Comments on: BitTorrent and free-riders

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:06:16 +0000

Nature works fine because of its fair “Protocol”.

By: VOICEofREASON

VOICEofREASON — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 15:29:48 +0000

I have been following all sorts of exploits in software and services for ten years. I am also a programmer. all I’ve learned is that good software/protocols/services comes from three things.

1) Good ideas from at least one dedicated coder
2) Open source projects. sourceforge and the GNU being a good example
3) constant hacking and exploitation of the software and services

yes breaking things and exploiting them can only make them stronger
if you don’t someone else will do it for you and not share what they learned
creating a situation where you are vulnerable AND you don’t even know it

its also true in my work as a network administrator and IT security guy

if I set up a network or server, its my job to spend some time breaking in to and crashing or owning my own machines systematically. if i’m successful I have a good idea how to fix the problem and also test to make sure its fixed

“the art of war is not in predicting that your enemies are unlikely to attack. the art of war is to understand them and know that no matter when or how they attack, you will be more than prepared by force or any other means”

so all I can say is let it creep up on you and watch bittorrent get owned like all file sharing progs before it

start an open source project to make the most abusive client possible and distribute it. while at the same time starting a project to implement new smart trackers and smart clients. when everyone is converted to smart clients and smart trackers, there will be no chance for people to abuse the network for a very long time.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 19:25:25 +0000

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:06:30 +0000

Completely agree.
Looking at this from another ( albeit simpler ) angle
Why is the system not dominated by Free Riders ?
Very simple answer - there is no long-term personal benefit in doing so !
For those that want the Infrastructure to survive and consideing the “good side” of human nature - it just benefits everyone to co-operate - it’s almost intuitive - which is its beauty.
There’s just something “bigger” about BitTorrent - bigger than being able to get a hold of what you want. Bigger in the sense that you know you’re contributing to individals ( with a few obvious exceptions ) who are/were in exactly the same situation you are/were - almost as if you’re looking into a multi-dimensional mirror where you know what their intentions/motives are. Almost “Borg-like”.
Gates once said “Technology is a great-leveller - it strips away all political repression. BitTorrent strips away ALL repression - PERIOD and from an individual’s perspective it comes down to something very human and very very simple. MORALITY !
In my lifetime, I’ve never seen a system like it and for me at least it’s the biggest evolutionary software jump I’m ever likely to see.
I remember the first time I came across BT ( pretty much when Bram initially released the Mainline client ). I researched it for a bit - and at some point in the process my jaw just dropped when I started to understand the enormity of what I was looking at and where it was going to go and also the social issues it was going to create.
BitTorrent is/was here to stay for good. The authorities can try all they want to protect the vested interest systems - but ultimately they’ll lose - simply because it’s human nature to not want to be dictated to from above !

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:00:53 +0000

I disagree.
The point of trackerless torrents seems fairly obvious - allows swarms to continue even if trackers go down - what good is a ratio system if you can’t connect to the tracker/obtain peer lists in the first place ?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 17:19:55 +0000

here’s a way to cheat with bitcomet
http://venom.sweblog.net/Pages/The-Perfect-Bittorrent-Ratio-Cheat/47.html

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 03:34:17 +0000

Why we should not shun pirates:
They steal somebody’s work, ok. But I never heard somebody going broke because of that. Yes, it’s immoral to steal, but it’s coded within the animal nature. When one has high expectation from oneself, he won’t steal, but will proudly fairly aquire the desired item. When one cannot afford something, he may try to steal or unfairly take that item. In case of material goods this is embarassing and can be avoided. There is a constant stream of unfairly taken items from the wealthy ones to the poor ones, and an equally constant stream from the poor ones to the wealthy ones. The stolen items cost less when launched into a poorer market segment, the stolen intelectual properties helps the poor learn and gather experience with a lesser cost than when legally acquiring the item. They may, in turn, teach others, at a similarly lesser cost, or they may accede on a superior social or cultural step. They may become productive and reliable and from that moment, their pride won’t let them unfairly take items (let’s not call it “stealing” anymore). The “risen” individuals may even contribute to the wealth of the community in some way or another. Consider piracy a subvention (or “market efficiency dillution”) directed to the future employers, or consider it a vector for equally distributing opportunities.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 03:09:29 +0000

Doing something driven by an altruistic reason pushed the humanity towards evolution, sometimes with oneself being more or less sacrificed on the way. We all sacrifice our days, or nerves, our bandwidth, our money, for the benefit of the community, that community being formed by us. Freeriding may mean saving something for the moment, but losing something at another time, for nothing… When behaving altruistic (on context) we deliberately lose something in exchange for the seeked goal. When behaving selfish we have no control upon what and when we lose. At another time, in another context…

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 21:51:58 +0000

“If one considers an ‘animal’ to be a ’seeder’ and the ’species’ to be the ’swarm’ then this makes 100% absolute sence.”

First off learn to spell, secondly, a definition is a definition it’s not supposed to be analogous.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 16:21:52 +0000

TFT is the behaviour of the mainstream BT clients. Anyone who actually implements a selfish client has no incentive to distribute it (as doing so would restrict their ability to free-ride).

Accordingly, selfish behaviour is going to be limited to those few individuals that have both the inclination and ability to develop a selfish client that isn’t detected by the TFT algorithms of the mainstream clients. Given that a lot of broadband plans don’t charge for upload bandwidth, everyone else is just going to set a reasonable upload limit (high enough to get good download speeds, low enough that you don’t intefere with other applications over the link), and not worry about the problem any further.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 07:39:53 +0000

Very nice article.

I think people continue to share unselfishly for a selfish reason.
If you download a file at 100 kbps, you would be thankful for the great connection and immidietly understand that it only is a great connection because of the “unselfish”. So you do your part to help the network that helps you.

It’s like honor amongst thieves that you hope one day will be honorable to you.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 04:08:48 +0000

The correct answer is because its not worth the effort, why go through all that trouble to save, what? a couple GiB upload at best, when its easy enough to simply limit a bit, although you might get less download speed.
When people want something they do not care how they get it. If BT works they will use it, all they do is download a .torrent and wait.
If people are worried enough about it to go through the trouble than(this is cliche but oh well..) they should get a life, and find something usefull to do. Advice the authors should take as well.

ps; Let me guess, their next article is titled “How to write bullshit, and why we do”.

- Kattana

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 03:30:30 +0000

…that someone that criticizes something would at least do it knowledgeably.

First of all, your “especially the second instance” comment is more or less worthless, as a word with multuple definitions still has only 1 meaning. Thus a word could theoretically have 2 completly unrelated definitions, and if it were used such that the first of its definitions made sence in context, it is not the wrong word to use simply because its other definition makes no sence.

Next, I think that both definitions apply nearly perfectly. If one considers an ‘animal’ to be a ’seeder’ and the ’species’ to be the ’swarm’ then this makes 100% absolute sence. I do believe that a person is an animal, and that a seeder is a person. Don’t get fooled by the words in the definition (which is written weakly anyway.) Plus, every dictionary i’ve seen indicates this definitions as a zoological term, meaning that your inclusion of it here is extremely pointless.

And how about that first definition? Seeding is unselfish. Others benefit from seeders uploading. Benefit == Welfare. How hard is it?

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 02:00:36 +0000

Thanks to Hales and Patarin for the paper, and thanks to p2pnet for posting it complete.

Morg

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 01:51:24 +0000

“because most users can not actually do it”

or just don’t want to bother….

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 21:07:17 +0000

The premise of this paper is that users can actually code their own clients and implement the cheating mechanism. Most people out there simply download a client and search for what interests them, having never programmed a single line in their lives. To me it seems that the answer to the question posed in the title is “because most users can not actually do it”

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 21:15:51 +0000

…that from an educated paper (or seemingly so) that they would use the proper word to describe a behaviour

altruism
1 : unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others
2 : behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species

I don’t really think this fits the motives or actions of any bittorrent user, especially the second instance.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 20:50:35 +0000

One thing you have overlooked is that in order to effectively cheat, the cheating strategy must be kept secret. Deliberately releasing a ’selfish’ bittorrent client would likely draw the ire of other P2P developers, and if such a program became popular, it would inspire attempts to detect it and exclude it from the swarm. The “master-slave” scenario only works as long as the slaves remain ignorant of the masters strategy.

However, nearly all bittorrent clients allow the user to limit the maximum upload rate, so people can easily decide to be less alturistic by limiting their upload rate. The question is why the majority do not. Perhaps it is because doing so will prompt at least some level of retaliation in the form of slower downloads. Thus even if restricting upload rate results in overall bandwidth savings, it wastes the user’s time. For an impatient user, this is not a good trade-off. It would appear that many users are willing to be fairly generous with upstream bandwidth in exchange for slightly faster downloads, thus there appears to be an excess of altruism when measuring only the bandwidth cost.

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 14:38:12 +0000

The newer Azureus is implementing a Distributed Tracker, which once connected, allows you to be disconnected from the tracker, yet still be a part of the swarm… This would seem to possibly have a negative effect on the community, in that it allows Users to bypass tracker-side Ratios etc…

By: Reader's Write

Reader's Write — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 14:25:47 +0000

This is an interesting paper, one that, for a change, goes beyond the technical details and takes social implications into account. I really enjoyed reading it.

One little bit about BitTorrent’s TFT:
About 30% of the unchokes that are usually done are optimistic unchokes, so if a freeloader is connected to about 3 times as many hosts, he will be able to get the same performance just by attaching himself to more good nodes. (As a matter of fact, that is what I have my own client do).