As I said in another post, you can attempt to encrypt it, change ports, fiddle with the timing, run a VPN, or simply wave your hands in the air as misdirection, but the fact is that to be effective a P2P program MUST send gigabytes of data upstream to multiple destinations. It's inherent in the nature of the beast.
All one has to do to spot it is meter the connection and count bytes...
Books, music, and movies are multi-billion dollar industries. Did everyone just expect to be able to steal them blind and continue to get away with it?
Further, only dummies, and the desperate, would think that the continuous downloading and uploading of gigabytes of data from a home DSL or cable connection to hundreds of other connections doing the same exact thing is a pattern that can't be spotted, tracked, and dealt with.
You can attempt to encrypt it, change ports, or do whatever, but the fact is that to be effective a P2P program MUST send gigabytes of data upstream. All one has to do is count bytes...
"...the fact we can use it for our own needs is to them a fault which needs to be corrected."
P2P could have been a massive force for good, enabling, as you said, the massive distribution of user-created information and content. Instead, however, 99% of the time it's used to steal the latest 50-cent song or to snag a copy of Iron Man.
As such, I don't think the politicians are the ones you should be blaming...
"P2P isn't just about illegal file sharing, it's bigger than that. "
No, it's smaller than that. Last set of numbers I saw said that P2P is burning up 50% of the current total bandwidth. And "legitimate" P2P isn't even 1% of that number. P2P could have had legitimate uses, sure, but the parasites took over the host and killed it.
Besides, we can always go back to getting our "Linux distros" off mirror sites...
"If we can not increase production at $140 per barrel over that when it was $50...."
Can't? Or won't? The oil industry is making record profits. What real incentive do they have to do more work and sell more oil at a reduced price when they can sell what they have at record prices?
The recent moves by the Saudis tend to validate this, along with their growing realization that maybe they've gone just a bit too far this time. More and more of their end-users are buying more efficient vehicles and looking for ways (electric, hydrogen) to do without them altogether.
"They're selling the SAME product for a rip-off price."
They're selling the SAME product PRE-INSTALLED, which makes a difference. Every computer Dell sells goes through it's build line, whereas most of Apple's computers are off-the-shelf units. Build-to-order is a relatively small percentage of Apple's retail sales, and I suspect its process reflects that.
In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Apple's BTO process involved unboxing OTS units shipped in from overseas, upgrading them, and repackaging. Even shipping a fixed quantity of disassembled units would be costly due to having to manage separate SKUs, and still having to do the final assembly, QA, and packaging off the main line.
"Could you imagine your power provider telling you that you can't use that washing machine or AC because it gobbles up too much juice?"
Not in most cases, but use too much power and you WILL have to run another line into your house and upgrade your service. A friend had to do that when she added a batch of electric kilns she needed for pottery.
"How about your phone company telling you to limit your long distance calls to the nights and other non-office hours to free up their lines for office use?"
Just what, exactly, do you think cell phone companies are trying to do with "free" night and weekend minutes?
Bottom line is that bandwidth is a limited resource just like power, water, and phones. X amount of infrastructure can handle Y amount of use. As such, we really ought to charge and pay according to use. What to run a torrent server 24/7? Fine. Pay up.
I've said it before, but the best solution is charging on a per-K/M/GB basis. Further, the best solution with the fewest disruptions to most legitimate traffic is to charge more (or place caps) on UPSTREAM traffic. DSL and cable traffic is largely asymmetric anyway, with downstream to the home faster than upstream.
So just recognize that fact, and charge more for it. Doing so will slowly starve off P2P traffic as more and more people leech and as more people throttle their torrents. Do you think most people are willing to pay their ISP more so that OTHER people can get free music and movies?
And don't, BTW, talk to me about "legitimate" BT traffic. What little there is can be handled in other ways. We seemed to get by just fine with business and university mirrors BBT (Before Bit Torrent).
The previous poster mentioned the multiple connections, but there's also the minor fact that if you're torrenting a "600 MB ISO image" (cough) down you're also UPLOADING said image to other users at the same time. (Unless you're a leech.)
So in the HTTP case you downloaded a "600 MB ISO image" (of Iron Man), using 600MB+ of bandwidth. In the torrent case, you probably used 900MB minimum counting the download and uploads to other torrents, and more like 2,400MB minimum if you started the download and let the torrent run overnight while you awaited your movie... er, ISO.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
"Where I fall and where others fall will almost never line up."
Precisely. But one side feels entitled to enforce THEIR definition on everyone else, whereas the other side is quite willing to let YOU live by that definition if that's what you want.
Ditto. According to the biggest/most guns theory, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq should have been cakewalks. But guerrillas tossed us out of Vietnam, the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and we're still fighting five years after we "won" in Iraq.
"Some argue that with the modern military under the control of the President, it wouldn't be much of a fight to crush a rebellion."
Five years in Iraq fighting guerillas armed with a few rifles, IEDs, and appropriated weapons would argue otherwise.
As to your argument, there's also the minor matter of regular Army and Reserve officers and units refusing to fire on US citizens and/or defecting to the other side.
