BitTorrent v2

Post by p1mrx » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 1:56 AM UTC

dane-pgp wrote: post #283

p1mrx wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Post by dmurray » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:03 AM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #273

dane-pgp wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was good design to decouple the transfer protocol from the search protocol, to allow different technologies to be explored, but in practice people ended up relying on the "good enough" solution of using the web for search. Setting the precedent that media companies can seize domain names and force ISPs to block access to search engines if they don't like some of the search results (while ruining the lives of the p…

Yes. For all the P2P distributed praise ITT, torrent as a whole, as it is used in the real world, is very centralized. If the Pirate Bay is shut down, that stuff is gone. Uploading became a privilege, something that normal average people don't do. Earlier people ripped their own CDs, DVDs, magazine scans, digitized their VHS, recorded shows with their TV card etc. and shared these files. I don't know anybody who has…

Post by porknubbins » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:05 AM UTC

nicbou wrote: post #257

dchuk wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the problem with all cryptocurrency currently. It’s a massive user experience issue, in the sense that users have to experience the technical bullshit of how the currencies work, completely missing the brilliant part of real money: it just works. I hand people money, they give me things. I swipe my credit card, I get things. I can’t remember who aid it originally, but there’s a great test you can give…

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…

Post by __s » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #213

kardos wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels like this isn't a large enough leap forward. The hash it relies on is broken, so their hand has been forced.

sha1 is not meaningfully broken for BitTorrent, It would require a second pre-image attack to meaningfully hurt it, you can not take an existing hash you don't control and synthesize a matching set of incorrect/malicious data. Second preimage attacks are MUCH harder to pull off, even md5 is still safe from them, many years after they were found to be broken in other contexts. The only thing that sha1's weakness would…

Post by ShinTakuya » Tue, Sep 08, 2020, 2:09 AM UTC

doomrobo wrote: post #291

sbierwagen wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just imagine if this was done all the way down to the piece level. I don't know about that. With a reasonably large number of users, wouldn't you start seeing hash collisions via birthday paradox? Might be better off keeping it at the file level. (Though this does incentivize malicious users to find hash collisions of particular files they want to defend, and seeding the swarm with garbage files)

Hashes are now 256 bits. In order to get a collision with probability 1% you need to produce about 4e37 hashes. For comparison, if you had a 5GHz computer that did a SHA-256 hash every cycle and gave 100 of these computers to every human on Earth, it'd take over 300 million years to produce 4e37 hashes.