Lets Talk About BT v2

[Quarterquack]

F2F isn't any safer than P2P. In fact, it might be more dangerous since the responsibility is higher on every user's shoulders, and that the failure of one or more peers brings down an entire tree, as opposed to a single swarm.

[Intr4ns1t]

OK, so I guess my next question would be, does all the hardware have to be physically connected to work on/as a darknet? And wouldn't darknets come with their own risks, seeing as there is, afaict, NO control over the individuals on that network? What would prevent a torrent site from running on a darknet, beyond the end users being able to access it? I'm curious about that whole realm of networking, and why it isn't more prevalent in filesharing. Is it cost prohibitive? Forgive my laziness, but most of the good info I have found about darknets requires a higher level of knowledge re: syntax and vocabulary, as well as a more in depth understanding of the way computers connect to each other, than I possess atm.

[ca_aok]

You don't need to be physically connected. It could be done using either ad hoc wireless networks or existing internet infrastructure (darknets already exist in both manners). A darknet simply refers to a portion of the internet that's inaccessible from the outside and generally doesn't link back to the outside either. Sort of a miniature network within a network.

The control exercised over the darknet is based on who you allow to join, of course. There'd be issues with bad eggs in that system as well. You'd need additional anonymity layers as well, which already exist on the larger darknets (stuff like Freenet, etc).

What would prevent a torrent site from running on most of these anonymized solutions are several things:
1) Often these networks rely on F2F sharing, which makes growth difficult and makes new files hard to gain unless you've got links in the chain that are scene members.
2) Often these networks promote anonymity by using traversing several "nodes", aka other computers before actually accessing web data (i.e. the downloading files). The problem is that each computer in the chain is using their ISP's bandwidth to route this traffic, and slow machines become bottlenecks. Some of these networks attempt to avoid this by prioritizing a certain number of connections based on your speeds, but your speeds will still suffer drastically.
3) The additional encryption used by these sites adds a crapload of overhead to the data, which on a large torrent site that occasionally buckles under the load as is, would completely overload the site. They'd be forced to pay for beefier speeds and server specs.

Keep in mind that more anonymous filesharing solutions already exist. There are torrent trackers on Tor, I2P, and Freenet, with some additional protocol-specific filesharing software as well. There have been attempts in the past at other protocols and programs as well, like WASTE. But at the end of the day, speed, content, and efficiency trump the needs for security for most filesharers.

[Intr4ns1t]

You don't need to be physically connected. It could be done using either ad hoc wireless networks or existing internet infrastructure (darknets already exist in both manners). A darknet simply refers to a portion of the internet that's inaccessible from the outside and generally doesn't link back to the outside either. Sort of a miniature network within a network.

The control exercised over the darknet is based on who you allow to join, of course. There'd be issues with bad eggs in that system as well. You'd need additional anonymity layers as well, which already exist on the larger darknets (stuff like Freenet, etc).

What would prevent a torrent site from running on most of these anonymized solutions are several things:
1) Often these networks rely on F2F sharing, which makes growth difficult and makes new files hard to gain unless you've got links in the chain that are scene members.
2) Often these networks promote anonymity by using traversing several "nodes", aka other computers before actually accessing web data (i.e. the downloading files). The problem is that each computer in the chain is using their ISP's bandwidth to route this traffic, and slow machines become bottlenecks. Some of these networks attempt to avoid this by prioritizing a certain number of connections based on your speeds, but your speeds will still suffer drastically.
3) The additional encryption used by these sites adds a crapload of overhead to the data, which on a large torrent site that occasionally buckles under the load as is, would completely overload the site. They'd be forced to pay for beefier speeds and server specs.

Keep in mind that more anonymous filesharing solutions already exist. There are torrent trackers on Tor, I2P, and Freenet, with some additional protocol-specific filesharing software as well. There have been attempts in the past at other protocols and programs as well, like WASTE. But at the end of the day, speed, content, and efficiency trump the needs for security for most filesharers.

