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A Blog With Unlimited Bandwidth (Beta 1.2) 164

Posted by timothy from the unlimited-is-a-lot dept.
jcr13 writes "konspire2b is a new content distribution system that essentially turns the standard p2p model upside down. This simple change gives the network several nice properties, including log-bounded distribution times (logarithmic in the number of nodes that receive a file) and a refreshingly different (and somewhat blog-like) user-interaction model. Comparisons have been made to other systems, including BitTorrent (with in-depth analysis), but k2b stands alone as a unique system tackling a different problem than other p2p systems. Recent Slashdot attention gave the network an effective stress test and provided the first real-world measurement results. The new beta1.2 release contains fixes for all of the issues encountered during this traffic surge."
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A Blog With Unlimited Bandwidth (Beta 1.2) More

A Blog With Unlimited Bandwidth (Beta 1.2)

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  • So so (Score:5, Informative)

    by indros ( 211103 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:06AM (#6170095) Homepage
    I tried this a couple of weeks ago.. It's so so, but as a user you didn't really have the ability to get files you want, but what other people want you to get, and it seems very unpredictable as far as start time, length of download, etc. Of course it was still beta so I expect to see improvements yet.

    OTOH, it's nice just to sit there and let the pr0n roll in.

    • Re:So so (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:29AM (#6170252) Homepage Journal
      The point here is that this is designed for situations where tens of thousands of people all want the same content at the same time.

      • Re:So so (Score:5, Funny)

        by greenalbatros ( 215035 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:32AM (#6170276)

        The point here is that this is designed for situations where tens of thousands of people all want the same content at the same time

        as the man said: porn porn porn porn porn....

      • Eh. konspire2b (... such a retarded name) is interesting and all, but i think BitTorrent accomplishes that task quite well. I did a little reading on k2b's Web site a while back, and i really don't understand what makes this any more effective than BT for that sort of application. As i understood it (and maybe i'm totally off-base here; let me know if i am), you're basically receiving an "inbox" full of stuff from a particular "channel" (an inbox full of classical music, an inbox full of anime, an inbox ful
        • Reading through the description, I get the idea of a binaries friendly version of Usenet. Unfortunately it is only Internet visible end-points are capable of receiving its broadcasts.

          I think a combination of this application, with the BitTorrent idea of using all of the routable hosts as forwarding points to the nonroutable hosts, would much farther reaching.

        • Uh.. when was the last time you left your BitTorrent up after finishing your download?

          The point of k2b is to set up a distribution chain of interested people beforehand, and then when the item is actually released, everyone gets a copy in a timely fashion.

          Leaving the channel up means a thousand people can rely on someone else's ability to pick up media from popular sites and have it ready to play the next morning on their hard drives. It's just a matter of time before this becomes popular. Leave the find

  • uh oh (Score:2, Funny)

    by joFFeman ( 574971 )
    be careful when informing the masses about new technologies, wouldn't want to negate the potentcy of the slashdot effect..

  • blogtorrent? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sweeney37 ( 325921 ) * <.mikesweeney. .at. .gmail.com.> on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:07AM (#6170107) Homepage Journal
    on your blog, you might have a "picture of the day". On your konspire2b channel, you can have a "movie trailer of the day" or even a "gnu/linux distribution of the day". Bandwidth limitations are essentially taken out of the equation.

    as intriguing as this idea is, couldn't you set a torrent up to do the same thing?

    Mike
    • Perhaps use Konspire2b to distribute the .torrent files. Create a channel for each torrent (or categorize the torrents into different genre-based channels), and that may answer the question of "How do you search for a .torrent file?"
    • like, say, when the damn servers with the .torrents gets hit hard and spontaneously combust into a pile of smoking ashes.

      Heck man (or, woman), havn't you been around when /. took out all the torrent servers a few weeks back?

    • Re:blogtorrent? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chexum ( 1498 )

      A torrent is a static file from an actual, present file, you can't make a torrent from tomorrow's daily picture. You have to download a new .torrent dose for your daily dose.

      But a better idea may be to use this k2b to push torrent files thus relieving those popular, and always down (DoSed, money/bandwidth-starved, or simply lamely administered) torrent distribution sites..

      • A torrent is a static file from an actual, present file, you can't make a torrent from tomorrow's daily picture. You have to download a new .torrent dose for your daily dose.

        What's wrong with sending torrents by email or Usenet?

