Leading BitTorrent Admins Discuss The Future of BitTorrent
Written by Ernesto on November 13, 2007BitTorrent is by far the most popular way to transfer large files over the Internet, but where will it be five years from now? To get some answers to this question TorrentFreak asked the admins of Mininova, The Pirate Bay, IsoHunt and TorrentSpy what they think the future holds for BitTorrent and their websites.
It’s hard to predict the future, especially when it comes to technology. However, that didn’t put us off and we gave it a shot. We asked the people behind the 4 largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet to tell us how they envision the future of BitTorrent.
Despite the differences these four guys sometimes have, they all believe that no other P2P protocol performs better than BitTorrent at the moment. However, there’s no doubt that there will be changes in the future.
“Technology is always evolving and I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using a different protocol” says Justin from TorrentSpy. Peter (aka Brokep) from The Pirate Bay also thinks new protocols will take over eventually. “There will be other alternatives,” he said “Not necessarily ours but others will come.” Niek from mininova has more faith in BitTorrent but expects that the protocol will evolve rapidly, an opinion shared by Gary from IsoHunt.
Most of the admins also predict that mainstream production companies will eventually embrace BitTorrent and P2P and some of them hope to play an active role in the transition from old to new media distribution. Below you can read the full responses to the question I asked them: What do you think the future holds for BitTorrent and your website?
Niek from Mininova
I’m sure that we’ll see quite a few changes in the P2P landscape during the next couple of years.
From a business perspective, I notice that content producers recognize more and more the advantages of P2P distribution models (see e.g. the Pariah Island case). We all know that DRM is close-to-death, and major studios are now rethinking their business models, which is a good thing. We’d like to see Mininova play a major role in this shift, so stay tuned for some related announcements the coming weeks :)
Looking at the technical side of things, I expect that the BitTorrent protocol will evolve rapidly. See for example (audio and video) streaming, which is already possible and supported by several clients. Other interesting developments are BT-capable chips and TOR-like functionality. New protocols (like the one proposed by The Pirate Bay) might arise, but only time will tell whether these will substitute BitTorrent. Personally, I think BitTorrent can go a long way with some extensions and modifications.
Having said that, Mininova’s only focus won’t be BitTorrent: when the “next big thing” arises, we’ll definitely consider backing it.
Justin from TorrentSpy
I don’t really concern myself with the future of BitTorrent the protocol but I do care about peer-to-peer as a technology platform. Technology is always evolving and I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using a different protocol. However I firmly believe that the use of peer-to-peer for everything from data transfer to shared CPU power will take the Internet to the next level.
If we look at TV you will already see this trend. Media use in our society is transitioning from someone else deciding what you want (push) to something that allows what you want, when you want it (pull). Right now you turn the TV on at 8pm to watch your favorite show or skip channels until you stumble across something interesting. The future is a demand system where you can buy and watch an episode the network has “released” any time you want. Tivo is a first step in this direction.
Surprising as it may seem, this can be done pretty easily today, but is tied up in complex licensing schemes, conflicts between producers and distributors, and a wide array of selfish interests. Unfortunately many companies use their power and influence to halt and punish innovations they cannot think of ways to make money with. The monopolies tried to stop the VHS, DVD, and MP3 player, but thankfully failed when they took it to Court. Now Imagine for a second all the amazing products they did manage to squash…
Gary from IsoHunt
With so much momentum of content behind BitTorrent, I don’t see it going away anytime soon. Unless there’s a far superior and open protocol that is superior to BitTorrent in efficiency and convenience, for which BitTorrent is pretty hard to beat, I see we’ll like have new developments by extending the existing BitTorrent protocol. Although Bram Cohen talked about Merkle trees as a major revision in improving BitTorrent, and that didn’t go anywhere (at least not in open source). When BitTorrent Inc. do significant enough closed source changes to the protocol, BitTorrent will fork or new open protocols will rise.
For future of BitTorrent sites and IsoHunt, I’ve always been an advocate of open and public access. The more sites try to go underground, the more reasons the authority think there’s something dark at work and more they will take sites down by force - Oink and other private trackers for example. I’ve been blogging about P2P and its economic sense/legitimate use cases for a while (latest one on independent music), and I believe that’s what will give BitTorrent continued adoption and acceptance as a de-facto protocol and internet standard. It’s like the WWW: if people didn’t use the early web for other purposes than for porn (which was prolific in the web’s early days), the governments might have a different view and regulations on the internet now. It’s not what copyright infringement or “piracy” may be occurring, on P2P, BitTorrent or the internet. It’s what new use cases we nurture that benefits both end users and content producers, that will correct the stigma behind P2P and BitTorrent and accelerate their acceptance. Development on isoHunt and our other sites will for sure be done with this in mind.
Peter aka Brokep from The Pirate Bay
First of all, I don’t think it’s easy to predict the future. But I do think that it’s very important to be very promiscuous when it comes to the protocols we use. BitTorrent is currently the best but this might change. There will be other alternatives, not necessarily ours but others will come.
In five years things are probably very different from today, technology wise and politically. The latter thing is the biggest issue, not the technology. I would foresee that streaming is bigger and the companies still try to frame their users to use their locked down systems, maybe not DRM but rather streamed with their clients (like the BT DNA system) which will contain other copyright protection scams.
What do you think?
It’s great to hear the opinions and predictions of the leading BitTorrent admins, but what do you think the future of BitTorrent will be? Will we be all using a new protocol 5 years from now, will BitTorrent sites change, will TV and movie producers embrace BitTorrent?
Let us know!
Previously: Producer Thanks Pirates For Stealing His Film
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49 Responses
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dunno
I hope we have a highly advanced completely anonymous decentralized protocol (but still using tracker type sites, just we need a lot of them; some big, some small).
I hope the next protocol isn’t just “bittorent with our names on it”, but a radically different protocol.
My prediction? Major sites will fall, new sites will come up. We will mourn the loss and be thankful to all the fallen sites have given us, while trying to make the new sites the best they can be.
“Technology is always evolving and I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using a different protocol”
“Technology is always evolving and I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using a different protocol”
Did you mean, “I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using the same protocol” ?
In any case, with technology you can always expect the unexpected as long as people continue to show interest in a specific field. Hopefully we’ll have plenty of hard-working innovative minds on our side trying to concoct some new breed of file-sharing technology to facilitate our sharing endeavors. I am also hopeful that the industry also evolve and reconsider their seemingly now ineffective and outdated approach towards customers and development of new media.
[quote comment="212555"]dunno[/quote]
lmao
[quote comment="212575"]“Technology is always evolving and I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using a different protocol”
Did you mean, “I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using the same protocol” ?
In any case, with technology you can always expect the unexpected as long as
people continue to show interest in a specific field. Hopefully we’ll have plenty of hard-working innovative minds on our side trying to concoct some new breed of file-sharing technology to facilitate our sharing endeavors. I am also hopeful that the industry also evolve and reconsider their seemingly now ineffective and outdated approach towards customers and development of new media.[/quote]
i am sorry but are you retarded? the sentence was stated correctly
I forsee the next big thing will be streaming content. For example I can stream a music video from nuclear blast in 30 seconds, but it could take 20 minutes or longer to DL the video via torrent or less. but streaming a DL will be fast. Have a good night
I think that the SecureP2P project by TPB is looking pretty decent from the brief bit I have read about it (securep2p.net).
I would hope, especially after we have seen large trackers such as OiNK and Demonoid go under, that a decentralized tracker-free system can be developed. If this is not possible, a less tracker reliant system would also be an excellent start.
|v|aS
hydra :)
With the current state of the torrent community, I am more concerned and focused on now as opposed the next generation of p2p. It’s going to be difficult for the major trackers to find a way to make keeping the site open worth the barrage of threatening letters and law suits. And with more and more countries adopting copyright laws, the idea of moving to a more liberal nation is lessening.
There’s no reason that Mininova or a similar site can’t take over where Demonoid left off in terms of community. All it would take is requiring registration and tracking ratios. Maybe making the user interface for leaving comments a little simpler. Commenting on a torrent is very under-rated in my opinion. That is one of the things that I liked about Demonoid, the comments and the community!
I predict in 5 years every admin may possibly be in jail begging donations for their legal defense like OINK….sad but nevertheless a possibility…
Personally, I see BitTorrent or it’s predecesor as being faster, easier, used by more people and legal.
The government can’t always live with thir heads in the sand.
Something has to change.
Besdes, think how much faster internet speeds are going to be in a few years.
Hmm, in the beginning there was Morpheus, but that got slammed, abused etc. There you didn’t need to go to sites and see whats available, one server would tell you what is available for Morpheus. Then came Bitorrent, a safer way for the websites to provide data as the actual file isn’t on the server, but where can it go from there… Well I think based on laws, Bittorrent is pretty much unbeatable unless you like to threat server providers like the demonoid story. But on the other hand unlike Morpheus which was just one program. The tech. with Bittorrent broke off the concept of one program/server showing the availability of files into branches as in a torrent site would host their own torrent files so because of 1 person it wouldn’t ruin it for the community. So based on that unless there is an even better way to protect the providers I don’t think anything can defeat or surpass Bittorrent.
The darknet will take over the world in 2048.
Well I read in one of the more recent articles on TF that the next protocol will be more focused on the security of users and taking into account some new threats in todays world.
We’ll just have to see. People today still use Limewire even though the Bit Torrent Revolution has already hit, so whatever may change in the future will never bring an end to Bit Torrent. (Though you could argue that no one using Bit Torrent is an idiot so when the next big thing comes along, we’ll All flock to it).
lets just start with opening torrentspy up to US users
lets start with opening torrent spy up to US users
My Wishlist for future versions of bittorent:
1. Tor-like anonymous options enabled by default (everyone becomes an exit router & everyone gains from it). Donating of bandwidth as an exit router mandatory (i.e. min 25% of your bw).
2. Forced Encryption (header+payload) enabled by default.
3. Video (Read TV) Streaming through it a la delayed Sattelite TV access to all channels in the world (encrypted & annonymous).
4. Continuous developtment of Intelligent code to circumvent the toughest ISP throttling/blocking techniques out there. ISP throttling is likely to become and even greater threat to bittorent than the MAFIAA’s & CRIA’s of the world.
5. Expand the protocol to support other Internet protocols (i.e. Email, music streaming, tucows/linux/patching distros, etc) such that other unprotected protocols gain from the anonymity of bittorent, and the encryption. In return, ISPs have less reason to block it because it will be increasingly be used for legit reasons.
6. Allow for MD5 like encrypted signatures of people who upload torrents so that we can distinguish a real AXXO from a fake one (and also clean up 90%+ of all the fake torrents out there).
Beyond that, I wish Torrent tracker admins also increased security today:
1) All torrent sites should run ONLY on httpS (SSL). There’s no excuse not to (ok so it sucks up more CPU), but it kills ISP & law snooping.
2) Torrent site admins should continue to work together and develop BEST PRACTICES list for how to setup a torrent site, with special focus on security. For instance the following should be part of the list of step by step instructions:
a) How to configure HTTPS
b) How to run encrypted partitions on all your servers.
c) How to automatically delete all user related log files that could be used to identify users.
d) Establish secret code words between original senior site admins for the purpose of sending secret urgent messages (i.e. “Hey I’m going to 7/11 to grab a slurpee”)… which actually means “hey I got busted, delete everything & go hide”.
e) Any forum rooms and/or IRC sould all run over forced encrypted connections. There’s no excuse not to.
f) How to perform encrypted backups of key server configs to offshore secure sites.
I’m sure others can come up with even more ideas.
Anon787
[quote comment="212778"]My Wishlist for future versions of bittorent:
1. Tor-like anonymous options enabled by default (everyone becomes an exit router & everyone gains from it). Donating of bandwidth as an exit router mandatory (i.e. min 25% of your bw).
2. Forced Encryption (header+payload) enabled by default.
3. Video (Read TV) Streaming through it a la delayed Sattelite TV access to all channels in the world (encrypted & annonymous).
4. Continuous developtment of Intelligent code to circumvent the toughest ISP throttling/blocking techniques out there. ISP throttling is likely to become and even greater threat to bittorent than the MAFIAA’s & CRIA’s of the world.
5. Expand the protocol to support other Internet protocols (i.e. Email, music streaming, tucows/linux/patching distros, etc) such that other unprotected protocols gain from the anonymity of bittorent, and the encryption. In return, ISPs have less reason to block it because it will be increasingly be used for legit reasons.
6. Allow for MD5 like encrypted signatures of people who upload torrents so that we can distinguish a real AXXO from a fake one (and also clean up 90%+ of all the fake torrents out there).
Beyond that, I wish Torrent tracker admins also increased security today:
1) All torrent sites should run ONLY on httpS (SSL). There’s no excuse not to (ok so it sucks up more CPU), but it kills ISP & law snooping.
2) Torrent site admins should continue to work together and develop BEST PRACTICES list for how to setup a torrent site, with special focus on security. For instance the following should be part of the list of step by step instructions:
a) How to configure HTTPS
b) How to run encrypted partitions on all your servers.
c) How to automatically delete all user related log files that could be used to identify users.
d) Establish secret code words between original senior site admins for the purpose of sending secret urgent messages (i.e. “Hey I’m going to 7/11 to grab a slurpee”)… which actually means “hey I got busted, delete everything & go hide”.
e) Any forum rooms and/or IRC sould all run over forced encrypted connections. There’s no excuse not to.
f) How to perform encrypted backups of key server configs to offshore secure sites.
I’m sure others can come up with even more ideas.
Anon787[/quote]
Beautiful. Brilliant. These are the only important parts of next-gen P2P, and in the past three years I have seen zero development on any of these fronts. I can only hope that the R&D is going on underground, but reality calls for something more tangible.
With respect to additional suggestions, all that’s left is (I can’t remember the name for it), ability of the network to operate even with a significant proportion of corrupted/infected nodes.
But for now, the ISP-throttling DPI is a cat and mouse game, and in over three years, DPI has been advancing nonstop, whereas BT came up with a half-hearted “header encryption”. We are losing: developers save us!
I think exeem was a very good idea, just poorly executed. I think an exeem type piece of software is the future. There can still be sites that host the files that point to the downloads, but no centralized tracker..
Jordan
less seeded torrents should stick to you for a day-2 or until 0.1 ratio.
just dreamweavin
What I see for the future is things getting easier. Right now it isn’t that easy to download your favourite TV shows or new films (it’s not hard, but it’s not as simple as something like YouTube).
I already see progress in this area. For example, http://www.foxtorrent.com/ lets you download torrents directly in your browser, and sites like http://www.flixflux.co.uk and http://www.thesprawl.se organise torrents and link it with other data to make is much easier to find films and tv shows your after.
In the future I think the whole process will be automated. New TV shows and films will be automatically downloaded based on your preferences. It’s exciting times!
dumb Americans.. sigh
;’lsAOL0-Sew.’:sd v:”>cx’
c> c
XD
?xsd
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