Decentralizing Bittorrent

An anonymous reader writes "Exeem is a new file-sharing application being developed by the folks at SuprNova.org. Exeem is a decentralized BitTorrent network that basically makes everyone a Tracker. Individuals will share Torrents, and seed shared files to the network. At this time, details and the full potential of this project are being kept very quiet. However it appears this P2P application will completely replace SuprNova.org; no more web mirrors, no more bottle necks and no more slow downs. Exeem will marry the best features of a decentralized network, the easy searchability of an indexing server and the swarming powers of the BitTorrent network into one program. Currently, the network is in beta testing and already has 5,000 users (the beta testing is closed.) Once this program goes public, its potential is enormous. "

Potential..

[kmak (692406)]

If it's allowed to be reached anyhow.. I have a feeling it's going to be tied down if it's the "next" big thing..

Re:Potential..

[stecoop (759508)]

This thing could be even bigger if the traffic was encrypted. No - stop and imagine.

Re:Potential..

[metlin (258108)]

Hmm, but the overheads would be *enormous* - think about it. Even for a simple search, you'd need to be able to decrypt and see the file.

But -- maybe we could use checksums of the encrypted files and have some kinda hash table to make it faster.

Waste + Decentralized Bittorrent --> Death of RIAA + MPAA.

w00t!

Re:Potential..

[psetzer (714543)]

No. There is no way in Hell that that would happen if the financial institutions aren't sleeping. Their entire business is predicated on being able to send data confidentially. When bank A needs an overnight loan from bank B, they want to make absolutely certain that it goes through properly, since millions of dollars are on the line in that single transaction. They do not want anyone and I mean anyone fucking around with that, and if the RIAA gets some idiotic idea to outlaw that, heads will roll.

The RIAA and the MPAA also use encryption to protect their IP from infringement, and they don't want to lose that either. In other words, encryption isn't going anywhere, period.

Re:Potential..

[Martin Blank (154261)]

Never going to happen.

Who relies on encryption? You, me, government, business, charity, church... Everyone. I don't care how powerful the RIAA or MPAA is, they're not more powerful than the rest of the nation's trade industry, and the weight of a few hundred thousand businesses would drown out the record and movie attorneys easily. In order to get rid of encryption, you'd have to return to roughly the technology in use about forty years ago, and no one is going to put up with dealing with the lines required then for things like unemployment, DMV, and taxes. Far too many government agencies are required to make available information to the public, and that information has to be encrypted. You'd end up with around 5000 pages of changes to law, tying up Congress for years, if not decades, just on that.

Believe it or not, the government isn't afraid of you using encryption. The NSA moved off of SHA (yes, I know it's a hash -- it's an example) to SHA-1 several years before the public realized there were issues with it, and they're constantly updating the nation's existing protocols. If necessary, they can get a court order to do a black-bag op to get the password -- the younger Gotti used PGP to encrypt files, but a simple keyboard sniffer grabbed the password (his father's prison ID number, IIRC), and in the operation that planted that, the FBI had snagged the key files.

If they need it from you, they'll get it. Encryption is often the strongest link in a weak chain.

Re:Potential..

[Stonent1 (594886)]

Who relies on encryption? You, me, government, business, charity, church.

I talk to God (the Jehova one) over a 1024 bit 3DES encrypted tunnel. I don't want those bastards like Vishnu, Allah or Qetzoctl listening in.

Re:Potential..

[nr (27070)]

You could do the encryption/decryption then the complete file has been downloaded. You dont need realtime decrytion of the data chunks right? You can download all encrypted segments to disk and then reassemble the file.

With RIAA/MPAA hunting users with blowtorches and ISP's sniffing users IP packets to collect evidence for law suits, encryption will become a standard feature of P2P platforms in the future i'm pretty sure. Ofcouse there is a performance/bandwidth pentaly involved with encryption, but I think the benefits of secure transfer will be greater than the drawbacks.

Re:Potential..

[bloo9298 (258454)]

You're addressing the problem of an attacker (the RIAA or their agents) finding you by looking at your network traffic. That's not what they're doing. They are finding nodes that offer files. The problem for the non-lame P2Per is that their node must tell good guys that they have lots of files and must tell bad guys that they have no files. The difficulty is that you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys on the network. One solution is to use private overlay networks, although the recent Finnish case demonstrates that it's hard to keep the "bad guys" (law enforcement in that case) out of the overlay network. Another solution would be use to use recommender systems, perhaps in a PGP style, but I haven't seen a P2P filesharing system that does that yet. Finally, Freenet attempts to give a sending node plausible deniability by hiding the true contents of a file from the sending node.

