freenet also has the advantage that you don't know what your node stores.

      --
      Not a sentence!
    2. Re:For Free, sure. by Kjella · · Score: 1

      Legally, that's a plus. Morally, it depends on whether you can picture yourself as an ISP or not as Freenet is kinda like one big network of cache servers. If you think everything what goes through there is none of your business anymore than it's your ISPs business what you do, then fine. If you want to be the editor controlling everything passing through your line and cache, you're better off with torrents.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:For Free, sure. by seifried · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't care if legally or not I'm in the clear, I don't want police getting a warrant and stomping through my house, seizing my computers and generally making my life a pain in the a** if there's no benefit to me (no upside) and just a whole lot of potential risk (i.e. a huge downside). Now if I knew I was hosting content similar to what wikileaks hosts that would be a different story (doing something that has social benefit), but providing storage for free to a commercial company where I take on an unknown set of risks would be insane.

    4. Re:For Free, sure. by anethema · · Score: 1

      Speaking of Wikileaks..they really should have something like distributed storage of their content with parity data mixed in.

      I bet a LOT of people would let the client run in the background, allowing Wikileaks to spread their info over a huge area which is essentially impossible to shutdown or censor.

      Seems like using code from the bittorrent protocol and having several servers in central countries running the 'tracker' so to speak, any of them able to serve up the full database pulling from the distributed net.

      --


      It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
  24. Screw That! by hardburlyboogerman · · Score: 1

    I am supposed to offer up bandwidth and storage on my machine and PAY these jokers to do so?
    Somebody check what they are smoking, Logical thinking like this seemed to have used at places like Circuit City,Chrysler,General Motors,and other businesses..

    --
    Geek Hillbilly
  25. Ridiculous by grumpyhacker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What did the owners of The Pirate Bay actually sell? Did they sell only the domain?

    They (or anyone else really) can start a new piratebay and start all over again. This is ridiculous.

    1. Re:Ridiculous by Ezel · · Score: 1

      The 'not so secret' secret is that they already have.
      Do a nslookup on tracker.thepiratebay.org and on tracker.openbittorent.com

      They are selling the domainname for a big bunch of cash while keeping the tracker open as always.
      Have faith in the TPB-crew. I think they know what they are doing.

      All who are worried about the TPB-sale should really read this!

      --
      Prosp long and liver.
  26. The sheer genius is contagious by BitHive · · Score: 1

    I just realized how we can appease handgun fanatics, end the military-industrial complex, and get universal health care. We'll graciously let everyone own whatever weaponry they can afford (and perhaps create some tax incentives) thereby enabling us to crowdsource all military operations, giving the savings directly to the insurance industry since free markets know how much of my money to take better than the government.

  27. Because it has. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Informative

    Coda, and before that, AFS. Oh, and Lustre.

    It's not a new idea. The only real difference here is that it's associated with BitTorrent and The Pirate Bay, and is designed to handle a whole set of problems you won't have, like untrusted machines communicating over the Internet, and how to compensate people for using their hard drive to store your stuff.

    --
    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    1. Re:Because it has. by Deanalator · · Score: 1

      distributed filesystem != storage cloud

      a storage cloud is closer to what freenet etc was trying to pull off

    2. Re:Because it has. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 1

      Yes, and a network administrator would want a distributed filesystem, not a "storage cloud", whatever the fsck that means.

      I understand what Freenet was trying to do -- and again, it's way more than what an admin wants, and way more overhead than a distributed filesystem.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
  28. Torrent-like file storage seems bad by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 1

    What happens when the only guy with the last 10% of my file isn't online?

    1. Re:Torrent-like file storage seems bad by TomRK1089 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's what I'm thinking. I thought the whole point of the cloud was that it was still controlled servers, but a big ol' chunk of them, with Google style redundancy, so that it's not "My powerpoint is on Server A-436-Z," it's "My powerpoint is hosted with $DOMAIN." This sounds like you're gonna trust some 13-year old kid to never turn his PC off (or slow down the bandwidth when he plays WoW for 7 hours just when I need my files.) What happens when one of your users has an AOL style dynamic IP that changes every time they log in? What happens when there's a brownout in CA and that takes out 200 of your users? Can someone explain how they avoid what appears to be technical and reliability hurdles here?

    2. Re:Torrent-like file storage seems bad by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      Pretty much the same as happens with bittorrent now.

      A certain percentage of files will be fine.
      A certain percentage will be served at dialup speeds (boy is that one fun! Yes I'm really prepared to wait 4 days to download that 50mb file).
      A certain percentage will be incomplete and never finish
      A certain percentage will have no seeds online at all

      There is no inherent reliability in such a system.. reliability improves with popularity, so if you want something that's 'cool' you'll probably find it in the first bracket, otherwise it's hit and miss.