      • But a better idea may be to use this k2b to push torrent files thus relieving those popular, and always down (DoSed, money/bandwidth-starved, or simply lamely administered) torrent distribution sites..

        The bigger problem with BitTorrent isn't that the torrent site gets DOSed, it's that the tracker gets DOSed. Without the tracker, the .torrent file is useless.

        I'm not a black hat, but if I were, Konspire2B seems like an optimal method for zombie communication. It has the untraceability of Freenet with mor
    • No. A torrent can only transfer one file. Also, it's limited by the tracker, and the .torrent file distribution.

    • Re:blogtorrent? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by croddy ( 659025 )

      I have no idea why it mentions blogs in the headline. this is clearly a simple file distribution system with some advanced bandwidth distribution. it's not a blog, not even like a blog, it's all content and no redundancy.

      k2b is a great solution to the free-rider weakness of bittorrent, but it replaces it with another free-rider weakness -- what incentive is there to broadcast a channel? ("I'd rather be downloading")... traditional p2p clients prevent this for the most part by making the upload/download se

      • k2b is a great solution to the free-rider weakness of bittorrent, but it replaces it with another free-rider weakness -- what incentive is there to broadcast a channel? ("I'd rather be downloading")... traditional p2p clients prevent this for the most part by making the upload/download service run at the same time; if you want to DL then you have to be available for UL.

        Whatever incentives provoke people to encode TV episodes immediately after the network sends them out on satellite, run BitTorrent tracke
    • No, you couldn't set up a Torrent to do the same thing because a torrent references static content, while a k2b channel can reference anything broadcast over the channel.

      The people who are subscribed to the channels leave it up over long periods of time and can receive large streams of data of varying content from the broadcaster.

      A BitTorrent is for one, or a set, of predetermined items.

      *shrug* Seems like a no-brainer to me.

  • Damn (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gortbusters.org ( 637314 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:08AM (#6170109) Homepage Journal
    Got a slashdotting [slashdot.org] and kept on ticking. Surely must be a sign of the apocalypse!

  • Huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by GMontag ( 42283 ) <gmontag@guymontagDEGAS.com minus painter> on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:09AM (#6170123) Homepage Journal
    essentially turns the standard p2p model upside down

    I thought b2b was already old hat?

    Oh, completely upside down? b5b, yep that is new but what the heck does it mean?

  • Web Based Interface (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mistermund ( 605799 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:11AM (#6170136)
    The web based interface is refresing.

    That's one of the biggest strengths that Audiogalaxy had (before the service got defanged). You could run their Linux client on a box at home, then sign into the Audiogalaxy site from anywhere (work, school, etc) and grab different things. Made it easy to run the client somewhere safe, with a fast connection, or lots of drive space, and get to it from anywhere. Nice to see another app taking the same approach (though you host the web interface yourself).

    • Re:Web Based Interface (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ah, Audiogalaxy... I had fun with that while living in the dorms. Ever notice that to log in, it simply sent your user name & password as part of the URL? At the time I had a packet sniffer. Probably still have it, as a matter of fact. Do you see where I'm going with this? It was so fun to hear people exclaim choice phrases such as "what the $%^@??" when their computer randomly switched from playing Metallica to some gospel spiritual.

      good times!

    • Re:Web Based Interface (Score:4, Informative)

      by dew-genen-ny ( 617738 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @09:55AM (#6171048) Homepage

      Try MLDonkey [mldonkey.org]

      It is a cross p2p network client, capable of connecting to eDonkey/Overnet, Gnutella, Fasttrak, Shareaza, and a whole host of others. It's also a fairly decent BitTorrent client.

      It has a very nice html interface, and that is a major bonus, since you can also then set it up so that you can start new files downloading at home, while you're at work (but be careful folks, make sure you've got your setup pretty tight, or I'm sure you'll have script kiddies downloading hardcore pRon for you all night long)

      Really can't recommend it enough.
      • make sure you've got your setup pretty tight, or I'm sure you'll have script kiddies downloading hardcore pRon for you all night long

        ill keep it loose and keep the pron ;)

  • Works nicely (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:12AM (#6170144)
    I've been running K2B for the last few days and it's quite impressive (the web-UI could still use some polishing, though). You can choose from several channels to subscribe to, such as "mp3jackpot", and automatically get the latest files broadcast in these channels while your node is running. At this time there are actually no illegal channels, at least I've seen none; the mp3jackpot channel above is run by mp34u [mp34u.com], a site where music fans choose and rate freely available songs. Some of them are actually pretty good, and it's about time the net is used more effectively to promote the free music that's floating around.

    There's even a channel called "publicdomain4u" which broadcasts very old music from the 1920s and 1930s. If you have something to say, you may consider setting up your own channel on k2b and use it to broadcast text files, music, videos etc. It is possible to share the private key to your channel so you can collaborate with others to broadcast files in it. I for one will be keeping an eye on the new channels that pop up. For those running other p2p clients: K2B doesn't normally take much bandwidth, you can use it in parallel.

    P2P broadcasting may very well be the next important development. It's a bit like Usenet, but fully decentralized, and with some quality control (K2B has recommendation channels, and only users who own the channel private key can broadcast files in it, eliminating the spam problem).

    • At this time there are actually no illegal channels

      Haha.. with time, my young Paduan learner. Give these things time. The coopting of new internet protocols for piracy is as inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun.
    • Just installed the software...

      You can choose from several channels to subscribe to, such as "mp3jackpot"

      Funny, but the channel list [sourceforge.net] on the website is non-existant, I can't find a link to any kast channel anywhere on the site you mention, even Google's [google.com] letting me down.

      So, where is this list of "several" channels?

  • For you Deus Ex lovers (Score:3, Funny)

    by T-Kir ( 597145 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:19AM (#6170179) Homepage

    A Blog With Unlimited Bandwidth

    Wouldn't that be called the Aquinas Protocol? ;-)

  • Might this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:23AM (#6170207)
    Finally be an effective distribution mechanism for the hundreds-of-small-files model that would be needed for among other things, say, p2p mirroring of webpages (html and image files) that Bram Cohen [slashdot.org] says has been so problematic?

    At the least, couldn't, say, Keenspace save almost all of their bandwidth by use of this protocol, having people subscribe to channels for the webcomics they read daily and just releasing a new comic on the channel every day?

    ANyway, questions i can't seem to work out from this page: 1) Does this have one big gnutella-like mesh, or does it follow BitTorrent's create-a-new-p2p-network-for-each-torrent file model? 2) Is the idea that you set up your "channel" to contain certain files, and anyone who's ever had that exact file anywhere on the Konspire network can download this file to you, or is it again like BitTorrent and if two different channels happen to share one file in common, the subscribers to each channel will be unable to use members of the other channel as mirrors?

    If the former in each of the two questions above, this is the ULTIMATE rom distribution mechanism, and i eagerly look forward to using it for that purpose :)

    Anyway this is neat to see, and good to see something like this done right. And wierdly enough, I actually expect this to be of much use to me in a totally legal fashion (the website my non-AC persona runs will soon be adding a regularly updated feature which i was expecting to be a major bandwidth drain, but which this Konspire thingy seems more or less just tailor-made for...)

    - super ugly ultraman
    • It's a bit more like BitTorrent.

      The difference is that you don't get to request the files like you do with other p2p clients - just recieve broadcasts to channels you subscribe to. You do, however, get the benefits of shared bandwidth (to an extent.)

      I like to think of it as a blogging version of BitTorrent.

      Once it matures, it has the potential to become (IMO) a fantastic content distribution system. BitTorrent for one-time grabs, Konspire2B for repeat visitors. Since it encrypts outgoing traffic and o
    • Well, according to the website, small files aren't really effective with this, due to protocol overheads.

      Files from about a meg on up work well, though.

      Xentax
  • If I understand how this works, is there a sci-fi channel that will send me the latest enterprise episodes as they come to hand? what about a simpsons or futurama channel? Are there some examples out there already?
  • taken from the konspire2b website, with modifications

    when alice initiates the broadcast, her node first sends out prebroadcasts. Prebroadcasts are announcements for content. Using prebroadcasts, alice's node essentially says, "i'm about to send TheMatrixReloaded_Divx.avi, who wants it? Her node sends prebroadcasts to all of its immediate neighbors in the network, and these neighbors forward it to all of their neighbors, etc. Lots of nodes in the network get this prebroadcast, and the path the prebroadcasts

  • If you've missed.... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by botzi ( 673768 )
    ...the previous /. story about konspire: here it is [slashdot.org]....
    It looks like they've done a lot of work on the project to deserve 2 submissions in 3 weeks.....;o)))

  • So if you don't swarm...? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:32AM (#6170278)
    Something I am looking at this and trying to figure out but don't see elucidated: If you don't "swarm", how do you deal with one single host crapping out?