Oh, in case you meant that you were trying to hide network traffic from your network administrators (also "bad guys" from your point of view), then it would be simpler to use encryption (perhaps layering P2P communication over HTTP/SSL or SSH to avoid arousing suspicion).

Re:Potential..

[l3pYr (754852)]

Tied down by what? Finish it, GPL it, release it, done deal. My concept of how it might work: First, no server application or central server of any kind. Second, Client application (psuedo-server as well) sends out constant "seeker" packets blindly that it also responds to whenever it receives some. When it receives a response on a seeker packet a connection is established, forming a web of clients. Once 5 or so connections are established, we can stop sending out seeker packets. Do to the nature of the network, once we hit that many connections we have probably "connected" to the entire network. When a search request is sent out, it goes to the entire network because every client which receives a request sends it out to all their connections as well. Clients with no local matches do nothing after that. Clients that have a local match to the search send a directed response to the initial requestor. Reponses contain enough information to determine which files are identical. Identical responses are all grouped together, and then all responses are sorted based on relevance. When you choose to download a file, a connection request will be sent out to all those who responded for that file. All available connections are then managed locally (and updated regularly) as individual packet requests are sent out to all responders to the connection request. Once a packet fails 3 or so times that responder is removed from the list of available connections and the packet is requested from someone else. I typed this quickly at work, so if there are any gross inconsistencies or obvious errors please don't flame me. It's just my idea of how this thing might work.

Re:Potential..

[aldoman (670791)]

Absolutely not.

You are describing Gnutella1 which is incredibly inefficient (someone does a search query and it gets passed around the network for days in most cases, even though the user is only online for an hour or so) and generally, very crap.

Most modern p2p networks work off a 'supernode' principle which is users that the network has chosen (automatically) because it has fast upload or long uptimes on the network etc. This then runs the search queries for all the leaf nodes connected to it, which really decreases the amount of network inefficiency because the supernode is like a central server, it knows nearly all the of the files because it connects to other supernodes and in turn they index the entire network. Interestingly you can find yourself connected to splinter networks where by some odd reason the supernodes haven't found each other and split into multiple networks.

You are describing a network where everyone is a supernode. This is useless because many users don't stay online for more than an hour and in the end you basically have a huge search query swapping contest.

Re:Potential..

[leuk_he (194174)]

you mean supernove.org was down last week for a few hours, as was tvtorrens and some other major torretn sites.

It might have been more than technical.

But remember!

[Primotech (731340)]

It's only for legitimate trade of legal files you own, kids.

Re:But remember!

[Grishnakh (216268)]

I don't happen to agree with the "ethical" standard that copyright laws, as currently written, attempt to spell out.

I don't find it unethical to give a copy of a TV show to other people, especially when it has not been edited. The networks broadcast these shows freely, but somehow I'm not permitted to watch it at a different time, or download it from someone and watch it on my computer?

I'm sorry, but being a mindless consumer who does whatever the corporate CEOs tell me does not equate with "ethical". Maybe it does for you, but don't assume everyone else has no spine.

Re:But remember!

[Grishnakh (216268)]

This is a stupid analogy. Milk isn't free. Programming is.

If they were giving away milk for free, would it be wrong to take some extras and bring them to some friends, so that they didn't have to go to the trouble of going to the free-milk place themselves?

What if some stupid executive said you were only allowed to get it yourself, and couldn't give any to friends, because he's worried you might pour the milk into another container, and throw away the original container which has some ads on the back, before giving it to your friends? I'm sorry, I'd have no guilt in taking the extra milks and giving to my friends despite this stupid executive's pronouncement (which isn't even firmly backed by any law). Of course, I wouldn't bother giving my friends new containers either, because that's just unnecessary work on my part.

Re:But remember!

[AstroDrabb (534369)]

This is a poor analogy. A more correct one would be you walk into a store, take a gallon of milk, and a new _exact_ copy of that gallon appears. If you could copy milk at no costs, then the analogy would be correct.

