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BitTorrent v2

blog.libtorrent.org

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Re: BitTorrent v2

#241

Post by serf »

colechristensen wrote: post #64
liability wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why won't ISPs stop advertising 'unlimited' service that is actually limited to N gigabytes a month, where N is substantially lower than what's possible given the speeds they provide? Because they can get away with it.

Because it is insanely expensive to actually provide that. The nature of internet traffic is short bursts, not 100% utilization. In a commercial setting you can purchase fixed pipes that are entirely yours and they’re tens or hundreds of times more expensive. Why wouldn’t you want to pool bandwidth with your neighbors so you could all get faster speeds when you were using it instead of rate limiting everyone?

>Because it is insanely expensive to actually provide that.

So, the defense of using a misnomer to name your service is because the service warranted is actually impossible to supply given the margins?

Call me a fool, but that still seems like a company that is getting away with lying to the vast majority of people that don't bother reading the asterisk ( like T-mobile style "Unlimited" plan that gives X amount unthrottled, and some arbitrarily low rate after).

Criminal issue? Of course not, that's why the companies present such things this way.

Dishonest? You bet.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#242

Post by Avamander »

proverbialbunny wrote: post #25

It feels like this isn't a large enough leap forward. It would be nice if BitTorrent v2 made it harder for ISPs to identify what is bit torrent traffic. AT&T artificially slows down upload speeds.

Would be nice if it made QUIC and/or TCP-FO heavily recommended.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#243

Post by liability »

colechristensen wrote: post #64
liability wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why won't ISPs stop advertising 'unlimited' service that is actually limited to N gigabytes a month, where N is substantially lower than what's possible given the speeds they provide? Because they can get away with it.

Because it is insanely expensive to actually provide that. The nature of internet traffic is short bursts, not 100% utilization. In a commercial setting you can purchase fixed pipes that are entirely yours and they’re tens or hundreds of times more expensive. Why wouldn’t you want to pool bandwidth with your neighbors so you could all get faster speeds when you were using it instead of rate limiting everyone?

The question was not "why won't they provide it." The question was why won't they stop advertising it?

I can't sell you a pony made out of diamonds because that's impossible. Consequently, there is no legitimate reason for me to be advertising the sale of a diamond pony!

Re: BitTorrent v2

#244

Post by Avamander »

loeg wrote: post #192
oblio wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's still massively used for content distribution Is it, though? Youtube doesn't use it, neither do Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Spotify, etc. Does anybody (except for Blizzard) use it? I don't think Steam or the Epic store or the App Store or the Play Store use it, either. I'd be extremely glad to be proven wrong.

Windows has some sort of P2P update distribution system, although (1) I don't know that it is bittorrent and (2) it seems to be massively slower than just using MSFT's servers directly, so I'd suggest disabling it. On the order of 100x slower.

I've never managed to see it working on personal PCs. Unfortunate.

Still waiting for the day such a feature arrives on Linux, it'd be an instant hit everywhere where uplink is slow and expensive, especially in developing countries.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#245

Post by Avamander »

oblio wrote: post #114
armitron wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are vast data archives exposed through private trackers that work on top of bittorrent. This isn't widely known due to their private, invite-only (and in some cases, entirely closed) nature but the fact remains that these exist and are fundamental in multiple, widely divergent communities.

Can you give some examples? It all sounds very... mysterious. At least, what kind of content are we talking about?

There's also The Internet Archive that provides torrents that's in the clearnet.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#246

Post by Avamander »

slim wrote: post #51
xibalba wrote: post #11

To me, BitTorrent feels a lot like Blockchain: interesting tech that doesn't seem to be able to find a practical and useful application (proportionate to the attendant hype). Which is not to say that either can't, they just haven't yet. Why? EDIT: while I don't (yet) consider myself delirious, responses to this comment have illuminated how little I know about the influence and application of BitTorrent. In other word…

I estimate that thousands of people use torrent every day since 20 years. I use it very often. maybe it's just that nobody uses it in your close network

I estimate that a lot of people won't even know if they're using it. Especially if we take things like PopCorn Time into account.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#247

Post by bawolff »

tinus_hn wrote: post #221
bawolff wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tit-for-tat algorithm is what makes bit torrent special and solved a real problem with the previous gnutella-esque generation of p2p file sharing programs. As far as i know emule did not have that at the time.

BitTorrent uses TCP properly instead of implementing a poor version of TCP using UDP which is why it is much faster than eDonkey.

Except when you are using μTP...

Re: BitTorrent v2

#248

Post by Thorentis »

tomxor wrote: post #215

> not only uses a hash tree, but it forms a hash tree for every file in the torrent [...] > Files that are identical can also more easily be identified across different swarms, since their root hash only depends on the content of the file. Wait, content addressed blobs across swarms... does that mean torrents made by completely different people at different times that happen to contain one or more identical files can…

This right here is the biggest new feature in my opinion, and should have been discussed in more depth in the announcement. I also think they should have pursued this avenue further before releasing v2.

Content addressing is one of the big advantages of p2p applications, and IPFS has been pushing it for a long time.

Just imagine if this was done all the way down to the piece level. You have two different torrents (say, Linux ISOs) where 20% of the pieces overlap due to similarity (maybe a point upgrade or something and you want both versions). Rather than 100% of both, you only need to download the shared pieces once. Not only that, but say that the latest version has many more seeds/peers, you could download the pieces from that swarm instead, saving the bandwidth of the older torrent's swarm for the remaining 80% you need to download.

This could probably be done client side somehow, but it would be good to see actual protocol support for it so that bittorent can move in that direction.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#249

Post by User23 »

rolleiflex wrote: post #83

I make P2P tools too. [0] Let me tell you this: Bittorrent is one of the few things in the space that actually ... works. It works not in the sense that there is a white paper that should work. Not in the sense that there are a few company-made swarms hosted on industrial servers that keep everyone up and alive, so that the thing gives the impression the 'P2P' network does work. Not in the sense that there is a very-…

BT has a very strong theoretical underpinning based on FEC coding. It’s not like it was just bumbled into. It is also quite well engineered.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#250

Post by crazygringo »

m00dy wrote: post #40
m00dy wrote: post #20

hmm, looks like still no support for data streaming :(

well, I meant live streaming here.

That seems like such a fundamentally different architecture is needed, why would you want that to be part of BitTorrent rather than its own protocol?

What is your opinion of existing P2PTV apps, is something missing?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2PTV

(I don't know much about the space.)

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