    I.E., let's say I'm downloading this 3 MB file from this one guy, and halfway through he disconnects. I'm left with half a file. What happens then?

    My bigger worry: let's say that the app does support file resume, so my host disconnecting is not a worry. But what happens if I set a channel to run and leave the room, and suddenly the download rate for the host my client has chosen drops to 0.1k/sec. How does the app handle that? If I constantly watch the download i could click "retry download with different host", but if I'm going to have to watch my downloads constantly and reset them every time they start sucking then they've lost their one benefit over kazaa. How does this app ensure that optimal download speeds are had by all, and does it at least have a feature where i can say "if the download ever goes below 0.5k/sec, try to find a new source"?

    • Here what I don't understand:

      1. Alice says that she is going to broadcast theGrid.mpg.
      2. Alice picks me as the first node to upload to.
      3. As soon as I get the file I put my leechers hat on, disconnect and shout Muhahaha.
      4. Alice and all the other nodes are back to square one.

      How does it solve the main P2P problem of leechers?

      • 2. go to bed

        I guess that since content distribution is automatic you'd have to never use K2b ever again, or delete the file or something to stop distribution. You'd have to be pretty mean to do that. Meanwhile alice has heard from the bob's who subscribe to her channel that they haven't got theGrid.mpg, so she chooses one of them to be node 1

        ___________________________
        the Spiders are coming [e-sheep.com]
        • I guess that since content distribution is automatic you'd have to never use K2b ever again, or delete the file or something to stop distribution. You'd have to be pretty mean to do that.

          Or just be behind NAT. Sharing is really inconvenient for those of us that are IP-address-poor.
    • You're misunderstanding the definition of "swarm", as he's using it. Swarming is peers downloading pieces of the file from other peers who have not yet completeled the download. This means that yes, you can lose one server, as long as there are other with complete copies of the file. Works like Kazaa for that one, particular aspect. BitTorrent does the swarming used here; If I have piece A, and you have piece B, we can get them from each-other, even though neither of us has piece C yet.

  • Old hat stuff (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zeddicus_Z ( 214454 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:35AM (#6170303) Homepage
    Push technology pushing multimedia content. Meh, it was a bad idea 4 years ago when they first tried it with normal Web content. Why would anyone thing that using bandwidth-hungry archives/multimedia/whatever is going to make Push suddenly a sucessful content. Speaking even in the simplest terms of ISP data charges, people go looking for what they want (music/movies/etc), then pay for it (fees to ISP for data Xfer). People wont pay for a lot of crap they dont want in any way on the off chance they may receive that which they do.

    • Re:Old hat stuff (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      >People wont pay for a lot of crap they dont want in
      >any way on the off chance they may receive that
      >which they do.

      Then how do you explain cable tv?
    • Push technology pushing multimedia content. Meh, it was a bad idea 4 years ago when they first tried it with normal Web content.

      Ordinarily I'd agree with you, push-webcontent was a horrendous idea. But this is a bit different and might work. The key here is that everyone has the freedom to become a "push source". You have unlimited competition and unlimited choice. Competition and choice are a GoodThing.

      There can be so much choice that it's almost like you chose what to "pull" and it keeps on coming.

      -
  • Where is the channels directory or something like that? Couldn't find a good channel...
    • Good question. I was about to post this too. Anyone know?
      • Keep your node running a while and check the "catcher". This will show you which files are being broadcast, and allow you to subscribe to the channels they are sent on. The channel k2b_recommend should show up fairly quickly; it is used as an "official" recommendation channel by the K2B developer.
        • Awesome, thanks. It's been running for about 45 minutes now and it's found a few interesting ones. I was about to paste the "subscribe" links, but they look long and I'm not sure if there's any personal info in them. Are they safe to post? Here's the link for k2b_recommend with the keys starred out:

          http://localhost:8085/keyAdd**********_******** * *? channel=k2b_recommend&keyFilePath=caught_receiver_ keys%******_**********_*****%2Ekey&keySourceURL=/c atcher**********_**********

  • Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Xentax ( 201517 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:36AM (#6170309)
    This looks nifty.

    However, I see a potential gotcha for those who will inevitably use this to distribute mp3s and the like: You (the channel owner) are much more overt as a *broadcaster* of content you don't own the copyright to, rather than merely someone who makes a file available. Rather than both the uploader AND downloader choosing to share a file, the downloader is (to an extent) not picking specific content to obtain.