If someone comes along and takes a copy of a digital work from me, they have not deprived me of a physical object and I can still sell that work. Yes, I do agree it is wrong for someone to take a work from me without permission. I am just making a point how it is _very_ different then taking a physical work from me which will be in limited numbers. That _would_ be depriving me of a potential sale.

I agree with you about doing the ethical thing (in my case just not buying the copyrighted works). However I feel that copyright has gotten very bad and unbalanced. I think because of this, many people do not feel it is unethical to _copy_ digital content. Add to this the fact that producing an _exact_ copy requires no capital and results in no loss of goods, and you have the P2P vs. unbalanced copyright war we have now.

With the ??AA, BSA, etc all dumping millions every year into the pockets of our corrupted politicians to continue to swing copyright in their favor, you will just see more consumers fighting back. Maybe if these big corps get hit with the clue-stick, things would get better. However, I don't ever see that happing.

Re:But remember!

[iminplaya (723125)]

I know that copyright laws are not ethical. And my argument has been backed up many times by many people. And that's just here at Slashdot. For me to spell it out again would merely be redundant. Check them out and try to refute them. I would like to see if you can do better than anyone else so far.
Oh what the hell...
Copyright laws are nothing more than a bad reaction to new technology(the printing press in this case). They were designed to protect an obsolete industry. That industry had friends in high places. Laws were bought and sold, just like today. There is nothing ethical about that. I don't give a damn if somebody keeps their ideas to themselves because they can't make million bucks overnight. They're greedy bastards. Somebody will come along with the same or better idea later, because they will understand the value of the idea is the idea itself, not the guy who invented it. To demand a monopoly on an idea is extremely selfish. Airplanes and steam engines(to name a few) might have developed much faster if not for the stranglehold the the inventers had on the patents. The patent on the diesel engine had to expire before anyone could improve it enough to be practical. The tired old cliche still holds true: It's like prohibiting the use of the automobile to protect the blacksmiths, carriage, and buggy whip manufacturers. I hope that can hold you over until you check out what others have to say.

Hype

[heyitsme (472683)]

Hey! I have this great thing, but you can't see, use, or otherwise evaluate it on your own. But it will be great when it's done!

But...

[saintp (595331)]

...can I run it on a Phantom [slashdot.org]?

Re:Hype

[metlin (258108)]

Hardly.

They already have it up and running with over 5,000 members. They're just removing the website trackers and making the clients into trackers in and of themselves. It's not so hard, and it's a good idea too.

But as anothe user pointed out, it would slow down your system a real lot.

text not quoted correctly

[Triumph The Insult C (586706)]

just the end was affected. the correct version is

its potential for lawsuits from 'artist' organizations is enormous

Wonderful!

[DaHat (247651)]

Just imagine the benefits of the system, with so many new trackers, the RIAA/MPAA will demand even more when they haul you into court.

"Your honor, the defendant wasn't just a person sharing the file, our records indicate that he was the person sharing the file, running a server, not just a client on a network with files to share"

But...

[rosewood (99925)]

With the IP addresses still out there, wtf is the point?

Re:But...

[oexeo (816786)]

> With the IP addresses still out there, wtf is the point?

If your computer has a IP address; your Microsoft is probably infected with a virus horse from one of the internets.

Re:But...

[daeley (126313)]

If your computer has a IP address; your Microsoft is probably infected with a virus horse from one of the internets.

If the Slim Whitman defense doesn't work out when Mars attacks, I suggest we use that phrase to make the Martians' heads explode. Gave me a headache just reading it. ;)

Re:But...

[Hatta (162192)]

With the IP addresses still out there, wtf is the point?

The point is to move the bandwidth load of providing all those .torrents off of suprnova.org and onto the users. This way we wont have to deal with tracker downtime due to overload/ddos.

Re:But...

[DaHat (247651)]

You haven't received a C&D before? I cannot speak for most ISP's, only my own.

When a friend a few months ago received a C&D, it included his IP, the time and date of the offence along with some info on the file... the ISP in question, just sends a warning letter on the first offense, unplugs you until you call in for the 2nd and unplugs you for 30 days on the 3rd, and this is only from the complaint.

You might have an open wap, or a trojan on your PC, or any number of other legitimate reasons of why your connection was used to DL unauthorized material in a way that was not authorized by you... it doesn't matter to this ISP, a complaint is a complaint, and as per the safe harbor provision of the DMCA, they act upon it.