Thank you for the concise explanation ca_aok

[1000possibleclaws]

It's a circular narrative in many ways, where it kind of sums up the human race in a time capsule.

[Intr4ns1t]

It's a circular narrative in many ways, where it kind of sums up the human race in a time capsule.

Yup. Which, in conjunction with something in another thread here, makes me move to the question, what exactly is the point of a multi-terabyte buffer? I mean really? (not directed at you 1kClaws(?) )

I mean, I get it if you're an uploader, solely dedicated to a particular site, it's just incidental for those folks, but why does any user need to have 20tb of buffer anywhere? It smacks of a wasted account in my current viewpoint. How many times do you see users on all these private trackers with 2gb downloaded and 58pb uploaded?

I'm actually surprised more sites don't punish gross overseeding like that, after reflecting on it more. It would definitely help ratio economies, to keep a more level playing field, but then people would complain about speeds, but, they'd be downloading things. At least the ones who are there for the tracker, not the status. It'd surely make it a lot easier to get rid of the dead weight.

[chrisbeebops]

I'm actually surprised more sites don't punish gross overseeding like that, after reflecting on it more. It would definitely help ratio economies, to keep a more level playing field, but then people would complain about speeds, but, they'd be downloading things. At least the ones who are there for the tracker, not the status. It'd surely make it a lot easier to get rid of the dead weight.

It more pushes towards the failings of a ratio economy. It assumes that the value of all uploaded data and all downloaded data is the same. In reality, this is not the case. Brand new content is worth less than old and rare content, since new content can be had from any number of trackers and other places at the same time, while old content is much harder to find and may only be available on a single tracker.

Because everything is worth the same, it is the greatest incentive to seed whatever gives the best upload per unit of storage. And so people constantly dump old content in favor of new content with more leechers. On ratio trackers, it gives users with high speed connections and servers even greater incentive to delete files within a few days or hours after the initial surge has passed.

In reality, the only people who need high speed servers are uploaders, since the limiting factor in almost all private tracker swarms is the initial seed. Instead of rewarding users for whoring upload on new content, we should be rewarding users who seed older content for a long time. Perhaps then fewer users will waste their money needlessly on overpriced slots on oversold servers.

[IdolEyes787]

I'm actually surprised more sites don't punish gross overseeding like that, after reflecting on it more. It would definitely help ratio economies, to keep a more level playing field, but then people would complain about speeds, but, they'd be downloading things. At least the ones who are there for the tracker, not the status. It'd surely make it a lot easier to get rid of the dead weight.

It more pushes towards the failings of a ratio economy. It assumes that the value of all uploaded data and all downloaded data is the same. In reality, this is not the case. Brand new content is worth less than old and rare content, since new content can be had from any number of trackers and other places at the same time, while old content is much harder to find and may only be available on a single tracker.

Because everything is worth the same, it is the greatest incentive to seed whatever gives the best upload per unit of storage. And so people constantly dump old content in favor of new content with more leechers. On ratio trackers, it gives users with high speed connections and servers even greater incentive to delete files within a few days or hours after the initial surge has passed.

In reality, the only people who need high speed servers are uploaders, since the limiting factor in almost all private tracker swarms is the initial seed. Instead of rewarding users for whoring upload on new content, we should be rewarding users who seed older content for a long time. Perhaps then fewer users will waste their money needlessly on overpriced slots on oversold servers.

That's a very good idea ( the idea of older torrents being "worth" more than new ones ) and I think you mentioned it in another thread, unfortuantely the sites that need it the most - the ones with the greatest initial speeds are the ones that would benefit from it the least - being as they are largely scene and most there only for the newest and the latest.

Btw TVTorrentz takes an entirely opposite approach and gives bonus to early upload since initial speed ( due to low membership/activity) is more a problem there than ( because of their "adoption" system) torrent lifespan. The adoption part means you gain progressively from seeding .It also means that if you fail to consistently do so over the course of time you will be disabled whatever your upload speed is.