Nope, what we have to worry about is a nuclear or biological terrorist attack, and then voting some asshole all of the power he or she needs to "protect" us from harm. "King George," indeed.
I vote for massive cargo-carrying, solar powered airships! You could also fly 'em to where they're needed, as opposed to have to stop and transship from a costal port.
The nasty side of the equation is that if we come up with good solutions for the fuel problems (hydrogen, algae-based fuels, etc.) we could immediately reverse the trend.
Then again, according to all of the doom-and-gloom ZPG naysayer's back in the '60s and '70s we were all supposed to be eating each other by now. Fact is, the birth rates in most of the industrialized "first-world" countries are already at or BELOW replacement rates. (US included.) Let China and India continue to move up the prosperity ladder, and in all likelyhood they'll join the club too (though China is already coming at it from another angle).
Over-population is a boogieman that too many people haul out of the closet when they want a convenient rationalization as to how nothing that THEY do matters in the long run.
'Course, one needs to consider ALL of the mitigating factors... like solar. Quite a few houses out this way (CO) are being built with solar electric panels built into the design, and solar add-on's are increasing rather dramatically in number as the panel price per KWH decreases. And that's been happening almost daily. Put plastic or printed cells into the mix and EVERY house could be solar powered.
Municipal vehicle fleets are switching to LNG and propane, and many are eyeing PHEVs when and as they become available. Then there's the fact that homeowner's themselves are or will be buying Priuses, Civics, Mazda 3s, TDI Jettas, or other highly efficient vehicles. PHEVs are right around the corner, and even public transportation systems like Light Rail are expanding outward (I think the next leg is connecting Denver to Boulder).
One could also toss in trends like 4-day/10-hour workweeks, or the fact that nearly every modern notebook has the ability to do video chat and every "McMansion" has broadband.
In short, and despite your obvious distain for McMansions, I suspect that they'll stick around for a while, and I also believe that, barring some major climatic event, that it looks like we're going to tech our way out of this problem too.
Slashdot Mirror
"Truecrypt or similar commercial offerings are available and reliable. Protect your data and ours."
Whatever happened to "Information wants to be free?" Or does that only apply to bootleg copies of Iron Man?
I'm confused.
As I said in another post, you can attempt to encrypt it, change ports, fiddle with the timing, run a VPN, or simply wave your hands in the air as misdirection, but the fact is that to be effective a P2P program MUST send gigabytes of data upstream to multiple destinations. It's inherent in the nature of the beast.
All one has to do to spot it is meter the connection and count bytes...
"... to take away our rights..."
You, or others, have a right to steal? You, or others, are somehow magically entitled to all of the free content you can download?
"... only feasible solution at this point to to encrypt streams..."
I guess not stealing content doesn't count as being a feasible solution? Sad, really, when you stop to think about it.
Books, music, and movies are multi-billion dollar industries. Did everyone just expect to be able to steal them blind and continue to get away with it?
Further, only dummies, and the desperate, would think that the continuous downloading and uploading of gigabytes of data from a home DSL or cable connection to hundreds of other connections doing the same exact thing is a pattern that can't be spotted, tracked, and dealt with.
You can attempt to encrypt it, change ports, or do whatever, but the fact is that to be effective a P2P program MUST send gigabytes of data upstream. All one has to do is count bytes...
"...the fact we can use it for our own needs is to them a fault which needs to be corrected."
P2P could have been a massive force for good, enabling, as you said, the massive distribution of user-created information and content. Instead, however, 99% of the time it's used to steal the latest 50-cent song or to snag a copy of Iron Man.
As such, I don't think the politicians are the ones you should be blaming...
"P2P isn't just about illegal file sharing, it's bigger than that. "
No, it's smaller than that. Last set of numbers I saw said that P2P is burning up 50% of the current total bandwidth. And "legitimate" P2P isn't even 1% of that number. P2P could have had legitimate uses, sure, but the parasites took over the host and killed it.
Besides, we can always go back to getting our "Linux distros" off mirror sites...
From TFA: "The study examined the brains of FIVE human participants who were imaged using both fMRI and DSI techniques..."
"If we can not increase production at $140 per barrel over that when it was $50...."
Can't? Or won't? The oil industry is making record profits. What real incentive do they have to do more work and sell more oil at a reduced price when they can sell what they have at record prices?
The recent moves by the Saudis tend to validate this, along with their growing realization that maybe they've gone just a bit too far this time. More and more of their end-users are buying more efficient vehicles and looking for ways (electric, hydrogen) to do without them altogether.
"They're selling the SAME product for a rip-off price."
They're selling the SAME product PRE-INSTALLED, which makes a difference. Every computer Dell sells goes through it's build line, whereas most of Apple's computers are off-the-shelf units. Build-to-order is a relatively small percentage of Apple's retail sales, and I suspect its process reflects that.
In fact, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Apple's BTO process involved unboxing OTS units shipped in from overseas, upgrading them, and repackaging. Even shipping a fixed quantity of disassembled units would be costly due to having to manage separate SKUs, and still having to do the final assembly, QA, and packaging off the main line.
"Top end vendor charges more for service than mass-market vendor."