Were you to get a 3rd C&D on this ISP and get unplugged for 30 days, you could always haul them into court and demand to get reinstated, but by the time you got your hearing, the 30 days would be over.

More so, it is the ISP's network, and by using it and paying for their services you agree to their rules, and if their rules say "we may suspend your access at our slightest whim should we receive information saying that you had allegedly infringed on someone's copyright", they can.

This is not the court system we are dealing with, this is free enterprise, and is little different than me refusing to personally associate with anyone under 5'0", simply because that is how I do business.

Wait...

[Pxtl (151020)]

So BitTorrent took the whole "everybody's on the same network" and converted it into "one network per file".... and now this new system puts it *back* like that? How is this different from every other p2p filewhoring system?

Re:Wait...

[Kelerain (577551)]

Because, theory goes, finding one person with that file finds everyone with that file, and furthermore you get the organized anti-leeching distribution advantage of bit torrent. You can think of it this way. Bit torrent works well, right? This is just a different way of finding torrents.

Re:Wait...

[dustman (34626)]

No, it isn't. What is trivial with eDonkey is to get a modified client that doesn't have this restriction. Solving this problem requires reporting the amount of uploading being done to some kind of server.

No, it doesn't require that. Basically, you just have all connections be 2-way. The key issue here is that you are all looking for the same file.

If client B wants to connect to client A and download some pieces, client A can decide on whether or not to allow this based on which pieces B can provide that A is missing.

If the connection is not mutually beneficial to both parties, one side closes it.

Combine this with a "generosity" setting, where some people sharing the file give away pieces for free, (and by default, when you finish a download you turn into "super-generous" mode until the transfer utility is closed), and the system will work fine, without any sort of central monitoring.

Basically, everyone is "trading" pieces of the download, and automatically discovering "local" peers which have uncongested links with each other.

The point of Exeem

[bairy (755347)]

is to basically become a Kazaa but using the bittorrent protocol. I was one of the beta testers and I can say it works well, it's fast it's efficient and because it doesn't have to faff around with one tracker it starts transferring the second, *the second* you add the torrent.

Publishing a torrent is incredibly easy, drag the folder in, pick a category, click go. It hashes it and it starts seeding within seconds.

It still (obviously) needs some work doing to the app to make it more friendly but it's shaping up well.

Re:The point of Exeem

[MindStalker (22827)]

I think he is referrering to a system like freenet where files are routed through random users, and said user has no way of knowing what files are routed through them because its encrypted. Even the files you are sharing on yor computer are encrypted and get spread out and split up in pieces among everyone else, so just because you have a piece of the file doesn't mean you asked for it. Its all about plausable deniability. You can't prove who put a file on the network, and you someone has no idea as to what files or pieces of files their computer is sharing.

I like Suprnova...

[antiMStroll (664213)]

..for the same reason I like Usenet. Files are pre-sorted by genre and by fans, making it easy to discover new music and film of the kind that interest you. Kazaa is only good for getting copies of what you already know.

Most important thing

[ultrabot (200914)]

What would really matter these days is anonymity. It's a bit late to develop yet another non-anonymous network, when the real problem is the risk of lawsuits...

I realize that full anonymity is going to be a problem, but at least some degree of deniability and limited IP address propagation would be a boon. SuprNova might have the name recognition to really give something like that a good start.

Think of the convenience!

[d_jedi (773213)]

Pirates will be able do download their illegal wares much faster, without the inconvenience of web mirrors going offline by pesky interference by law enforcement officials.

Let's just be clear: BitTorrent is legal, and can be very useful
but the trackers on suprnova.org pretty much all link to ILLEGAL pirated files.

Re:Think of the convenience!

[Gadzinka (256729)]

Yes, those damn pirates! For example, for last couple of years I engage only in illegal downloading of TV series.

I mean, it's despicable, how can people distribute and watch TV shows that are normally viewed for free!!! This must be incredible loss of revenue for rightsholders, mustn't it? Especially when they don't care enough to release those shows on DVD.

Frankly, I'd prefer them make those shows strait-to-dvd so I could buy them for 20-40 bucks a season. Maybe this way no power-hungry fatass exec would cancel shows like Farscape, Firefly, Jeremiah or Angel. No more fucking games with "ratings-scheduling feedback loop", just simple rules -- either it sells with a profit or it doesn't.

