Harvard Develops P2P Client that uses Bandwidth as “Currency”
Written by Ernesto on August 30, 2007Harvard researchers have teamed up with the Tribler team to work on a P2P client with BitTorrent support that uses bandwidth as a global currency. They released Tribler V4.1 yesterday.
Yes, Harvard, the richest University in the world recently started a new line of P2P research. They have an army of law professors to protect them, so unlike others, they must feel safe to do this controversial research in the land of the free and the home of the RIAA/MPAA.
The Harvard project is all about a fresh new approach. To be honest, have we seen a new trick since eMule and Bittorrent started? Things have clearly slowed down in the last years.
The Harvard researchers are currently working on one of hardest P2P problems, ensuring uploads. P2P dies or thrives depending on how much upload people donate. By introducing electronic “currency” for uploads they think they can make P2P HDTV Video on Demand possible. With the minor detail that we all have to switch to their client…
The latest version of Tribler enhances the standard tit-for-tat BitTorrent algorithms with something they call the give-to-get algorithm (PDF article). This new algorithm allows their users to benefit from a good ratio without using a central server like private BitTorrent trackers do.
Tribler users can still join every BitTorrent swarm and play the tit-for-tat game with old-school BitTorrent users. But, when they meet another Tribler peer they switch to give-to-get mode where the currency meter is running. This turns the Tribler network into a private Tracker network without the central server. This basically means, the more you share, the faster your downloads will go.
Every Tribler client keeps an eye on MByte counts of fellow peers. They gossip around about who is a leecher and who is a top dog, without the details of which Hollywood movie it was. The only information displayed about this in the GUI is a list in your profile of the “Top 10 Tribler Uploaders”. For the next version of Tribler they plan to turn that list of top dog uploaders into a decentralized trust system and enable users to correct typos and add tags to the content. In short, BitTorrent would go “2.0″.
But let’s first see if they can really handle network pollution and spam without a central server. It will be quite tricky to get such “Google PageRank” trust algorithms working in P2P.
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This sounds like bittorrent gone capitalistic, which is the last thing anyone needs. It creates a system wherein the haves (broadband users) get everything while the have-nots get screwed with no recourse.
Any advantage one might think this provides is outdone by the fact that you have to switch to their client. The “problems” it solves aren’t worth the effort.
A message from the Tribler team…
Nice to see that our idea has gotten a bit of attention. As it will be impossible to convince people. Please just wait a month or two and we hope to deliver better software.
We are improving a P2P client which has a build in understanding of people and Internet access asymmetry. Some private trackers have done a good job with ratio enforcement, other not. It is important to understand that is very difficult economic problem is at the hart of such systems. Most private trackers suffer from the problem which economists call the Babysitters problem… Details : http://arxiv.org/abs/0705.4110
(PDF, not a PNG)
Fortunatly not everyone needs to seed a lot. There are people who are willing to seed for a long time, just to be Number One in a highscore ranking of uploaders. So 1 guy gets social credits and gives away bandwidth for free to others.
I think it is important to facilitate the human side in P2P (more 2.0 buzz here)
Autospeed is a very good remark. I think an important improvement for todays client is more network-awareness. This is one of our research topics :
https://www.tribler.org/TriblerResearchSubjects
Johan.
what about those of us who WOULD contribute were it not for the fact that comcast clearly is blocking seeding?
I’ve had an idea for the second thing they mentioned. I hope they flesh it out as much as I have in my dreams, because I’d never have good enough programming skills.
whats new about this?
It’s always been like that on private servers, except they making it decentralized…
unless… this is the way they trying to get the user data since torrentspy refused to giveout its database
nice way to lurk in unsuspecting users
If the company’s will pay you some amount of “currency” to use your bandwidth to help share paid media won’t that violate some company’s TOS’s on bandwidth usage?
With all due respect, to Bram Cohen, isnt that an extreme example? I dont pretend to know much about the tech side of bittorrent, but dont the vast majority of users have roughly the same broadband speed?
@Bram:
As long as these guys aren’t going to use this system in an ultra-capitalistic way (and even then, they could get people to pay real money for extra download speed), I could see this thing working.
The share ratio measures not only a seeder’s potential for upstream, but also their altruistic nature. If you have a gigabit upstream (I’m jealous) and a tendency to leave your torrents seeding for a long time, then it’s in the interest of the swarm to get you the whole file right away so you can be turned into a seeder instead of a leecher who can only share a fraction of the whole file. The top dogs are valuable, so why not get them the file first so they can spread the love? As long as leechers aren’t penalized unnecessarily or harshly I don’t see the problem with giving a few benefits to altruistic seeders.
@Vemrion
That’s basically a description of super seeding mode (as seen in Azureus) right there. The original uploader keeps a record of which peers got which pieces, and once those pieces start to propagate among other leeches the ones with the best apparent share ratios get higher priority on the next round of fresh bits.
It’s the Amway of bandwidth.
This could be a valuable model to follow for pay sites as an alternative to hosting on servers.
Don’t charge by type of media, charge by ratio of download to upload.
