Finally Real P2P With Brains 237
dfelznic writes: "The mp3 archives of CodeCon are now availble, which is news in itself. But what makes this real interesting is that they are being distributed by BitTorrent. BitTorrent allows users to download a file from multiple different people. Instead of everyone nailing one server, users get the file from other users. Furthurnet uses a similar technology to distribute legal bootlegs of concerts. The archive is available at the BitTorrent demo downloads page. As soon as I started downloading (cable modem) at around 300k I got a request for the file and began uploading at 40k. This could be the answer to the slashdot effect;) Now, who is going to be the first to complain about the use of mp3s instead of oggs?"
Nice. (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And this is new? (Score:3, Interesting)
The technology is nothing spectacular, but it's nice to see a simple install method that integrates nicely into the browser.
One interesting side-effect of this implementation is that there is no searching. You only download stuff from BitTorrent if you find a link on a web page for it. However, without the requirement for searching, Freenet would be a great replacement for this role of browser-download accellerator. All you really need to do to implement this would be to provide a nice installation
Re:Nice. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nice. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Been there done that... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ditto, Holmes. The real question is the scalability issue [darkridge.com], and I'm not convinced that the traffic cop features implemented by Gnutella front-ends have really sorted this out.
When that's the case, that will be some p2p with brains. Right now, the networks only seem to be hanging on because the critical mass of crash-inducing traffic hasn't hit the super-peers yet [com.com]; at least not on the permanent basis.
What would really make my evening interesting is if someone would be kind enough to contradict me.
What about Gnunet? (Score:5, Interesting)
Red Swoosh (Score:2, Interesting)
Toronto area radio station doing this (sorta) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nice BUT.... (Score:2, Interesting)
MD5 is *not* suitable for ensuring that two files are identical when a malicious user is involved. It *is* suitable for ensuring that a malicious user may not hand you anything that passes but pure garbage (given what we know about MD5 today).
CRC32 is totally unsuitable for any environments that could involve malicious users.
SHA is the only common hash appropriate for this sort of problem.
eDonkey hashes files (Score:2, Interesting)
Speaking of good things about eDonkey, there is also forced uploads, meaning no losers cutting your downloads on you.
Re:Been there done that... (Score:2, Interesting)
"chaining" is DIFFERENT than "swarming" (Score:5, Interesting)
What bitTorrent (I think) and furthurnet (I know) are doing is different than this. If 5 people are downloading a file from the one person who is sharing it, those 5 people can be the beginning of 5 chains of people, relaying each packet down the chain as they get it, regardless of whether or not anyone has the complete file.
Furthurnet uses a protocol called PCP (Packet Chain Protocol) to do this, and it automatically arranges the chains so that those with faster upload speeds are toward the top, with the dialup users toward the bottom.
If the main host goes offline, even if no one on the chain has the entire file, everyone on the chain can still continue downloading everything that the topmost person on the chain has already saved.
A good example: say a dialup user has large file that is in high demand. A T1 user comes along and spends a long time downloading it off of the dialup users horrible upload speed, and gets about 80% of it before anyone else comes to download. Then you show up with your cable connection and instead of being at the mercy of the upload speed of the dialup guy, you have access to 80% of the file from the plentiful upload speed from the T1 guy. And of course Furthur knows to hook you up to the fastest open slot available when you come along.
The result of this is that the underlying host and network shape becomes transparent, and you just see a list of shows to download, you start downloading one, and all this stuff happens in the background. The longer everyone stays connected to the network, the more efficient it comes because it has more time to structure it with the faster folks in the "middle", and the slower ones on the "outside".
Over at furthurnet, the current record is having 71 people on a downloading chain. Combine PCP with the Anteloping and you can have some serious improvement over "dumb" p2p.
I wont even go into the benefits of the md5 checking furthur does...
Lossless - big files - Bittorrent helps a lot (Score:5, Interesting)
beware (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:My NAT configuration. (Score:3, Interesting)
Upload/Download ratios and ADSL (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Upload/Download ratios and ADSL (Score:2, Interesting)
Additionally, maxing out my upload kills downloads entirely, all the way to timeouts (cable connection) - turns out that if I cap uploads at about 5/6 max upload speed, I get normal looking download speed. But another 2k upload and downloads die completely. Looking at the comments further up this page, I can see that other people have had this problem and some have found solutions, so I'll take a look at some of those. But perhaps it wouldn't be an entirely bad idea to consider allowing people to cap uploads at something less than the absolute maximum speed, since otherwise, at least in my case, this software is about as much use as a DOS attack.
Cheers.