Will BitTorrent Sites Become Obsolete?
Written by Ernesto on May 31, 2008Researchers from several Universities are currently working on a search technology that could make BitTorrent sites obsolete. While the idea of a completely decentralized filesharing network is not new, there are some downsides that are often overlooked.
BitTorrent may be decentralized, but a large part of the BitTorrent community still relies on centralized websites and trackers. These trackers and torrent sites are considered to be the Achilles heel of the BitTorrent hydra.
At the moment, the top three BitTorrent sites host are handling the majority of all BitTorrent users, and even worse, The Pirate Bay tracks well over 50% of all public torrent files. BitTorrent has welcomed many new users over the past three years, and we are now in the uncomfortable situation where the downtime of one of the larger sites may cause problem for the others, simply because they can’t handle the traffic.
This is exactly what happened last month when Mininova was offline for a day due to a hardware problem. Mininova has well over three million visitors a day, these people went to other sites while Mininova was down, and this increase in traffic got some sites in serious trouble. The question is: Is there an alternative?
The answer to this question is yes and no. A solution to the tracker problem that works pretty well is DHT, or “trackerless torrents”. With DHT you can still connect to other people who are downloading the same file, even when the tracker for that torent is not working properly. Thanks to DHT, people were able to download torrents that were tracked by Demonoid.com, up to six months after the tracker went down. The downside of DHT (the mainline version) is that not all clients support it, and that it is maintained by one company, BitTorrent Inc.
Replacing BitTorrent sites is even more complex. How do you find torrents when there are no BitTorrent search engines that store them? A possible solution to this problem comes from researchers of Cornell University, who developed an Azureus plugin named Cubit. The Cubit plugin allows you to find torrents, and doesn’t require a centralized server as BitTorrent sites do. You basically search for torrent files among other peers, similar to Kazaa and Limewire. An interesting concept, but unfortunately, this also has a lot of downsides.
Cubit opens the gates for floods of spam, because it misses one key feature: moderation. Since BitTorrent has become so popular, anti-piracy organizations like MediaDefender and BayTSP are constantly uploading fake files, and scammers are uploading malware and spyware, often wrapped in fake media players.
To most people is goes unnoticed, but sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay have a dedicated team of moderators that remove hundreds of fake and scammy torrents a day. Together these moderators remove more than a thousand torrents per site, day in and day out. In addition, most BitTorrent sites also use IP-filters to prevent known scammers and anti-piracy outfits from uploading their content again.
So, for now, Cubit is not yet going to replace BitTorrent sites, as they need to address the lack of moderation first. Tribler, another application that is developing a BitTorrent site replacement that seems to be far ahead of Cubit, already implemented such moderation features and spam filtering. Branded as the “social” BitTorrent client, is also has community features that many people appreciate.
In sum, I think it is safe to conclude that BitTorrent as it is has some weak spots that could cause problems in the future. The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt – the top three BitTorrent sites – are all involved in a court case. Depending on the outcome of these cases, the need for alternative search technologies may become more apparent. For now, however, we need BitTorrent sites, and in particular their moderators.
Previously: OiNK Investigation: Police Start Making Arrests
Next: The Pirate Bay: Two Years After the Raid
68 Responses
Mininova should have their own tracker.
I dont care about the tracker as much as technology that cant protect identities in a swarm. THAT is BT’s main problem not trackers.
Anyone that downloads alot and isnt a total nooblit isnt on TPB or other public sites anyways.
Interesting concepts, always appreciate new ideas.
Is this some sort of fore-warning, “cushion” article? Are you getting bad news from one of the top sites?
In before the “Thats why you use private trackers!” comment.
How often are they going to reinvent Gnutella instead of improving it?
Was this written for a school assignment or something?
I can see MediaDefender rubbing their hands together with glee already. ;D
Somebody resuscitate eXeem.
…
#1, agreed, but that’d threaten their business model now, wouldn’t it? :p
#4, I’d say it’s probably wise to look further than your nose if you have an interest in survival.
I don’t wish to be a doomsayer but, based on recent history (napster-present), the trend has shown that it’s not so much a matter of if, but when, the systems will be forced to shut down. It’s all just a technological arms race, IMO. The game will be over if developers ever stop developing (disobedient systems).
We need to do more to teach children that file-sharers are doing nothing wrong. The RIAA etc. are getting too much influence, that they are able to carry out a campaign in schools across the U.S. that file-sharers are criminals. We need to do something about this.
BT IS FUN!
@11
Agreed.
It is completely disturbing how there is only one popular news blog/website like this.
I’m all for innovation, but I think it’d be even better for the laws to change, not P2P.
a wise man once said, a law in which the people to not agree with should be abolished, as it is a government voted in by the people for he people
Indeed, we need to start a campaign to change the laws.
‫‬â€â€®â€ªâ€«â€¬â€â€® Ò‰
Nothing wrong with BT
‫‬â€â€®â€ªâ€«â€¬â€â€®Ò‰
What is really wrong is the DMCA. This law needs to be repealed, and we should also add an exemption from copyright for non-commercial activity.
Realistically true anonymity just isn’t going to happen, and it probably isn’t what we should go after anyway. IMO better to take the risk, and try to honestly normalize piracy, never mind the appearance real anonymity would have for legitmat use.
Honestly I see the solution to replacing the sites being something something along the lines of cubit, with auto updating blocklists sent to peers. Ideally it should be an open standard to alow true standarization as well; as things stand Cubit only works on one client, and tribler is its own client, neither of which will get the kind of adoption rates the BT stnadard itself found.
simple
its called usenet
its been there since the beggining of the interwebs
@20
Or how about change the laws.
Simple
Changing the laws may be a difficult thing, but it is more worth it in the end.
15 Jun 01, 2008 at 03:13 by wise man
“a wise man once said, a law in which the people to not agree with should be abolished, as it is a government voted in by the people for [t]he people”
All laws should be voted on by the public, but those in office feel that the public can’t be relied on to decide such important matters, and therefore appoint an elite group of their peers to do it. These decide what’s in the best interests of all from their point of view and from tradition, but which have no valid basis such as the Bible, which they use for swearing oaths by.
They make sure that any laws will not adversely affect the wealthy, and they often favour them. If not, they are designed to be so ambiguous and incomprehensible that the presiding judge must go to great pains to translate and decipher according to what he believes is the intent.
For example, in a case I know of, a judge deliberated over many days on the meaning and intent of the term “acceptable risk”, as when does a risk become acceptable, and who is to decide? He felt that any risk could never be acceptable.
‘Acceptable’ conveys a positive or good connotation, so we might say “a good risk”, which has the opposite meaning to what is intended. So here we are with the highly intelligent steel trap brain squirming uncomfortably, trying to come to terms with just one 2-word term in his own law book.
In case legislations like ACTA are implemented and enforced, it’d sure spell trouble for BT sites having an effect on all torrent sites and trackers depending upon their location and within whose jurisdiction they fall.
But in the end there are still other ways to circumvent such legislations, the important part is that we should start to ready ourselves for when that happens.
It is more important to campaign against and repeal legislation than to get around them. The point is that the legislation sends a symbolic message that such activity is “illegal and therefore something one should not do.”
@23
The fact is that the judges also look at LAWS. If it were legal, then there would be no trouble, period. But also, there would be no social trouble, because reputation is also based on legality. Reputation and public respect is just as important. Both are impossible when activities are illegal.
Legislators favor the opinion of those that voted them in. They vote according to how they will get votes on their re-election campaign. If people care enough, the legislators will surely go against copyright as it is, or they will be voted out.
We find one thing that is free and the governments of the world try to shut it down. The MPAA uses its power over the swedish police and gets thepiratebay into a court case. But thanks to hackers a DOS attack was sent. This is what needs to happen. I support two things: Net Nuetrality and Bittorrents. Both are being shut down. It’s time for internet users worldwide to step up and fight back. I know it sounds as if an internet war is starting, but there might be if we don’t do anything. Gas here in the U.S. is $4/gallon and the oil companies keep raising prices. I don’t want the same thing happening to the internet.
@27: As long as the gas doesn’t rise to $10/$11 per gallon as it is in Europe, I do not think you have much to complain about.
Anyways, back on topic… I don’t think BT will bbecome absolete.. there is a reason why DHT is forbidden on some private trackers and there is a reason why people only go to private trackers. There are many reasons for this, some of them are the community feeling, less hit and runners and more possibility in getting what you want, better quality of that what you download, then there are also factors as a safer feeling, less change in your ip becoming public and there are many other reasons why I (and many others) wouldn’t easily go to a public BT site such as TPB or Mininova. That what the so-called researches are looking into is something from which I wonder if the people even want it coz something like that takes away a lot of things which many people like about BT.
of all the options i hear it is all bittorrent all the way
there is no new protocol on the horizon
the changes to the protocol proposed by tribler are nothing more than a marketing move to create a protocol variant they can own and exploit for cash. unfortunate for them the give to get algorithm is flawed because in the most simple case it does not reflect asdl economics. the original tit for tat does
Ernesto is correct when he points to moderation as the glue that binds the communities to the sites, always the issue in p2p is moderation because the resource pool is so vast and chaotic
what the article misses is the LOUD fact bittorrent sites both private and public are COMMUNITIES. filesharing is an original social networking phenomenon, there lays the future
of all the options i hear it is all bittorrent all the way
there is no new protocol on the horizon
the changes to the protocol proposed by tribler are nothing more than a marketing move to create a protocol variant they can own and exploit for cash. unfortunate for them the give to get algorithm is flawed because in the most simple case it does not reflect asdl economics. the original tit for tat does
Ernesto is correct when he points to moderation as the glue that binds the communities to the sites, always the issue in p2p is moderation because the resource pool is so vast and chaotic
what the article misses is the LOUD fact bittorrent sites both private and public are COMMUNITIES. filesharing is an original social networking phenomenon, there lays the future
http://www.h33t.com
The solution is making the governments accept that trackers and search engines are legal.
And after reading a response, i wonder why usenet is still here.
of course media defnder always can suck my dick
“sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay have a dedicated team of moderators that remove hundreds of fake and scammy torrents a day”
I did not know this.
My thanks to these people.
Anonymous BT like protocols are the answer.
One such is used by Dargens http://www.Dargens.com .
It uses a tracker and BT type protocol but files are not linked to IP address and you can specify who you connect to. yet download from anyone on the network.
The fact is what make BT so efficient is not the technology but the community. Also, the fact you see what is available before you use the application.
In five years times BT will still be here.
“The fact is what make BT so efficient is not the technology but the community.”
This is nonsense Ezzy.
Communities are the glue that bind the various file-sharing networks together but those communities are not blind or deaf, they are made up of like minded people who see key/important attributes in the file-sharing technology they operate.
Btw please stop the continual spamming or your application, I was going to look at it but since you have spammed it so heavily I feel your motives are in question and therefore your app is likewise suspect.
Protocol standards do not disappear so its simple to state bit torrent will still be here in 5, 10, or even 50 years, that’s not the point, evolution and mutation are the future.
Bit torrent has major privacy obstacles to overcome, those are the real obstacles to its progress, centralised or decentralised we see the same flaw throughout it architecture, as brahm stated its not designed for anonymity.
What I’m getting at is that while we need a new protocol its like holding on to a life raft on a sinking ship if you don’t recognise that its not going to be “bit torrent” per se, its likely to be a mash-up of other protocols best bits and that’s how it should be.
No way dude. BT will never go away.
JJ
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com
of course it won’t happen. moderation and ratio is what makes sites like what, waffles (and oink before those), TL, RevTT etc. high quality and reliable.
i will never go back to unmoderated gnutella/FT/etc. network where there is no incentive to upload high quality files.
Interesting article.
I think the filesharing community survives somehow.
a/s/l:
Well, Gnutella is ok for one thing: downloading popular songs. The small files on 5mb or something. For movies, software etc. BT is best.
There isnt anything wrong with bittorrent except the laws that can make someone feel like a hunted criminal.
If the people can’t get a grasp on the government and the lawmakers I think we should enact a worldwide civil war against everyone who is anti-p2p
That would be something like all of the american media companies and the anti p2p companies, the crooked cops and crooked lobbyists and judges that are ruling with iron fists against innocent taxpayers.
Call me radical I don’t care anymore, if there is a war I’m fighting in it, this is something worth dieing for, fuck terrorism I wanna fight for bittorrent!
The MAFIAA are spreading lies as fact labeling file sharers as criminals… thats true, but those lies are going to turn into truths real soon… and everyone of us knows it at the back of our minds.
Why and how? Simple… they are going to change the laws (or add new ones) as they have done MANY MANY MANY times before, just a matter of time and history does repeat itself.
Our choices are simple, we are many but we are dis-organized and hence can never compete against an organized force with their bottomless pockets… we HAVE to go underground or we will be erased.
Thats why this kind of research is important NOW, coz once those laws pass it’s just the next step to pass more laws that will be unlawful to even develop software that is “headless” (like the dmca makes it unlawful to use programs to strip away the security already on a media file)
Look at Torrent technology as a step in the P2P evolution… not as the end, it was never meant to be the final word.
Copied in bits from eZee.se
Cheers!
Markos
http://www.ezee.se
BitTorrent is not moderated. The index sites are. Whether you swarm via Gnutella or BitTorrent hardly matters. Likewise, there is not BitTorrent community, there are several forums, websites that form communities that also use BitTorrent when they could just as well use Gnutella.
it’d be nice if they could incorporate a robust rating system for every torrent where you vote thumb up for good ones and thumb down for fakes.
Interesting to read the response of users and not proprietary rights holders. The rights of the artists far outweigh the rights of the holder of the art. The only concession to that right is when a piece of art has been commissioned thereby shifting ‘ownership’ of the rights from the artist to the new owner.
If any one of you ‘lawyers’ actually invented something someone else profited from I’m sure your position would change quickly.
Yes, there are interesting concepts that could be used at different areas.
Freenet.
What you ‘private tracker’ lovers fail to realize is that by being private you contribute to the negative life expectancy of the torrent, as in it being limited.
Sure, the speeds are great -if- you grab it within the first 24 hours of posting… but try that 6 months down the road and it’s a different story… even if that tracker is still around.
Do you know why most of the Demonoid torrents died when they went down? …it was because they were NOT dht-enabled… those that were survived.
Why do you think sites like TPB and Mininova are carrying the bulk of the index/tracking load? It sure isn’t because they’re private.
And as for clients… most of the ‘problems’ raised in this thread have already been addressed by Azureus…. dht (both native and mainline), ddb/magnet links and yes, torrent rating.
It’s time to wake up and smell the java.
Why not open source the world? Would there be so many 0days? Would there be as many problems? Would people be wasting THIS much money to prevent it? Think of it this way.. How much money is spent on stopping BT’ing? How much of that money could be put into open standards? Net Neutrality is another problem, when ISP’s decide to block all but port 80?
If a movie could be downloaded for free, but yet a copy at the store, would still be there? I think that people would STILL go for the copy of the movie at the store. This way you can watch it anytime on your DVD. Don’t stop the downloads. Work with them. Allow people to download the movie for free, with lets say 15min of commercials in one movie. I really don’t care about 15min that i get to go and do something else. Hell who cares if the commercials are towards the average BT user. You make money and yet save money with out the need for the big guns at the RIAA and the DMCA. Thats millions saved. And millions made in commercials that we can go and grab a cup of coffee at. Even if its advertising other movies. I think i would download the movie, with 15 min of ads, and 50 commercials on the website. Just not pop-ups. And the movie company’s would make bug bucks.
People, use eMule…
I’d like to see Musician selling per a song for maybe 35 cents or so cause that is just the money the lines the publist and the labels, Artist make a majority their money from merc and concerts. hence why I pirate music but go to concerts like an addict and buy merc like an addict I want my money going to the artist Directly and they pay labels and such WHAT THEY want Rather then label saying we are taking %. Maybe if these organizations weren’t so greedy they we wouldn’t be downloading so much cause honestly I have little Extra money after rent and things for my kids things today are just getting way to $ So I am not surprised at all that so many chose to cut coast and download as much as they can to save money for other things for their kids and stuff.
Unfortunately, Cubit doesn’t seem to work worth a damn– I lobbed easy pitches at the thing, and it never once gave me a decent result. In fact, it rarely gave me anything even remotely resembling my search string. Try it and see!
lol @ everyone that actually thinks this site isnt full of shit. The retards at all the anti-p2p groups probably read this with their morning medication and coffee, right before their secret nazi meetings where they make plans for an internet that isnt even theirs to control.
And shame on all you idiots who started this, by doing what you do here: Posting all the info anyone would ever need to learn everything about this technology, in, oh, about 3 minutes, on just about every public site in the world. Google: “keeping things underground and not opening your fat mouth”
You guys talk about laws? You really think the voters control anything? You won’t even know it when the Gestapo is knocking at your door. Sheep.
The corporations want to call you theives….. They’ve been stealing from you for decades, charging ridiculous amounts of money to justify their poor buisiness model, and the stupid industry it’s created. Actors getting paid 10’s of millions for movies that are horrible. “Artists” that make zillions off of complete garbage. They need to restructure their industry, not go after Johnny d/ling in his Mom’s basement.
I took my family to the movies this weekend. I spent $75. Fuck that. I have more fun at home anyway…. put a movie on the widescreen, turn up the surround… the kids, the old lady and I all get cozy on the couch, we really enjoy ourselves…. And the popcorn and soda doesn’t cost me $35.
Yep, BT will become obselete, eventually. But by then, we’ll be already on to the next phase. ;)
I don’t care, I’ll send burned copies in the mail if I have to, if I want to share, I will.
Listen,
We talk about BT as a hydra, but no one’s trying to put it into practice properly. What needs to be done is not simply having lots of different trackers each tracking different torretns… what we need is lots of trackers tracking the same torrents. If we have a single torrent, and it’s being tracked by 20 separate trackers, and a given user has maybe 15 of those trackers in the tracker list in his BT client, then if a tracker goes down, even for good, it is not a problem at all.
So for example, let’s start thining of how to put this into practice. Let’s look at Demonoid and The Pirate Bay. Let’s also say we’re looking for a specific movie. As it is now, TPB may have 3 different torrents of that movie, and Demonoid may have 2. We consider this to be the hydra effect, since if Demonoid goes down, you can still find it on TPB. But that’s only good for torrents with many copies. What if it only exists on Demonoid and not TPB. What should happen in this example is when you search on TPB, you should find FIVE copies of this movie. The three it originally had, plus the two that were also on Demonoid. But all five are listed as being tracked on TPB’s tracker as well as Demonoid’s. At the same time, Demonoid will need to take in the three TPB torrents, adding them to its own. So on each site, instead of finding 3 or 2 results respectively, you find 5 on both.
Spread this concept across 10 trackers, and you’ve got yourself redundancy that can’t be crippled.
Public sites are garbage anyways, anyone still using them is only doing so because they don’t know any better.
Host your torrents on Google. I’d like to see the RIAA and MPAA sue Google. Intimidation will work for small sites, but Google has the money to fight them.
> Public sites are garbage anyways
Private trackers have ruined public sites because of ratio enforcement. Users upload to private trackers because they have to do, and public sites are left to deal with hit & runners.
The solution is usenet + nzb’s
“With DHT you can still connect to other people who are downloading the same file, even when the tracker for that torent is not working properly.”
Actually, it’s possible to continue transfers while tracker are down since you get the complete ip list on the first request (announce).
DHT do a difference on many downtimes where some users have a more up to date client list.
Tracker are not interfering with the transfers (that’s why they can easily be spoof).
Mininova technically has some of its own trackers. There need to be better incentives for people to start trackers. It takes a lot of effort and even more money and server power but we definately need more in the public sphere of torrenting where the mass of people still are.
@52
For this to happen, it would require EVERY bittorent site to be running the SAME user interface, to share the SAME database, and to be operating as a PUBLIC tracker.
I somehow think this unlikely… even tho the software already exists.
The simple (as in “we already had it”) solution is this… create trackerless dht-enabled torrents, and have everyone switch to Azureus.
The distributed database therein will do the rest.
Decentralization is one thing the scene has perfected, as it is a completely decentralized network. You could take down 20 big ftps, and it would barely make a dent because there’s probably thousands more hiding in the darkness. Not to mention within a matter of minutes something starting on a few ftps ends up in thousands ftps, all operating independently of each other.
Piracy isn’t going away anytime soon. At worst, if the MAFIAAS win, it will all go underground from whence it came from. It will suck for 98% of the population though, because they won’t have easy access to it. But I have some faith that new technologies will come out to improve on today’s Bittorrent. The fact that University students are actually working on this problem gives me hope. I agree that ultimately, changing the laws is the best solution, but until then we may need to stay one step ahead of the technological arms race. If we can keep this up for another generation, then the next generation of kids will be so used to downloading stuff that if any organization ever tries to take it away there will be a physical revolution of some kind… I actually think we’re close to achieving this degree of mentality in the current young generation. Watching “Steal This Movie 2″ was inspiring.
Our biggest weakness is lack of organization. If we took all our voices into the political forum, we’d win, because we’d outnumber all the nay-sayers. Each country needs to start its own “Pirate Party”, though I’d recommend a less negative term. Far, FAR more people would vote for a “Freedom Now” than “pirate party”, and such a party could take on free speech issues, legalize pot, get all the rights back that the Bush/USA has takena way, or whatever floats people’s boats, but in the state of the Western world today, such organizations with a (BIG) foot in the political arena are seriously needed.
We’ve already won people, it’s just a question of time.
Assuming 1 AxxO movie = 700 MB, the average MP3 = 5 MB, and a $200 hard drive increases in capacity every 1.5 years (not unreasonable), then:
5 years (2012) – We’ll have 7 Terabyte hard drives costing $200, capable of storing 9,643 Movies or 1.3 Million songs!!
10 years (2017) – We’ll have 51 Terabyte hard drives costing $200, capable of storing 73,225 movies and 10.3 MILLION songs
15 years (2022) – We’ll have a 389 Terabyte hard drive costing $200, that can store 556,000 Movies!!! and 77.8 Million songs (Is there even that many songs in the history of the world?!?!?)
20 years (2027) – We’ll have a 2956 TERABYTE hard drive, costing $200, that can store 4.2 MILLION MOVIES and 590 MILLION MP3s!
==================
GAME FUCKING OVER!
===================
By 2030, we’ll have every movie and song in the world stored on our freakin’ wrist watches!
Private trackers are all very well but, unless you’re into whatever’s new or popular, you can’t ever find what you’re looking for. TPB and Mininova have a stunning range of files available so, although I’m not a noob, I use them a lot (though I also use Peerguardian).
The argument that private trackers are somehow safer falls flat anyway. What about Oink for one?
Ernesto: I think you meant “this” not “is” in the 3rd last paragraph, first line “to most people is goes unnoticed”.
And Mininova shouldn’t be mentioned there since they don’t have a travker. Sumotorrents or Demonoid deserves mention more
OMG design client that cant see ips
simple as beans have some setup where you can create nicks as per each site and simple login setup allows you that nick per site, thats as much nfo as any client needs.
It has always confounded me that the makers of the torrent lcients have some strange need to see ips like they from the outset are already too nosey.
then after making such a client tell everyone you have 2 days to update software and POOF banned all clients that read ips.
With Tor and/or I2P there are anonymous torrent trackers. They won’t be sued by RIAA or MPAA.
http://tor.eff.org
http://www.i2p2.de/
how did such open sites like mininova get so big, its loads of spam and fakes there, and the pirate bay is so hot with that case only a idiot would download from there and isohunt has even more spam and fakes than mininova, and two out of the three are not even trackers, i dont understand this, what happen to the secret societies in BitWorld, private sites and trackers? Demonoid.com, SeedMonster.com even old TvTorrents.com, we need to build more private sites and come together to protect them. Cause really, if Big Music and Big Movie wants the laws to change then they would change them not us and not even the government. when there is a lobbyist that can be bought then we will never have a fair chance in changing any laws.
The simple answer:
Media companies buy politician’s votes, because they have money and influence.
They get money and influence from the people who consume their product.
Take away their market and they are no more. And how do we do this? Well stop supporting big labels and movie studios first of all. And if you know anyone else who does, introduce them to piracy.
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