    3. Re:Torrent-like file storage seems bad by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

      This sounds like you're gonna trust some 13-year old kid to never turn his PC off (or slow down the bandwidth when he plays WoW for 7 hours just when I need my files.) What happens when one of your users has an AOL style dynamic IP that changes every time they log in? What happens when there's a brownout in CA and that takes out 200 of your users? Can someone explain how they avoid what appears to be technical and reliability hurdles here?

      They avoid all the problems you're talking about with this little thing called redundancy. You know, storing the same information in more than one place. And even if a blackout takes out 200 users, you just pull the information down from the 201st closest node.

      And really, dynamic IPs? Because it is sooooo hard to have the client software report when its IP changes.

      Seriously, I think you're just looking for problems that don't exist.
      This is a mature technology that CDN's, TOR, Freenet, etc have been implementing for years.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    4. Re:Torrent-like file storage seems bad by shish · · Score: 1

      just when I need my files.

      Why would you choose to store anything important in the cloud? As far as I can tell this is just a replacement for an external hard drive full of illegal mp3s :-P

      --
      I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
    5. Re:Torrent-like file storage seems bad by TomRK1089 · · Score: 1

      That's what I would do, sure. But if they're dropping more than a million dollars, they must be trying to attract some business customers, I'd assume.

    6. Re:Torrent-like file storage seems bad by jpop32 · · Score: 1

      What happens when the only guy with the last 10% of my file isn't online?

      Nothing. You don't get the files, But, then again, that means the operators of the service are complete dumbasses who didn't think to host at least one complete copy of the data on their servers. Idiots. And the guys that bankrolled them, morons. So, let's hope they actually think about their bussiness plan for more than five minutes, eh?

  29. Pr0n Alternative? by Filgy · · Score: 1

    This leaves me GREATLY concerned. Sure there are other sites like Demonoid, but Demonoid does not have a pr0n section on it.

    Anyone have a good alternative for replacing the internets pr0n downloading via bittorrent back bone?

    "OH NOES! MY PR0N DOWNLOADING BACKBONE!"

    --

    -- filgy
    1. Re:Pr0n Alternative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      empornium.us

    2. Re:Pr0n Alternative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Last time I went there all the torrents had been removed. Not sure if it was a bad day or if it was permanent.

  30. Wrong. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As the service would use P2P technology, it could bring massive savings to ISPs, as the delivery of content to an end user would be provided from the closest possible "node," most likely from an user within the same ISP network.'"

    There is no reason that P2P per se would bring any kind of savings to ISP, even less massive. That's why you need explicit cooperation from the peers or from the ISP as in solutions like P4P :
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proactive_network_Provider_Participation_for_P2P
    http://www.dcia.info/documents/P4P_Overview.pdf

    (I love being a smartass)

  31. Let me get this straight.. by s0litaire · · Score: 1
    ...They want *us* to pay them

    So they can use our resources...

    And sell those resources to a 3rd party...

    No way! What's next:

    "TPB" being renamed "Titanic"?? 'cause it's looking likes it's hit an iceberg and is sinking fast!!

    Now If it was something like:

    We pay â2 a month

    They use our resources

    They sell our resources

    We get a % of those sales to cover our costs...

    Then I *might* consider using the new Pirate Bay.

    --
    Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
    1. Re:Let me get this straight.. by Duncan3 · · Score: 1

      Oh, so you've seen the other 100 .com startups that tried EXACTLY this business plan then :)

      --
      - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
  32. Article about the TPB buyer by BuR4N · · Score: 2, Informative

    Below is an article about the buyer of TPB (orginal in Swedish). Judge for yourself, but I do not think this is going anywhere, this is more or less the end for TPB http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=y&u=http://www.realtid.se/ArticlePages/200906/30/20090630101501_Realtid980/20090630101501_Realtid980.dbp.asp&sl=sv&tl=en&history_state0=

    --
    http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
    1. Re:Article about the TPB buyer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thank you www.dizigunleri.com dizi izle,film izle,vizontele tuuba izle http://www.dizigunleri.com/film-izle/vizontele-tuuba-izle-izle.html

  33. Upload? by pgn674 · · Score: 1

    There is one thing I don't get with all these "P2P can be the legal solution to all things!" ideas. Especially with a service that has users committing resources, meaning the user is to upload a whole bunch.

    With my 3 Mbps down / 768 kbps up DSL internet, I can not upload torrents (such as Linux distros) any faster than 188 kb/s, lest my ping latency, dropped packets, and download speed all hit the fan for all my applications, including web browsing. It's much the same with the 8 Mbps down cable connection at home. And, I believe that if the number of connections I have going at the same time gets too high, some performances in some instances drop. Both ISP's have legalees in the contracts saying that I can't run a server, too. Engaging in P2P, legal or not, may be violating these contracts. And anyways it seems the upload limits, inherit or artificial, do not allow for effecting serving.

    So, how does Global Gaming Factory X plan to work with, change, or go around these ISP policies and mind sets? They'll have to have very low resource requirements, and make sure the networks have plenty of big player uploaders sitting on fat pipes or unusual ISPs. That, or hope that introducing a pay wall won't disrupt the natural self-building that current P2P networks have, even though even that is hardly reliable.

