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BitTorrent v2

blog.libtorrent.org

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Re: BitTorrent v2

#281

Post by proverbialbunny »

jeromegv wrote: post #75
colechristensen wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 issue is that there's no way to know what this limit is. I understand the cost, but then tell us exactly how many GB I can use at full speed and when does it start to throttle. Instead I have to rely on internet anecdotes.

The problem is my fiber gigabit duplex internet throttles me from the first KB. Net neutrality is dead.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#282

Post by hackinthebochs »

kuroguro wrote: post #113
PossiblyKyle wrote: post #103

Since we're on this topic, what's your torrent client of choice HN? I plainly use BitTorrent nowadays

qbittorrent, hands down :) Open source, cross platform and relatively small footprint (native), uTorrent-like UI. I believe it uses libtorrent under the hood, so this might be integrated soon.

It seems they still can't be bothered to implement a proper "stop" button, despite many requests over the years. When the devs refuse to listen to their users, that's software I won't use.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#283

Post by dane-pgp »

p1mrx wrote: post #70
jayd16 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally, you'd want to come up with some way to pack files such that many files share the same chunks. Perhaps you could make the act of sharing (all or most of the) legal and illegal files indistinguishable.

You could have a protocol where every block of the file is actually two "random" blocks XOR'd together, but this doesn't really work. If you create a new 1GB torrent, you'll need 1GB of new (never seen before) blocks with ~100% probability, so it will be obvious who's seeding the data. Or you could make the block size smaller (e.g. 1 bit) and tell the lawyers to piss off because 0 and 1 are public domain.

> You could have a protocol where every block of the file is actually two "random" blocks XOR'd together

One implementation of this is the "Owner-Free File System"[0], but it is no longer being maintained.

> If you create a new 1GB torrent, you'll need 1GB of new (never seen before) blocks

If you XOR your 1GB file (X) with 1GB of blocks that already exist on the system (Y), you get a new set of 1GB blocks (Z), but it will be hard for an observer to prove that your Z blocks don't actually pre-date Y.

Your defence would be that someone generated Y based on your Z in order to frame you as having created X, when actually your Z, when combined with another set of random-looking blocks Y2 produce a different 1GB file, X2, which is completely legitimately.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem

Re: BitTorrent v2

#284

Post by hkt »

int_19h wrote: post #277
sanderjd wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simple: it is an abject failure as a currency. It is fairly successful as a security for the purpose of speculation. If you aren't a financial speculator, you really don't need to pay attention to it.

It's also fairly successful as a way to transfer money.

And until recently, a highly successful way to _launder_ it.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#286

Post by dane-pgp »

xibalba wrote: post #30
mawalu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean beside being responsible for ~50% of the global internet traffic in 2009? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

Insofar as the majority of that traffic is likely illegal (in terms of sharing pirated property) I would not consider it useful.

> I would not consider it useful.

Perhaps you meant (and people should have charitably interpreted you as meaning) "I would consider it to have no legitimate uses" or "... no uses worth supporting".

Re: BitTorrent v2

#287

Post by KMnO4 »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #193
cercatrova wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a tool that doesn't pitch that it's a P2P tool - it doesn't try to convince you with sob stories in how using P2P helps fight against the big bad evil web. Instead, you use it because it's genuinely the best at what it does: it being P2P is not a selling point, it's just how it happens to work, and that is exactly what it should be. This should be something that every creator who markets or sells products shou…

>This should be something that every creator who markets or sells products should learn. Consumers don't care how it works. I distinctly remember being a teenager and learning how bittorrent worked, thinking it's the coolest thing I'd heard of and laboriously explaining how it worked to a friend that sounded interested. At the end of the explanation he asked "So how do you download music with it?" And I realized all…

That’s been exactly my experience with amateur radio.

I’ve given my friends the spiel about how cool it is that I can use the EM spectrum to send my voice through the air to the other side of town. And how other people have put up repeaters which mean my voice can actually go a lot further than that —- maybe across the country!

And their response? “Sure, but I can already do that on my phone”

Re: BitTorrent v2

#288

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

gruez wrote: post #274
nicbou wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been a few years, and despite a few attempts, I still don't really understand bitcoin. Yes yes ledgers and proof of work and yada yada, but I still don't know what I would need to do to buy something with bitcoin right now. As I understand I need to do something that's pretty much exactly like opening a bank account, but transactions take forever, they cost money, and the currency is not accepted by any busine…

>As I understand I need to do something that's pretty much exactly like opening a bank account Not really. If I want a bank account I need to fill out a page of paperwork requiring my name, address, social security number, citizenship information, income, occupation, date of birth, scans of various pieces of ID and/or other documents. Compare this to bitcoin where you only need to install an app, and new identities c…

> It's true that trying to buy/sell bitcoins via an exchange will subject you to AML requirements, but in-person transactions won't.

Nobody does bitcoin transactions in person, at least not in America and not anyone I know. I have several bitcoins and the only way to use them is through an exchange like coinbase, who require the same identity documents that a bank does.

You could argue “but you just have to find vendors who accept bitcoin!” But with 3 bitcoin I won’t find enough vendors to spend it on.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#289

Post by [deleted] »

wolco wrote: post #133
tyfon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of depends on the price pr gb. To use the power analogy, when I was young the price of power was relatively high but in recent times it has now dropped to 0.6 NOK / kWh so even charging the car from 10-80% (~61 kWh) cost 40 NOK or $4. I do not get mad at the kids leaving the light on like my mother did to me. I (or rather my job) currently pays about 1000 NOK/ month for unlimited 500 MBit synchronous fiber…

You pay for peace of mind that little Johnny doesn't download some crazy amount by accident. Now you don't have to monitor family usage so that makes things easier as well.

[deleted]

Re: BitTorrent v2

#290

Post by em-bee »

wolco wrote: post #133
tyfon wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of depends on the price pr gb. To use the power analogy, when I was young the price of power was relatively high but in recent times it has now dropped to 0.6 NOK / kWh so even charging the car from 10-80% (~61 kWh) cost 40 NOK or $4. I do not get mad at the kids leaving the light on like my mother did to me. I (or rather my job) currently pays about 1000 NOK/ month for unlimited 500 MBit synchronous fiber…

You pay for peace of mind that little Johnny doesn't download some crazy amount by accident. Now you don't have to monitor family usage so that makes things easier as well.

i had per gb pricing in new zealand. the key feature to address your issue was that i could set an upper limit, so, say start throttling the connection once i reach $50. that's the same that other ISPs would do anyways once i reached a certain amount of usage, but with this ISP i decided the limit and i could change it at any time.

the price was competitive too. other ISPs charged $70 per month, and had a limit of 50gb (that was 15 years ago) my ISP charged $20 as base fee and $1 per gb of usage. if i used less than 50gb, i saved money, if i used more then i could...

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