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BitTorrent v2

blog.libtorrent.org

471–480 of 576 posts

Re: BitTorrent v2

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that most residential users don't care about upload speed. This allows ISPs to throttle uploads with very low risk of pissing off the bulk of their customer base when their detection algorithm gives a false positive.

Presumably this is changing somewhat with so many people working from home.

I doubt working from home changes all that much. The pattern for most office workloads is still almost all pull. More VoIP is a not insignificant change but it still isn't the same kind of traffic that torrents put down.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this feels like a significant feature that would boost the long term health of a lot of torrents Except for so many that are a single archive file. It seems logical that you'd want to compress what you're sending as much as possible before uploading... but in today's bandwidth environment, it actually makes sense to leave certain things uncompressed so you can benefit from swarm overlaps?!? Wild!

do two identical compressions produce the same output? if so, wouldn't the same thing happened just against the compressed files? It's not uncommon to see multiple .torrent files with the same content FYI.

Normally no, compression formats like zip are not guaranteed to produce the same output for the same input. That's why things like torrentzip and torrent7zip were created, to ensure that the same input did create the same output.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#473
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 vend…

Tor project does. Coinbase is not the only way to use bitcoin.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#475
post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is silly. Are you actually saying that bittorrent was hyped so much that constituting half the internet was a letdown? And that Perl didn't live up to its hype because it's only common today, and not as universal as it once was?

> This is silly. Are you actually saying that bittorrent was hyped so much that constituting half the internet was a letdown? My point is that it was a fad, it's barely used anymore and it was 50% in 2009 , now its usage is much, much lower. I've seen a lot of statistics of streaming services being 20-30% of the internet each (Netflix, Youtube), so I'd be amazed if BitTorrent is more than 10% 2020 (and that's a very…

Pogs were a fad. Bittorrent took downloading large files from being an unreliable pain to being effortless.

Perl was not a 'fad', it was what powered the internet's dynamic sites in the early days. Foundational technologies that eventually are hidden from the average person is not what 'fad' refers to.

Just because you don't use something doesn't mean it isn't used. You keep digging in to nonsense. (Also total internet bandwidth usage has increased significantly over time).

Re: BitTorrent v2

#476
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Even if people aren't scraping the network to record the order of block creation, it will be mighty suspicious when the Y blocks are scattered randomly across the network, and the Z blocks are conveniently hosted in one place.

> Even if people aren't scraping the network to record the order of block creation

I'm not sure if "scraping the network" is possible if chunks have unguessable names. Also, it's possible that someone could have a file shared among friends (over TLS), for years, without it being publicly announced.

> it will be mighty suspicious when the Y blocks are scattered randomly across the network, and the Z blocks are conveniently hosted in one place.

I suppose it depends on how blocks are distributed in the system. If the blocks of Y are all served from y.com and you host your Z blocks on z.com, then both hosts will look equally suspicious is Y XOR Z produces an infringing file X. The owner of z.com just needs to be able to credibly claim that y2.com was already hosting the Y2 that XORs with Z to produce a legitimate file.

Alternatively, a single node could host Z, Y, and Y2, all created by users, with no logs kept of when each block was created or requested (and no search/listing function). Such wilful ignorance may not impress a court, but is roughly equivalent to running a non-logging VPN, or a chat service that doesn't retain metadata, or a Tor node, or an online encrypted backup service. The service could even offer to follow a DMCA takedown procedure, in case non-XORed non-encrypted blocks were stored on it.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#477
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…

UX has been a main focus of Bitcoin ever since Lightning made scaling possible. Checkout out the Strike app for seamless bitcoin (lightning) payments https://strike.zaphq.io/ Who cares? Anyone who feels like their purchasing power isn't where it should be is either underpaid, or a victim of central banks diluting their dollars with printing.

Meanwhile 3 shady guys in the non-extradition offshore are printing 100 million dollars per months of their toilet paper tokens, inflating price of every other token, the only auditing firm dropped them immediately after looking at their dealings, and that is praised as a modern money way. Revolutionary even.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I am pretty lucky that I only have to transfer money to between 2 countries that have heavily linked banking systems (US -> Canada), but I am not entirely sure what Bitcoin would get me in terms of transferring money. The fees are quite small on Transferwise, and also, I have…I don’t know what you want to call it…accountability? Reversibility? Reliability? Whatever fee I have to pay, the fact I get a known third-part…

I don't know if "reliable" is a good word for the legacy banking system. The banks in Cyprus for example siezed money from peoples accounts only a few years ago... its much harder for banks to seize bitcoin that you self-custody. Many wealthy people and now companies are beginning to view bitcoin as a safe haven asset because of its decentralized security model and censorship/seizure resistant properties.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Cypriot_fina...

Re: BitTorrent v2

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this hypothetical situation you describe exist anywhere outside of the hypothetical situation posited by a character in a Neal Stephenson novel? Seriously in reality the specifics of any sort of wild situation like the one you describe matter. Which countries? Which currency? Which kind of illegal behavior? And (I ask out of ignorance) in this scenario you describe why would whatever group managing whatever bitc…

> Does this hypothetical situation you describe exist anywhere outside of the hypothetical situation posited by a character in a Neal Stephenson novel? That indeed is a bunch of real situations that have happened to me in 2014-2015 and some of that is still a thing. Check your privileges, sweet summer child. Like seriously — for the first 30 years of my life it was outright illegal to have a bank account in a foreign…

Your 'real' situation contains fallacies. How is Russia involved in money transfers to Ukraine? UAH is hryvna. Ukraine has it's own currency since 1991. RUB is used in Russia.

Re: BitTorrent v2

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Went to look up the issue - the dev's response seems reasonable to me. https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/issues/4965 The only difference between qbit's pause and uTorrent's stop is the check if files still exist.

The fact that users do not see the behavior as the same is the problem. When the users are telling you how they use your software and you respond by saying "that's bizarre, don't do that", then there's a serious disconnect. Developers should be responsive to user feedback, not dictate how their software should be used.
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