Robert

Freenet? Hello?

[RudeDude (672)]

How is Freenet [sourceforge.net] not mentioned in this context. It is decentralized and other than the dropped packets / routing needed for anonymity it is swarming dowloads since any node might have the data you need.

Re:Freenet? Hello?

[Severious (826370)]

I gave freenet a try for well over a week constantly on and in the end it was still basically useless. It was about 10x slower than a modem. It is a great idea but from my experience it just doesn't work.

Re:Freenet? Hello?

[burns210 (572621)]

1. It doesn't work reliably.
2. You can't host files, and it takes a long time to insert large(medium even) files.
3. Files are dropped if not popular. Thus, you can't get rare files, only popular or recent ones.
4. It DOES NOT WORK reliably.

And this coming from a guy that hopes beyong hope that one day it WILL work. Today is not that today. Tomorrow doesn't look good, either.

Cringely's rule

[Chris Siegler (3170)]

I think they're ignoring the fact that to be the "next big thing" requires being more than just incrementally better than what it replaces. Bittorrent itself is exponentially better than a FTP or HTTP server when demand is high. And Suprnova works quite well as it is, so I think it will be interesting to see whether Suprnova holds tough if people don't switch to the new technology fast enough.

Sites dedicated to piracy

[by Anonymous Coward]

always produce the best software!

Not much to talk about

[Gadzinka (256729)]

Until they release some info about the inner workings of this app, there's not much to talk about.

There are serious problems with decentralising BitTorrent. One of the reasons that people have such good transfers on BT is that there is central tracker supervising particular file and knowing all users serving bits and pieces of this file. This way in case of high demand/high popularity files I achieve speeds over 1MB/s (yes, that's megabyte).

Depending on design choices you can have couple of trackers with subset of users on each of them, or every user seeding file has his own tracker. In first case your client wouldn't be able to use all cloud, and in second tracker would disappear when original seeder turned off his computer.

You can of course design some communication between trackers, or elections or some other magic, but it's too early to tell at the moment. I'll wait for more information.

Whatever they do, I hope that there will be some console based client for this, because asymmetric connections at homes plainly suck at upload (hence on torrent at download too), and I'd rather keep running my torrents on the server plugged into the fast network.

Robert

Bah!

[tarsi210 (70325)]

Decentralized Bittorrent? Wake me up when they have secured Bittorrent and then I'll listen.

My ISP, Mediacom, scans my network packets to determine if I'm grabbing a torrent of questionable nature. If they see it, they'll send me a nasty email. Hence, I'm on the edonkey networks now because BT is clearly not an option at the moment. I'm sure they'll scan those packets, too, at some point.

Unsecured BT is fast, sure, but if your ISP is snooping...well. And illegal or questionable content aside, it'd be handy for distributing other files to people in a more secure manner.

Or is this out there and I'm just missing something?

This eliminates BitTorent's great advantadge

[yorkpaddy (830859)]

The great thing about BitTorrent is that you are being pointed to a known file. You can judge for yourself who points you at a given file by what website is hosting the tracker. This is one of the reasons you don't get the spoofed files on BitTorrent. The fact that you can tell who is offering a tracker also means that the RIAA can. Thus the RIAA can sue this person. I see a distributed bittorrent being useful for non RIAA protected files. Once bittorrent is distributed though, the RIAA will start spoofing it.

Anonimity ( Redundant I hope!)

[Free_Trial_Thinking (818686)]

Any new big thing needs absolute anonimity. I already worry for all of the innocent civilians out there using bittorrent now to get their favorite shows and movies. I'm sure their transgressions are all being logged for future lawsuits.

And yes they are INNOCENT. Here's one good reason why. We first must ask, why did the founders of the US constitution feel it was important for accused criminals to be convicted only by a jury of peers?

I believe this is because they knew that honest citizens doing honest activities will often run afoul of the law, especially in a broken government where England (back then) or corporations today make all the laws. The jury of the peers is built into our criminal justice system in order to prevent just this kind of thing. I mean the hope is that a jury of bitorrent users will never convict a fellow bit torrent user. That's probably why we're only seeing civil lawsuits today by the RIAA and the like. I think I criminal jury trial for file sharing would be quite interesting.