    To some degree, it's an irrelevant distinction, probably even in a *purely* legal context. But being able to (accurately) use a term like "broadcaster" rather than "trader" of copyrighted content is the kind of statement that can have a powerful effect.

    And, of course, the channel owners are more direct targets of legal action than the downloaders in this scenario (since the downloader may not obtain the file from the "original" broadcaster -- the owner, correct?); Kazaa and the like expose both the uploader and the downloader more or less equally.

    Not sure how much difference that will make in the grand scheme of things, really. But at the least, I'd say that makes this system a somewhat more visible target for the R.abid I.nfernal lawyers A.ssociation of A.merica...

    Xentax

    • Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Insightful)

      by fazil ( 62946 )
      I suppose the best way around that would be to publicize the your private key so EVERYONE could use the channel. Then very little of what you do could be attributed to you :)

      Hell, I could create a WAREZ channel, and only publish freeware.. but if everyone else had my private key, I'm sure the channel would host a LOT of warez before the day was done :)

    • Should we care if some wanker who broadcasts mp3s of Christina Aguilera gets harassed by the RIAA bastards? Those are the people the RIAA should be harassing and leave everyone else alone. "Mess with the music mafia, the Genie in the Bottle will shove her dildo up your ass!" She wants to do it to everyone, but needs an excuse. So she hires people to put her crap on the internet. Down with the music mafia and their copyright infringing collaborators!

  • Shifty name, website written mostly in lowercase, black background...

    At first glance this looks like a warez site even to me (ignoring the SourceForge URL), the **AA are gonna have a field day with this :)

    On the other hand, if it's as effective as BitTorrent for large files, I can easily see this gaining widespread use for anime fansub distribution directly from the fansubbers... it seems to take care of the trickle-down effect needed for efficient distribution better than most solutions out there.
  • How long until the spammers start sending their crap out on something like this? Since the user cannot select what he is trying to get, it seems like this tool just begs spammers to place fraudulant files on your machine.

    User: "Hey, the new White Stripes song!"
    Song: "How would you like to increase your penis size by as much as 30%?"
    User: "Man, this song sucks!"

  • Bad BitTorrent analysis (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @08:54AM (#6170433)
    I've read his analysis of Konspire[2b] vs BitTorrent, and the description of BitTorrent is wrong.

    The main point he missed is that BitTorrent does not request (and thus serve) pieces in order. See the bit torrent protocol description, and search for "Downloaders generally download pieces in random order, which does a reasonably good job of keeping them from having a strict subset or superset of the pieces of any of their peers."

    Thus BitTorrent does not have the cascading limitation he describes, quite the contrary: if a three-piece download is downloaded by three persons, there is a good likelyhood. That they will not get the same piece and will thus be able to exchange the pieces later on.

    What's more, the situation where the number of downloaders is equal to the number of pieces is the worst-case. Less downloaders reduce the chances that they are downloading the same piece, more increases the availability of each piece.

    I have not calculated the resulting scalability, but it should be the same as konspire[2b].

    There is more. I have not read the protocol description of konspire[2b], but from the description given in the comparison, it seems to transfer complete files between nodes. So there is no incentive to stay connected to serve other. In BitTorrent, the fact that each downloaders receives potentially different pieces means that on average, each will be able to at least partially serve new comers.

  • Yeah great.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by spinkham ( 56603 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @09:07AM (#6170540)
    Basically, they've reinvented netnews(usenet) without the benifits of savings to the ISP and a multi-tier network.
    Every ISP I've had I would consider clueful has offered good netnews service, because it lets people download these kind of things without stressing their bandwith too much, IE they download it once, their customer can all download it from the internal network. The ISP becomes a file caching ultrapeer.
    Since some of the large providers these days don't provide netnews (Comcast bought out AT&T Broadband who did have netnews, and Comcast doesn't.. Sigh. I'll miss it.) this could still be quite useful.

    • Re:Yeah great.. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by TheSync ( 5291 )
      The problem is that Usenet feeds were approaching DS-3 speeds last time I checked (over a year ago), and are probably beyond that now.