  34. Is that legal? by PPCAvenger · · Score: 1

    If P2P has been an "underground" phenomenon where consumers were distributing "their" bandwidth to share files and ISPs have generally not been very happy about it; how do things change now that this new company wants to pay consumers to do the same thing for legal content so they can make a profit?

    Commercial bandwidth is expensive and this company is basically saying they'll do an end run around having to pay for it by giving consumers what will no doubt be chump change while they pocket the rest.

     

    It seems to me that consumers don't even have the right to be profiting off the bandwidth they are getting from their ISP because that's not the terms under which they agreed to use it. It's one thing to share but quite another to resell.

     

    I think bandwidth caps are a load of crap as much as the next guy but this seems like a clear violation of the ISP's rights.

    1. Re:Is that legal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It seems to me that consumers don't even have the right to be profiting off the bandwidth they are getting from their ISP because that's not the terms under which they agreed to use it. It's one thing to share but quite another to resell.

      Then this would bring in the complications with advertising on some forum, classifieds, blah blah etc.
      Technically you are still using your bandwidth to profit if you sell anything.

      First ISP with a clause like this could be booted in the shins pretty nastily, if it was the correct person they sued. (read: wrong person for them)
      I, for one, welcome the first ISP stupid enough to actually try this.

  35. groksterbay by JackSpratts · · Score: 1

    heh, gotta love wayne rosso. not sure how seriously i take him, but i gotta love him. hey there wanyeman!

    - js.

  36. Nearest possible node? by dreamer.redeemer · · Score: 1

    Wait a minute, how do they plan on finding the nearest possible node? Isn't that an example of the traveling salesman problem?

    --
    the most powerful intellect is that unbounded by indubitable preconception
    1. Re:Nearest possible node? by Tony+Hoyle · · Score: 1

      Ping time, probably.

  37. There are private trackers by Rix · · Score: 1

    And you could certainly restrict them to paid accounts.

    But why would anyone want to pay for what they can get better for free?

    1. Re:There are private trackers by jpop32 · · Score: 1

      And you could certainly restrict them to paid accounts.

      But why would anyone want to pay for what they can get better for free?

      Pirated torrents wouldn't be better if the new TPB offered the same selection and the same quality. It just wouldn't be free, but I bet a lot of people would trade free for legit, if the pricing is anywhere near reasonable. Throw in a possibility of discount if you seed the files, and it becomes even more interesting.

      People buy millions of tracks off of iTunes, and they could all get them for free.

  38. so lazy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sigh, now I wish I'd expended the effort to get on a better "private" tracker.

  39. It's called ZFS (from Sun) by seifried · · Score: 1

    ZFS (on Solaris and FreeBSD) does exactly this. It's much harder to do well theen it looks though (kind of like email or anything else remotely complicated).

  40. Problem is not in idea by w0mprat · · Score: 1

    The problem is not in the idea. Indeed cpu cycles, storage and bandwidth are worth something and if anyone building a datacentre scale operation will tell you just how expensive per unit it actually is.

    Distributed services have been shown to work, so there is a opportunity here for a killer Google of the distributed computing to get it right and take over the world. The problem is the attempt to monetize the scheme. This is always what kills it.

    --
    After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
    1. Re:Problem is not in idea by jpop32 · · Score: 1

      The problem is not in the idea. Indeed cpu cycles, storage and bandwidth are worth something and if anyone building a datacentre scale operation will tell you just how expensive per unit it actually is.

      And, despite that, the old TPB managed to get millions to contribute bandwidth and storage space to their 'cloud', with no monetary compensation whatsoever. So, obviously, it is possible, and it does work.

  41. The Pirate Paywall by w0mprat · · Score: 1

    Even with balancing algorithms paying users are still subsidising the freeloaders, as the content providers will still want to be reimbursed for a bandwidth contributing user's free downloads. In this case, very directly subsidizing, rather than indirectly via jacking up retail prices to cover [imaginary] losses as happens with piracy to date .

    --
    After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
  42. OneSwarm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OneSwarm

    http://oneswarm.cs.washington.edu/

  43. And what happens when... by macraig · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ... some subscriber's rickety RAID 0 volume goes belly-up? How many other users' data goes with it? Where's the redundancy and backup? Can Joe Schmoe be trusted to care for someone else's data when push comes to shove? For that matter, could GGF be trusted to care when push comes to shove?

  44. Bye bye, TPB... by Nathrael · · Score: 1

    ...Demonoid, here I come!

    --
    A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
  45. filesharer are not a static resource by Smarty_Pantz · · Score: 1

    With this new concept, they're treating the current level of file-sharers as a static resource (or a constant) in their equations. But everyone will have left the network. They expect people to keep sharing, and the more you share, the closer you can get your monthly payments TO THEM "down to zero". But if all the file-sharers have left, this will just become a distributed content management system...so how about we START at zero, and YOU pay ME for my bandwidth & network resources?? this concept = fail.