Could be good.

[mogrify (828588)]

"...being kept very quiet" (until now)

This should be good... BT is without question the fastest p2p app (in fact, the only thing that has ever topped out my 'net connection), but it needs two features to kill off the others in my book:

1. Search - it's no fun to rely on third party websites to find things. Hopefully now we'll be able to do this.
2. Anonymity - BT could use an option for a system like Freenet's for making it really hard to tell who's serving who. Combined with the distributed nature of BT, it would be difficult to prove anything at all about BT users.

The article is /.ed, so I can't speak directly to Exeem, but it sounds from the blurb like these features are a possibility. Hope it's free in all senses.

Here's another thought: the current BT system is really good at dispersing new content, like distro ISOs and TV shows, through RSS feeds from central websites. It would be cool to be able to subscribe to network-wide custom feeds, to stay informed about new files that match certain criteria.

Why?

[Julian Morrison (5575)]

I don't agree with the all-in-one idea. It seems to me the problem would be better solved in a more modular way.

(1) having a search that only indexes trackers, and can then launch an external app of your choice to do the torrent download

(2) improving the bittorrent protocol so anybody with a seed can failover as the tracker

When I want to download torrents, I want to use Azureus, regardless of whether it was a P2P searched torrent or one off a website. I don't want to have to use some all-in-one app that decides for me the One True Way that downloads shall be handled, merely because it implemented the search to find them.

Serious problems with Exeem

[aero2600-5 (797736)]

I'm an Exeem beta tester that's been trying to give it a fair shake. I'll probably get banned just for this post, but here's some general details about the new client.

First off, it's in beta testing, but it's not ready for beta. It has some serious isses at the moment. Torrents disappear off the network for no reason is just one of them.

Second, they don't have 5,000 beta testers. They sent out 5,000 serials, but my best guess by looking at the network is that there are less than 1,000 actually testing it and never more than 200 or 300 people running it at the same time. They actually sent out new serials to all the 5,000 beta testers because they didn't have enough people.

Third, it lacks the details. With most BT clients, such as BitTornado and G3 Torrent, you can see all kinds of details about the file you're trying to acquire, how many seeds, portions of seeds, how many complete copies are distributed amongst the peers if there are no seeds. Exeem lacks all of these details.

Fourth, it doesn't use bitTorrent. It's based on bitTorrent, and uses libTorrent, but it's not a torrent. It's their own unique format. Exeem will not be compatible with other BT clients. It's use their client or don't connect. It almost appears to be a Kazaa rip off with bitTorrent features.

Fifth. 'But it's open source? Why can't we just write our own clients?' From everything I can tell, they have no intention of making this an open source project. They're talking about the type of ads they want to put in it.

Sixth: Pr0n. A lot of people like Suprnova.org and other torrent sites because there is no pr0n. Exeem has an adult filter, but 'Adult' is one of the more popular categories for Exeem users at the moment.

Exeem will not replace bitTorrent. The problem I see is that Exeem is being developed by the same guys that run suprnova.org. [suprnova.org] Whether Exeem ever works or ever becomes popular, will they take down what appears to be the most popular torrent site on the web because of it?

There are more problems with Exeem, but these are the major ones that I see. I'm sure some of the coders of Exeem will be reading this post. Please feel free to tell me where I'm wrong and why.

Aero

Re:Long live SuprNova

[Jucius Maximus (229128)]

" Didn't realize these guys were hackers, too. Wonder how many RIAA/MPAA scum got in on the beta test?"

This is also what I worry about. A hostile peer is one thing. You can just choose not to receive packets from them. But what about a hostile tracker sending your client on a wild goose chase?

Not really.

[nathan s (719490)]

Just a minor thing - if half use each, then bittorrent becomes LESS useful and exeem becomes much MORE useful than with only 5000 beta testers.

I say let's give it a chance - never know, it might make up for what you miss:-) Worst case, no one will use it and everyone will stick with regular bittorrent.

Re:Slashdot. News for Pirates?

[mamba-mamba (445365)]

It's just a pet peeve of mine, but copyright infringement and theft are two distinct crimes.

I hate it when people equate copyright infringement with stealing. Illegal downloading is more like sneaking into a movie, concert or ballgame without a ticket than it is like theft.

MM
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