      Satellite [cidera.com] is the only reasonably way to get a newsfeed these days (without paying $5,000-$10,000 per month for bandwidth), but even the satellite providers are running out of room using QPSK modulation on a single Ku-band transponder. Higher-order modulation would require a larger then 1m dish (well, maybe until DVB-S2 is standardized).
    • Basically, they've reinvented netnews(usenet)

      Actually there's an important difference. Every "channel" comes with absolute moderation. You can't post to a channel without the private key. The channel creator can either keep the key to himself, share it with a few trusted people, or set it free to the world.

      -
    • That's what it seems like to me. All of the features that, supposedly, distinguish this from Usenet can be had on Usenet without too much trouble. Instead of joining this new network, one can just set up a news-server that will
      1. have carefully picked -- possibly private -- news-groups; can't be harder than picking "channels".
      2. obey moderations and cancelations from reliable sources.

      The first will limit the bandwidth requirements. The second will take care of spam and authorizations... Don't invent the

  • A blog with unlimited bandwidth (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @09:08AM (#6170552)
    Oh dear, like there isn't enough crap around on the innurnet ...

    Methink someone should create a blog rating server that blog readers could vote in and people could consult before choosing to read a blog. Blogs are very low S/N ratio, simply because they implement the hey-I-can-talk-so-I-will-even-if-I-have-nothing-in telligent-to-say paradigm. Most of them are stupid, some are okay, and a precious few are really worth reading.

  • BitTorrent analysis - is it crap? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yoz ( 3735 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @09:21AM (#6170714) Homepage
    My first read of the comparison with BitTorrent just feels wrong. Unfortunately I haven't the time right now to go into it properly (being at work, with boss coming up every five minutes) but does anyone else get the impression that one of the premises (leading him to the conclusion that k2b is more scalable) is wrong?

    He says that it's based on most people have far greater download than upload bandwidth, so people lower down the chain are going to receive a trickle. Yet every time I've done a BT download it has maxed out my downstream bandwidth. My first guess is that he doesn't take into account people leaving their BT clients open once they've finished a download.
    • The comparison with BitTorrent is written by a person who is being very defensive of his creation. Combining the two ideas would really be cool. I hope they eventually see that, and overcome their emotions.

      The fact is, it would be a great idea to combine the idea of a secure distribution channel and a swarming distribution mechanism. If the protocol extended to permit a web of trust like PGP, then you could have groups of people who could send files to a secure, very fast, distribution channel.

      Now if we c

    • I'm a developer of a BT client [dyndns.org], so I know what I'm talking about here.. and I must defend BT :)

      Pretty much the entire analysis of k2b vs BT is wrong. Hell, even the diagram for how BT propagates is wrong.. it isn't a bunch of trees, it's a mesh (check the official BT site)! Everyone is connected to everyone.

      BT splits a file into smaller bite-size chunks (256kb - 1MB in size), and then sends these chunks arond. So Alice, instead of sending the whole 512MB file to Bob, only sends him the first 256kb chun

      • Burst! (Score:2)

        by yoz ( 3735 )
        Ooh, you're the guy who created my favourite BT client. Nice one. :)

        *takes opportunity to nag for combined bandwidth throttling in both directions*

      • It took me several minutes of surfing to figure out that your client is for the windows platform. Perhaps you could state that clearly, upfront?

        Just a suggestion.

    • Re:BitTorrent analysis - is it crap? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Webmonger ( 24302 ) on Wednesday June 11, 2003 @11:26AM (#6172318) Homepage
      Yes, it's crap.

      I'll follow the author and call the originating Torrent client a "server" but it's not really.

      There are a couple of unjustified assumption here.

      One is that the "server" can only serve one "client" at a time. This isn't a justified assumption. Several "client/servers" can download from a given Torrent "client/server" at once.

      The second assumption is that all clients join simultaneously. This circumstance is theoretically possible, but is pretty damned unlikely.

      The third assumption is that all clients can download at the same rate. I'm going to stipulate this for now, because I don't want to complicate things too much.

      If we assume a server can serve more than one client simultaneously, and that clients join at least one block apart, it goes like this:

      Alice joins first and downloads 2 blocks.
      Bob joins next, and downloads Alice's two blocks, plus two from the "server". At the same time, Alice downloads another two blocks from the server.

      Bob goes on to download 12 blocks from Alice and 12 from Alice.
      At the same time, Alice downloads 12 blocks from Bob and 12 from the server.

      When Charles joins, he downloads 14 blocks from Alice, 14 from Bob, and 14 from the server.

