Researchers Latch Onto BitTorrent To Spot Connection Problems 87
alphadogg writes "Northwestern University researchers have developed a system that gives a heads up about traffic problems on the Internet, where there is no central management system. Their Network Early Warning System (NEWS), which latches on to a popular BitTorrent client, is designed to spot problems by encouraging feedback from end users who are experiencing problems. 'You can think of it as crowd sourcing network monitoring,' said associate professor Fabián Bustamante. He has a track record with BitTorrent users, having developed the popular Ono plug-in for speeding up P2P interactions."
Something like this c/would be awesome (Score:4, Interesting)
When the smiling AT&T cable sales people come knocking on my door, I'd like to show them a website or printed graph of how badly their Internet service really sucks. I'm starting to get a couple of options for ISP now, and it would just be so awesome to hold up a graph and smile the entire time I tell them how badly their service/product sucks!
I've been wanting something like this for ages (Score:4, Interesting)
I've switch service providers several time because of network outages and performance issues. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be on the phone with tech support, insisting that I need to reboot windows one more time (though it's funny as hell to tell them it's a linux box) and after 45 minutes holding and 4 or 5 technical support reps I finally talk to a tech that admits network issues. It will be nice to see how my current provider compares against the local competition.
But I wonder how much bittorrent "traffic shaping" (blocking) will effect ISP scores?
Re:To What End? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I've been wanting something like this for ages (Score:3, Interesting)
That is a good thing: combining network performance with how much the ISP fucks with your traffic into one easy score.
Bittorrent is a pretty good benchmarking system: it checks upload, download, making tons of connections, bulk data transfer, and is considered by some people to be "evil". That really is a fairly good combination of network parameters.
Re:how about a name or some links smartass? (Score:4, Interesting)
utorrent seems to be one of the most popular.
utorrent isn't open-source. And I'm not brave enough to use a closed-source client from a company that has signed agreements with the RIAA and MPAA, particularly when open-source alternatives are available.
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, since BT traffic stresses a network's resources more than any other, and is the subject of aggressive filtering and other control methods, I'd have to say it's as good a baseline as any. It's easy enough to do performance testing in a laboratory where all conditions are controlled, but when you start running packets through dozens of administrative domains each with their own configurations, equipment, etc., what you have is a very organic problem that it nearly impossible to diagnose.
To use the obligatory car analogies we heart so much on slashdot, this is like your real world week to week gas mileage, whereas the laboratory testing is like the EPA rated gas mileage. As your car gets older, gets stuck in traffic, etc., it's going to fall short of that rating -- but because it all averages out in the end it's a more reliable metric. But like any other statistic, it needs to be taken with others; Getting 40 miles to the gallon sounds great until you find out the car only has a briggs and straton engine and does zero to sixty in about a minute. Or as I call them Saturns.
Re:Fine but you have to use Azureus (Score:2, Interesting)
Mod up!
Re:Fine but you have to use Azureus (Score:3, Interesting)
i blame itunes...
when it hit windows, it became almost a fad to use it, even if one didnt own a ipod.
so to "keep up", more and more players started adding media library features, ripping features and info downloading features.
me, im so "old school" that my concept of "media library" is to pile my files into different dirs, and aim the players playlist at the top dir, then setting playback to random...
that is, unless i just fire up a stream off shoutcast or icecast and leave it at that. right now i seem to have a preference for "the eagle".