BitTorrent to be Pimped by Nobel Prize Winning Theory
Written by Ernesto on October 19, 2007P2P researchers are working with the Harvard mechanism design group on implementing the “Nobel prize winning” mechanism design theory into their BitTorrent client. The ultimate goal is to keep people sharing as much as possible without imposing share ratio sanctions.
Last week the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to Hurwicz, Maskin and Myerson for laying the foundations of the mechanism design theory. Interestingly, a practical implementation of this theory being worked on by P2P researchers. They believe that the principles from the mechanism design theory can be used to motivate people to share.
TorrentFreak spoke to Dr. Ir. Johan Pouwelse, researcher on P2P technology at Delft University of Technology, who is currently working with the Harvard mechanism design group. He told us: “We use the Nobel prize winning theory as a recipe for improving BitTorrent.”
A lot of people probably wonder how an economical theory can improve the performance of a BitTorrent client, Pouwelse explains: “A structured scientific advancement of P2P file sharing was really lacking. With Mechanism Design we can go beyond the current trial-and-error methodology. We are working on a mechanism design based solution for all 9 elementary actions in P2P by using a distributed reputation system and mechanism that does not degrade to a single shot prisoners dilemma, such as BitTorrent tit-fot-tat”
What Pouwelse is basically saying is that the mechanism design theory will be used to improve download speed and to make sure that content will be available for the long run, even when it’s not really popular. This is especially useful in BitTorrent streaming solutions where the incentive to keep sharing is relatively low.
The Nobel-powered BitTorrent/P2P client supports both regular .torrent downloads, but can also be used to stream videos from YouTube and Liveleak. As we reported earlier, the client also enhances the standard tit-for-tat BitTorrent algorithms with a so called give-to-get algorithm where bandwidth is used as a currency.
It is good to see that – unlike what others claim – p2p innovation is still alive and kicking, even in the land of the free and the home of the RIAA/MPAA.
Previously: After Demonoid, Canadian Music Labels Take on BitTorrent Trackers
Next: Telecoms Outfit Banned From BitTorrent Advertizing
27 Responses
Let’s hope this time we can get by without people screaming that the Harvard team were *demanding* money instead of simulating it in their system!
Sounds good faster downloads is a must in my books
The client was uploaded 7 days ago and its optimized for PowerPC? WTF? lol
“For Mac (PowerPC, should work on Intel as well)”
No Reputation system will stop hit n runners
And why not, Section8? Ratio requirements stop them.
“a mechanism that does not degrade to a single shot prisoners dilemma” is, practically by definition, an economic-science way of saying “a system that stops hit and runners”
Economics, more so than many sciences, is exactly about how stuff works – which is why you can explain and define things like chemical bonding and natural selection with entirely economic terms. It’s abstract, but there are mathematical grounds for everything they do – if the guy’s equation (note: not the guy himself) says their mechanism should prevent unwanted behaviours, then it should go quite a long way towards it.
what a boring story..I have no comment really….zzzzzz
I’m all for it.
Ratio measurement is very nice, but there is not much incentive for peers to get it higher than 1.0 other than “the bigger your ratio is, the kinder you are”.
Where this really matters is on lower popularity torrents with only a few seeders. Several times I have had to leave a client open for a day waiting for a seeder. These torrents matter too – otherwise bittorrent wil only be good for the latest blockbusters and platinum albums.
It would also help on newly released torrents. With more people seeding above and beyond 1.0 at the begining, the torrent can flourish.
One major problem with long term reputation “memory”. 4 things uniquely identify a peer, IP, port, peer_id and info_hash. On most modern clients, at least the last 3 will change each time the client is started with a new torrent. With dynamic IP allocation, the first will change with each reconnect.
Unlike a tracker, the Harvard boys cannot use passkeys or compare the IP to the currently logged in user. They cannot say that the info they have stored for a peer actually belongs to that peer, or that a lack of info means the peer has never been seen.