      See? If you assume start times are separated by at least one block, it doesn't matter that you can't download block Q from Alice before Alice finishes downloading it. You download it from Bob, Charles, or the server, or you download a different block.

      The net upload capacity of a Torrent is equal to the net upload capacity of clients that have downloaded one block. The net upload capacity of konspire networks is equal to the net upload capacity of clients that have received a complete upload.

      Bandwidth disparities are a separate problem. With Bittorrent, everyone's upload and download capacities are used to the max. With konspire, it's possible to have a T1 download from a 14.4, while another T1 uploads to a 14.4. This problem could be reduced by dividing files into --wait for it-- blocks and allowing --wait for it -- all clients to use all servers.

      Konspire is a neat idea, but I don't think it's technologically superior to a cron job that runs this:
      killall btdownloadheadless; btdownloadheadless --url http://example.com/latesttorrent.bt
    • The simplified view of BitTorrent that the author proposes supposes that everyone has a DSL line with identical properties. This is a false and misleading assumption. Some lucky users have bad-ass university broadband, other poor bastards are trapped on modems. The randomized, dynamic, slowest uploader dropping behavior of BitTorrent sees to it that fast clients will eventually find each other, while slow clients will be pushed down to others more appropriate to their level, even as speeds change. As fa
    • I agree. I haven't gone through it in detail yet, and as such I probably shouldn't say a thing. The author swerves horribly wrongly when he tries to equate a BitTorrent "timestep" with a K2B timestep. Let's say you're putting out something big, like the Linux distribution. A BT timestep is 250k of stuff...once that block makes it out, it begins to multiply across clients, and multiply some more. That's a lot of capacity. A K2B timestep occurs only when the entire file is communicated. And why does th
    • I think it is, too. Here's a note I sent him:

      I believe your analysis of BitTorrent is incorrect, in the sections with the timesteps.

      You have:

      timestep alice bob
      1 downloads chunk 1 from server waits
      2 downloads chunk 2 from server downloads chunk 1 from alice
      3 downloads chunk 3 from server downloads chunk 2 from alice
      4 (kindly) waits online downloads chunk 3 from alice
      5 disconnects disconnects

      It's more like:

      timestep: alice: bob:
      1 dls chunk 1 from server dls chunk 3 from server
      2 dls chunk 2 from serve

  • 1. Syncing Website Cache/Proxies
    2. Database replication (albeit one way)
    3. News forwarding (to prevent 9/11-style outages)

  • There's gotta be something in the DMCA about circumventing the Slashdot Effect. IANAL but somebody who is should check this out.
  • Does anyone have info on the required ports? The FAQ and wiki aren't very helpful. They say your network admin should set up a tunnel, but don't tell the network admin how to set up a tunnel!
  • ... for popular websites that update frequently with new material or items.

    Sites like fazed.net, or Slashdot, or elsewise would only need to send out updates. Everyone subscribed gets the news stories, media, Flash anims, music, whatever; Slashdot doesn't get Slashdotted; and with a back-up website for archive searching or live forums, a new distribution method might just come into its own.

    It's just a matter of time before someone who can't afford huge hosting costs but wants to publish regular, interesti
  • Looks like we're rediscovering C News with NNTP... moderated newsgroups are now called "channels" and we have security/authentication built-in with perhaps standard markup like HTML. (Usenet article propagation follows a spanning tree of the entire network, which to a first order approximation is log time.)

    I think it's about time! I always thought Usenet in the good old days (late 80s and early 90s) was a much better way than the web to chat/browse/build digital communities. Looks like this has the potentia

  • I believe that the analysis of how efficiently BitTorrent works breaks down on two points.

    First, it assumes that the BitTorrent clients disconnects immediately after downloading, while the k2b network is constantly connected. Obviously this makes MUCH more bandwidth available to k2b as the same number of people are connected but for longer periods of time. Secondly, it assumes that all clients have the same bandwidth available and that each client can only transmit data to one other client at a time. If B

  • YAP2PN (Score:2)

    by akb ( 39826 )
    Yet Another P2P Network.

    Looking the project over I don't understand why this project requires a new p2p network. Why not just publish an rss feed of the content in the channel with links or enclosures as magnet://, ed2k://, freenet, sig2dat://, torrent, etc. Then you just add the download option to anyone's choice of rss newsreaders.

    I think the concept of a prefetch channel idea applied to p2p is a good one but as p2p evolves this person's implementation may or may not keep up. The rss idea uses exis

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