Probably hit the nail on the head here, as I suspect that there's a vast difference between Dell's build-to-order process and Apple's.
"Could you imagine your power provider telling you that you can't use that washing machine or AC because it gobbles up too much juice?"
Not in most cases, but use too much power and you WILL have to run another line into your house and upgrade your service. A friend had to do that when she added a batch of electric kilns she needed for pottery.
"How about your phone company telling you to limit your long distance calls to the nights and other non-office hours to free up their lines for office use?"
Just what, exactly, do you think cell phone companies are trying to do with "free" night and weekend minutes?
Bottom line is that bandwidth is a limited resource just like power, water, and phones. X amount of infrastructure can handle Y amount of use. As such, we really ought to charge and pay according to use. What to run a torrent server 24/7? Fine. Pay up.
I've said it before, but the best solution is charging on a per-K/M/GB basis. Further, the best solution with the fewest disruptions to most legitimate traffic is to charge more (or place caps) on UPSTREAM traffic. DSL and cable traffic is largely asymmetric anyway, with downstream to the home faster than upstream.
So just recognize that fact, and charge more for it. Doing so will slowly starve off P2P traffic as more and more people leech and as more people throttle their torrents. Do you think most people are willing to pay their ISP more so that OTHER people can get free music and movies?
And don't, BTW, talk to me about "legitimate" BT traffic. What little there is can be handled in other ways. We seemed to get by just fine with business and university mirrors BBT (Before Bit Torrent).
AppleTV downloads off Akamai's edge network.
The previous poster mentioned the multiple connections, but there's also the minor fact that if you're torrenting a "600 MB ISO image" (cough) down you're also UPLOADING said image to other users at the same time. (Unless you're a leech.)
So in the HTTP case you downloaded a "600 MB ISO image" (of Iron Man), using 600MB+ of bandwidth. In the torrent case, you probably used 900MB minimum counting the download and uploads to other torrents, and more like 2,400MB minimum if you started the download and let the torrent run overnight while you awaited your movie... er, ISO.
Sounds like a list from Heinlein's TEFL:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
"Where I fall and where others fall will almost never line up."
Precisely. But one side feels entitled to enforce THEIR definition on everyone else, whereas the other side is quite willing to let YOU live by that definition if that's what you want.
"Much like sex ... ed."
I doubt teaching abstinence is going to have much effect.
"... my 22 caliber rifle; but the nutcase who wants to abscond with my TV in the middle of the night might."
Shooting some guy running away with your TV is not a valid use of lethal force, and could well land you in jail right alongside the "nutcase".
Ditto. According to the biggest/most guns theory, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq should have been cakewalks. But guerrillas tossed us out of Vietnam, the Soviets out of Afghanistan, and we're still fighting five years after we "won" in Iraq.
"Some argue that with the modern military under the control of the President, it wouldn't be much of a fight to crush a rebellion."
Five years in Iraq fighting guerillas armed with a few rifles, IEDs, and appropriated weapons would argue otherwise.
As to your argument, there's also the minor matter of regular Army and Reserve officers and units refusing to fire on US citizens and/or defecting to the other side.
Nope, what we have to worry about is a nuclear or biological terrorist attack, and then voting some asshole all of the power he or she needs to "protect" us from harm. "King George," indeed.
http://www.popsci.com/aeros/article/2006-02/flying-luxury-hotel
I vote for massive cargo-carrying, solar powered airships! You could also fly 'em to where they're needed, as opposed to have to stop and transship from a costal port.
The nasty side of the equation is that if we come up with good solutions for the fuel problems (hydrogen, algae-based fuels, etc.) we could immediately reverse the trend.
Then again, according to all of the doom-and-gloom ZPG naysayer's back in the '60s and '70s we were all supposed to be eating each other by now. Fact is, the birth rates in most of the industrialized "first-world" countries are already at or BELOW replacement rates. (US included.) Let China and India continue to move up the prosperity ladder, and in all likelyhood they'll join the club too (though China is already coming at it from another angle).
Over-population is a boogieman that too many people haul out of the closet when they want a convenient rationalization as to how nothing that THEY do matters in the long run.
'Course, one needs to consider ALL of the mitigating factors... like solar. Quite a few houses out this way (CO) are being built with solar electric panels built into the design, and solar add-on's are increasing rather dramatically in number as the panel price per KWH decreases. And that's been happening almost daily. Put plastic or printed cells into the mix and EVERY house could be solar powered.
Municipal vehicle fleets are switching to LNG and propane, and many are eyeing PHEVs when and as they become available. Then there's the fact that homeowner's themselves are or will be buying Priuses, Civics, Mazda 3s, TDI Jettas, or other highly efficient vehicles. PHEVs are right around the corner, and even public transportation systems like Light Rail are expanding outward (I think the next leg is connecting Denver to Boulder).
One could also toss in trends like 4-day/10-hour workweeks, or the fact that nearly every modern notebook has the ability to do video chat and every "McMansion" has broadband.
In short, and despite your obvious distain for McMansions, I suspect that they'll stick around for a while, and I also believe that, barring some major climatic event, that it looks like we're going to tech our way out of this problem too.