Researchers Warn of Possible BitTorrent Meltdown 294
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.'"
Bit Torrent has recovered before (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably won't happen.... (Score:5, Interesting)
If they kill piratebay (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:This is GREAT for bittorrent (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with ratio requirement sites is if you download content "later" (e.g. not in the first day of release), it is sometimes impossible to keep a good ratio no matter how much you try to seed since no one is downloading.
As an example, at one ratio site they had 8 torrents that I was able to get from other sources and one that I wanted. Even after 2-3 days of seeding those 8 torrents, I didn't have enough credits to fully download a single torrent without going negative. Yes, I left it seeding constantly, but most of the time it was all seeders and no leechers.
To be honest, I've never had speed problems for most content from non-ratio-enforcing sites. I've found ratio-enforcing sites to be a major hassle. YES my ratio is well above 1:1 for public content as I don't believe in leeching, but it's actually really difficult to maintain one's ratio on a ratio-enforcing site because you frequently run into a "lots of seeders and no leechers" scenario.
It doesn't matter. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:This is GREAT for bittorrent (Score:3, Interesting)
One way I do it is to download a popular torrent and seed that, even if I don't care what it is. Leave that up over night and my ratio comes back towards 1:1.
Re:Bit Torrent has recovered before (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:UI Design Fail. (Score:2, Interesting)
Anybody here remember Napster? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Why should The Pirate Bay be shut down? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.