Obscure but quality media is more expensive, unless it’s popularity explodes. Then as a sharer, you recoup losses as you upload. The more you upload the more you recoup.
Early new single Britney Spears sharers will rake it in as long as they share, but the bulk of people will pay relatively the same amount, with the stragglers having to pay a little bit more, unless there’s a new surge in popularity after others have pulled Brittney from the share list.
The system feeds the viral wave.
sounds great if ISP will give us as much up as down but till then it might be little tricky to get this going…
what is this “select a version” thing?
is there some sort of documentation about what the deference in the programs is?
Why wouldn’t everyone choose the one on the right side?
http://tv.seas.harvard.edu/
sorry. my bad.
” * Q2: What is the difference between the two download versions?
If you select the left download version, the Tribler client will upload as much as it downloads. This version is “balanced” in the sense that for every piece that you want to download you also have to upload a piece of the same size. If you select the right download version, the Tribler client will optimize the file sharing algorithm to speed up your downloads, minimizing your upload to others. While this improves the speed of your personal video downloads, other users will not be able to benefit from your videos as much as with the left version which then consequently reduces their download speed.”
http://tv.seas.harvard.edu/faq.php
@BRAM dead right
if i was anti-p2p i would set up a private site, invent the ratio, log my members and sell them to the **AA to collect dividends on legal threats
filesharing is NOT about currency of any kind. it is about participation and the small world connection. a bittorrent site is a node which brings people together in a uniquely economic sharing environment
bandwidth is such an unequal thing, only a capitalist could imagine to cash it in
ratio is what keeps bittorrent from proliferating. somebody said above there are a lot of stupid admins, yes there are. there are also a lot of anti-p2p admins
h33t dot com where filesharing is an education
@bram: couple of points.
Some people “share because they care”, but nowhere near the number who share because of ratio requirements.
Most often, a month old file will come down a hell of a lot faster from a private site than a public one.
Taking a release from just 3 days ago, a private site has 409 seeders with 29 leechers. A well known public site has 191 seeders and 203 leechers.
The private site has had 1969 downloads and the public 217.
The private site gets the file to more people, faster.
There’s also files still around on the private site from june 06 with 30-60 seeders.
A popular trilogy from july 1st 06 on a private site has 45 seeds, the same from the public site on december 23rd 06 has 23 seeds.
The private site can continue to get files out with more seeds over a year later.
Of course, we could argue distribution of linux ISOs, but then linux isn’t distributed on any private site I know of.
As for whether ratio is meant to be tracked or not, uploaded and downloaded are part of bittorrent.
Either they are there for a reason, or your protocol has completely useless parts (providing of course you really are bram).
The only reason each peer needs to report how much is uploaded/downloaded is so the tracker has a record of it. It’s certainly not information that has any bearing on the sharing between peers, which rely on their own tit for tat methods.
Either BT is flawed, or ratio tracking is built in and should not be complained about.
One final point. I’ve run a private site for more than 2 years now, and I’ve never once sold upload credit.
But, sales of upload credit are not sales of the users bandwidth to themselves.
Upload credit is used as a currency on private sites, and rarely ever is the total upload credit in the site defined solely by the amount that was actually uploaded.
Extra credit has to be injected into the system to allow it to function properly, as an exactly equal upload/download amount across the site will lead to a stalemate where nobody downloads.
Giving credit to those who donate is only one way of breaking the stalemate.
Many sites have contests running with a credit reward, or will award users who help in other ways with extra credit. Some give credit to all users on a regular basis.
Upload credit does not purely represent a users upload, nor does it mean a user has either uploaded bytes or donated.
Perhaps your criticism should be directed at those who use donations for their own personal gain, rather than any site that rewards those helping to keep the site alive.
I’m pretty sure you had to give your investors some kind of incentive :P
[quote comment="155676"]@Bram : No I guess this is the way to go to reduce excessive leeching on bit torrent.[/quote]
Sounds like a good idea to me
the ratio as it is used on private sites is not built into the protocol. the private site ratio is an aftermarket invention designed to reduce the cost of externalities created by human real world interaction with the protocol
the ratio can be demonstrated to suppress the proliferation of the protocol, reduce potential and nominal swarm sizes, and procreate injustice in the system because not all bandwidth users are created equal
there are better ways to hedge externalities e.g. education, community participation, and system rewarding quality targets (full descriptions, upload frequency, seed to completion rate)
the ratio is a cheap and dirty way to encourage filesharing, and in the end it does more damage than good by limiting the filesharing that happens. the bandwidth currency idea is grown from the ratio. and what inevitably follows a currency? taxs
for now, i leave it for the next man to describe the effect taxation has on an open market. Harvard’s approach is as you would expect from a capitalist business school, is this project perchance somebody’s phd thesis?
regardless, it is great positive step for the protocol when an institution as august as Harvard comes onboard, bodes well for our future
h33t dot com where filesharing is an education
Isnt that just the same as emules ranking system?
untill isp’s give a equal upload to download ratio or at least a close one then i cant see it being too popular, i think it would be a better idea if the bandwidth currency protocol only kicked in on low seeded torrents
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