Err this is not a good thing it is bad, bad Ernesto!!
Don’t make it sound like this is the revolution we’ve all been waiting for. I use my client for pirating so it’s no very good for me if someone tries to make me identifiable whatever I do… but well whatever floats your boat.
“and mechanism that does not degrade to a single shot prisoners dilemma, such as BitTorrent tit-fot-tat”
This is a false statement, bittorrent does not use a hard tit-for-tat strategy as you see it in the prisoner ’s dilemma scenario. It actually uses floating measures and optimistic unchokes prevent the “single shot”-ness.
If they get even such basic facts wrong… well… the question is how good their final product will be. Another issue is that seeds have nothing to base trust on, thus they can be cheated even within a trust metric via collusion attacks, and seeds are exactly what you’d have to fix to prevent leeching. peer-peer connections are already fairly leech-resistant, it’s the seeds that provide “free” bandwidth w/o measures to ensure fair resource allocation.
To: “The 8472″
Indeed Bittorrent is far more complicated then can be explained in a single-line-quote.
As proven by BitThief and BitTyrant the floating measures and newcomer strategy can be cheated.
Trust metics are a complicated field and collusion attacks are on the top of our research agenda. We specifically address the incentives for seeding. Details:
https://www.tribler.org/Give-To-Get
https://www.tribler.org/BarterCast
Johan.
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“A lot of people probably wonder how an economical theory can improve the performance of a BitTorrent client, Pouwelse explains”
The only people who would wonder this are the people that don’t know much about BitTorrent. Maybe they should read Bram’s paper _Incentives Improve Robustness In BitTorrent_ published at the _Economics of P2P_ conference. Then again, maybe tit for tat has no economic significance. Not!
The researchers should take another look. BT is clearly iterated prisoners dilemma. There are long term relationships with the peers you are connected to. If a defecting peer begins cooperating, then you’ll stop defecting and begin cooperating with them too.
and this is a “big” step how?
and to
Archie Lee Tullos
i hope that was a joke.
lets give the riaa and mpaa our home address yay!
lol
I frequent an Internet cafe where the number of minutes you get for each euro depends on how busy the cafe is. So, during prime time, I only get 30 minutes for 1 euro, but 1.5 hours for 1 euro during slow times.
In this way, some torrents will be more “valuable” than others. You can 400 seeders for 5 leechers, but may some of those seeders will be encouraged to seed other torrents if they got more “credit” for it. Those other torrents would be ones with few seeders or is a “torrent” being streamed.
Yeah let’s kick RIAA/MPAA in the balls!
IN THE BALLS!
Sorry guys Bram is a genius…
Not going to work…
Wtf? So I have to upload to download? That sucks, I can only upload @ 30kb/s tops, or else my network crashes.
Damn them.
Cautiously optimistic; any proposed “advancement” of the base BT mechanisms will be a hard sell, considering the already existing level of robustness and efficiency in the system. A form of universal reputation system would likely work really well, however the implications for anonymity makes it all very dodgy for most users…
get it right. there is no Nobel prize for economics
the prize is awarded by the “Swedish Bank prize in Memory of Alfred Nobel”
mechanism design is no more a discovery than your mother telling you to go to school
Nobel prize for that crap.
Methinks this will create more problems than it solves. As i understand it, it keeps the rarer torrents alive despite there being no/low no. of seeders. How exactly? The only way to do it would be to spread bits of the torrent across the network of bittorent users, even if the users are not aware of the file. In that case, each torrent being shared by you will also be treated the same. The problem is, and it is a big one: what will happen if the RIAA or other such organizations file suit against you. You are damned even if you are truly unaware of the fact. But the truly horrible fact is that in such a scenario, a mass trojan or virus can propagate instantly across millions of computers and crash the internet. Denial of service anyone, fake torrents by Media Defender anyone…
And another interesting development: http://www.turtle4privacy.org/new/
I’d prefer reading in my native language, because my knowledge of your languange is no so well. But it was interesting!
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