@Intr4ns1t the TB buffers is merely people adapting to surviving ( or thriving in) an archaic system ( temporary seedbox - build buffer - leech - rinse - repeat ) Either that or it stems from the disparity in present home internet speed from country to country and without selfless action ( how often does that happen with bt?) on the part of the better equipped is largely unavoidable.
Maybe removing userclasses and viewable stats other than average seed time would help.

[chrisbeebops]

@Intr4ns1t the TB buffers is merely people adapting to surviving ( or thriving in) an archaic system ( temporary seedbox - build buffer - leech - rinse - repeat ) Either that or it stems from the disparity in present home internet speed from country to country and without selfless action ( how often does that happen with bt?) on the part of the better equipped is largely unavoidable.
Maybe removing userclasses and viewable stats other than average seed time would help.

No matter what the game is (with the current game being ratio on most trackers), people will step up to play the game and to play it themselves. In ratio trackers, the game is ratio and upload, and so the way to be the best is to buy a server and seed new uploads from there.

In order to compete with servers, home users must seed for longer and longer in order to recover the credits spent on each download, since they will undoubtedly upload less during the initial swarm. Unfortunately there are limits to how long a person can seed releases... limits in storage space, not able to seed 24/7, etc. Plus seeding 24/7 has an added cost, the cost of electricity to run a computer for longer and longer hours, and the added wear on the computer parts. Unfortunately, the current seedbox culture has created a vicious feedback loop for users with slow upload speeds. In order to survive, a user with a slow upload speeds may consider purchasing a seedbox. This in turn means more peers with very fast connections, making it even harder for home users and forcing many more of them to use seedboxes.

As the current culture stresses high upload amounts and ratio, users will inevitably seed what is likely to give them the highest return on investment (investment being the money they paid for their seedbox), which means they will only seed new content for a short amount of time, then dump the content once the speeds drop off. It has become so bad that on some trackers, there are more seedbox peers than home users, with seedbox peers struggling to get a 1:1 ratio against even faster seedboxes. Wasted time, wasted bandwidth, wasted money.

Meanwhile look at how many sites are struggling to survive because of donations... not even new sites, but sites which have been around for a few years and still have staff pitching in 50% or more of the site's costs. Sites that many people take for granted... that they will happly use their 20euro/month... 50euro/month... or even more expensive seedbox on, but wouldn't even consider donating 5 euro a month or even 5 euro a year to keep the site going when donations haven't come close to covering sites costs. (I'll avoid mentioning any site names here as I think the money aspect is too complex to touch on in this thread.)

Sites should instead be creating a game where whoring upload on new content is not beneficial to one's status on a tracker, and seeding content for a long time (especially seeding content that no one else is) is extremely beneficial to one's status. Although there will be some users who will continue playing for the whoring game, the majority will find it more beneficial to themselves and the site in the long run to not buy a seedbox and instead invest in another hard drive if necessary, increasing the number of torrents they can seed and helping retention on the tracker.

[Intr4ns1t]

Sites should instead be creating a game where whoring upload on new content is not beneficial to one's status on a tracker, and seeding content for a long time (especially seeding content that no one else is) is extremely beneficial to one's status. Although there will be some users who will continue playing for the whoring game, the majority will find it more beneficial to themselves and the site in the long run to not buy a seedbox and instead invest in another hard drive if necessary, increasing the number of torrents they can seed and helping retention on the tracker.

So, something like, no upload or download is counted during the minimum seed time, them give credit for the overage? I have toyed with the idea with a trafficless tracker in the past, but I just can't see it ending up as anything other than a shtick. I have long pondered how to get rid of the idle wastrels that inhabit sites, and is a good portion of the reason I was so firmly behind the total traffic idea, but it's possible to call that a failed method in that it didn't encourage people to leech their asses off, which was the point. Even when you give people carte blanche, they want more. Like carte blanche and an ice cream cone, on a jet, flying to the moon, with solid diamond lensed sunglasses. :sigh: