P2p file sharing is thriving
p2pnet.net News:- Music industry claims that its ongoing sue ‘em all legal war against file sharers is resulting in a diminution of file sharing have been condemned in a new report.
Is P2P dying or just hiding? – asks a paper slated for presentation at IEEE Globecom 2004 in November-December 2004.
Neither. P2p file sharing and the p2p networks are thriving and in plain sight for anyone who cares to look, as p2pnet has been saying since Day One.
Or as the paper states: “P2P traffic has never declined; indeed we have never seen the proportion of p2p traffic decrease over time (any change is an increase) in any of our data sources.”
We’ve been wondering when the mainstream media will finally wake up to the fact they’ve been well and truly had, coming and going, by the Big Four record label cartel, represented in the US by their mouthpiece, the RIAA?
It remains an open question, but it’s far from being academic.
Big Music’s efforts to turn back the p2p file sharing tide have resulted directly in untold worry and misery for 5,700 Americans and their families, not to speak of their friends and relatives.
Not one of these innocent men, women and, Yes, children, has ever been found guilty of anything in a court. And yet the RIAA (Recording Indutry Association of America) uses them to claim that by suing them, it’s stopping file sharing on the p2p networks.
We recently published the latest Big Champagne statistics which prove incontrovertably that file sharing is on the rise – a position we’ve maintained since Day One.
In September, an average of 6,784,574 file sharers were online at any given moment. By October 15, the number had already reached 6,729,430.
Now the study, by CAIDA ( Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis), SDSC (San Diego Supercomputer Center) and the University of California at San Diego and Riverside, says:
“In general we observe that P2P activity has not diminished. On the contrary, P2P traffic represents a significant amount of Internet traffic and is likely to continue to grow in the future…
“… RIAA behavior notwithstanding.”
CAIDA sponsors include Cisco, DARPA, the US Department of Energy, Sun Microsystems and the US National Science Foundation, endace and WIDE.
In its introduction, the paper declares:
“Recently, popular media sources have reported a sharp decline in peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic during the last year, with user population dropping by half. This assertion is in direct contrast to the constant increase of P2P activity over the last years. The decline has been attributed to legal issues most loudly articulated by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). RIAA reports suggest that the overwhelming threats of copyright lawsuits and fines have stalled the growth of file-sharing networks. Have we reached the end of the P2P revolution as we know it?
“In this paper we challenge the stated P2P reports and their conclusions, emphasizing the fact that measurements of P2P traffic are problematic. First, measurement methodologies of these analyses are usually not disclosed. Second, the studies are limited to only a small set of two or three traditional file-sharing networks, and yet they unabashedly draw conclusions for the future of P2P file-sharing networking as a whole.
“In reality, current file-sharing networks (including private P2P networks) provide users with a variety of options. Furthermore, an increasing number of P2P networks intentionally camouflage their traffic. Newer versions of P2P protocols can flexibly use any port number, even port 80, traditionally used forWeb traffic.
“We no longer enjoy the fleeting benefit of first-generation P2P traffic, which was relatively easily classified due to its use of well-defined port numbers.
“This paper sheds doubt on the claim that P2P traffic is declining.
“To do so, we develop a framework and heuristics to measure camouflaged P2P traffic. We also provide the first estimate of the percentage of P2P traffic under non-specified ports for eight different P2P protocols. We use data collected at two different OC48 (2.5Gbps) links of Tier1 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in 2002 through 2004. Our specific contributions include:
- In our traces, P2P traffic volume has not dropped since 2003. Our datasets are inconsistent with claims of significant P2P traffic decline.
- We present a methodology for identifying P2P traffic originating from several different P2P protocols. Our heuristics exploit common conventions of P2P protocols, such as the packet format.
- We illustrate that over the last few years, P2P applications evolved to use arbitrary ports for communication.
- We claim that accurate measurements are bound to remain difficult since P2P users promptly switch to new more sophisticated protocols, e.g., BitTorrent.
The paper also states that it uses the terms P2P and file-sharing interchangeably, “although filesharing is only a subset (but typically vast majority) of P2P traffic”.
Filesharing is only a subset (but typically vast majority) of P2P traffic.
At last, someone has got it – music and movies are only the tiny tip of the p2p iceberg.
The paper concludes:
“This paper emphasizes two main points. First, P2P is here to stay. Our link level measurements show that P2P traffic is at least comparable to last year’s levels, if it hasn’t increased. An increase in P2P activity over the same period has been observed in at least one study, and one user survey. Second, measuring P2P traffic becomes problematic with conventional measurement methodologies resulting in underestimating P2P traffic.
“The use of non-standard, arbitrary ports is the first level of complication. In addition, packet encryption will eventually make payload heuristics inapplicable.
“The significance of these observations is multifaceted. Due to space limitations, we can only highlight the more direct effects.
“P2P users vs. the entertainment industry. According to our results, the P2P battle seems to be entering a new phase with the P2P community making its second comeback. The first comeback was the switch from the easy-to-locate Napster, to distributed Gnutella-like protocols. Thus, locating a single responsible entity became impossible. The industry then relied on detecting P2P traffic. Now, the users take a step further by making P2P traffic hard to identify.
“Network economics. The increase in P2P traffic is a mixed blessing for end-user ISPs. P2P fuels the demand for home broadband (e.g., DSL) connections; however, the fixed monthly fee paid by home users may not cover the ISP’s expenses caused by volume-based charges of upstream providers: flat rate at the network edge is in direct conflict with usage-based charges imposed by carriers.
“Another trend that is currently gaining momentum is an intent to directly manipulate P2P applications into desirable traffic patterns, e.g. exchanging most of the data inside the ISP’s infrastructure.
“This trend may result in ISPs competing to provide better bitrates for rate-aware applications like BitTorrent, in accordance with their economic relations (upstreams pushing more traffic to customers and customers trying to minimize traffic exchanged with upstreams.)
“Breaking the asymmetrical bandwidth assumption. If P2P traffic continues to increase and legal complications are overridden, the P2P paradigm will bring dramatic changes in supply and demand in edge and access networks. Bit rates of many access links, in particular for DSL and cable modems, are currently provisioned asymmetrically with significantly lower upstream bandwidth. This provisioning was based on the expectation of users downloading much more data than they send upstream. The relevance of such technologies will be challenged and their market share will dwindle if alternative broadband technologies can offer comparable upstream and downstream performance.
“The effect of P2P could propagate from the access points upward the network hierarchy to Tier 2 and even Tier 1 ISPs creating the need for more peering among ISPs. Current practices require balanced bidirectional load among peers, much easier to achieve with symmetric link utilizations as the norm. There is no doubt that the P2P paradigm will change Internet engineering as we know it today. Given the observed trends, the only remaining question is when, not if.”
Download a .pdf from p2pnet here, or from CAIDA here.
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See:-
well and truly had – New p2p file sharing stats, p2pnet, October 23, 2004
October 27th, 2004 at 4:56 pm
It is funny how the number has risen. According to basic mathematics:
6,784,574 (Sep 2004) > 6,729,430 (Oct 2004)
So the actual number has declined:
In September, an average of 6,784,574 file sharers were online at any given moment. By October 15, the number has risen to 6,729,430.
October 27th, 2004 at 5:17 pm
Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.
Given that the 6,729,430 was only up until the middle of October, not the end of it, there’s little doubt the number will be greater by the end of the month. We shall see : )
November 7th, 2004 at 7:36 pm
What the RIAA doesn’t understand, is, many people have, who weren’t before, using P2P networks ONLY because their friends were getting lawsuits. If it had not been for these lawsuits, they would be still be buying CD’s. Now, there getting them for free. Hope the RIAA is happy for what they’ve done.