let it snow (x3)

[Kilmatead]

Considering it's all been switched over to DHT in the interest of decentralising the trackers anyway, the fundamental driving force is still the peers themselves, and that's (no matter how they connect) still a DTN of public nodes at the end of the day, open to interference from whoever owns them (i.e., not you or me) - and, indeed, from whomever ultimately "owns the owners" and allows them to exist. Kad doesn't have anything to do with the actual P2P transfers, it's only a meet-&-greet thing that makes life easier for publishing peers (compared to BT). As with anything, "if you know how to use it" there's not really any great shakes between the methodology - eMule just makes the initial handshake much easier. One of the things I like about BT is that it makes upload speeds irrelevant (as was the intention, originally), so it's an "opt-out" system, instead of forcing everyone to play fair. Playing fair is just not egalitarian.

[Tuxman]

Considering it's all been switched over to DHT in the interest of decentralising the trackers anyway, the fundamental driving force is still the peers themselves

... which need to be found in some mostly centralized way first.

One of the things I like about BT is that it makes upload speeds irrelevant

This is wrong in even two aspects:

1. On most trackers you're banned if you upload too little. Here we go, rural internet connection!
2. P2P is about uploading. BT might be "optimized" for fast download speeds, but think twice where those speeds come from - they're not related to the protocol you use.

[Kilmatead]

... which need to be found in some mostly centralized way first.

I think you're quoting from the manual which was printed back in '72 - the world, believe it or not, does not revolve around TPB (as the news would have you believe) - that's just one of many hashing points. There are thousands of them - that's what "distributed hashing" is all about. Yes, in theory, you could step on all the ants and kill the colony, but have you ever tried to step on a thousand ants? It's so unlikely (once the torrent has been published in the wild) that most people don't spend that much time looking in the rear-view mirror for shadows of paranoia.

On most trackers you're banned if you upload too little. Here we go, rural internet connection!

Is Germany still a police-state? Banned by whom? The torrent gods? Who downloads from only one tracker exchange? Take a look at the ratios of seeds to peers to "scabby buggers" in the swarm and show me who gets cut off? Say you've got 5000 peers feeding off 250 seeds with only a few connected within your own table, there's no single dependency which is likely to flag anything worse than a hiccup. You seem to think there's a fairy godmother in charge of this stuff, watching what everyone does. There are recommended "fair usage" ratios for seeders, but I've never encountered the Seed Police you seem to think are hiding behind every barn-owl, somehow circumventing my neutrality, trying (in any way) to enforce these fair-usage ratios.

...but think twice where those speeds come from - they're not related to the protocol you use.

They're coming from the little kid in Venezuela who got his bits from the lad in Australia who mined them in China, and when he gives them to me I pass them off to the Mexican drug lords who got the stuff I need from the Canadians and one little sad girl with a tear in her eye and a hole in her heart in New York. As long as we all agree to dance together, there's plenty of room in the bed for East-European prostitutes who cater for the "more adventurous" edge.

Predictably, if we all leave, the swarm is weakened, but all it takes is one or two servers left on at 10kbs somewhere in the world to keep it alive, and if (for an hour) I contribute my meagre capped 15kbs, everyone's a little happier for that hour and it blossoms from there (or, sometimes dies). That's life in the free ecosystem.

[Tuxman]

the world, believe it or not, does not revolve around TPB (as the news would have you believe) - that's just one of many hashing points.

Right, and shutting down one hashing point kills quite a lot of torrent files (or DHT information) which need(s) new trackers then.

Is Germany still a police-state? Banned by whom?

Banned from using the particular tracker. In fact, if you want really high-quality content, you won't come far with public torrent sites - and private ones disregard using teh torrent internetz with a slow connection.

Predictably, if we all leave, the swarm is weakened, but all it takes is one or two servers left on at 10kbs somewhere in the world to keep it alive, and if (for an hour) I contribute my meagre capped 15kbs, everyone's a little happier for that hour and it blossoms from there (or, sometimes dies). That's life in the free ecosystem.

So how is that any better than Kad2?

[Kilmatead]

Banned from using the particular tracker. In fact, if you want really high-quality content, you won't come far with public torrent sites - and private ones disregard using teh torrent internetz with a slow connection.

Eh, what? Sorry, but that doesn't make sense. For the last 6 years or so I've been doing this stuff, and my "upload ratio" is atrociously bad - I only semi-seed (which is to say I pass on what I get as long as I'm still downloading) - once the download is done, Elvis has left the building (unless I choose to seed longer, in special-content cases where there naturally wouldn't be that many trackers such as game mods, etc).

For example, my ratio is 0.106: over the last 3000 hours (the only timespace I have records of) I've downloaded 1.4TB and uploaded a meagre 140GB (10kps). By anyone's standards, that's pathetic - but it doesn't have any effect on... well, anything at all - that's what I'm trying to say. Your propaganda does not match the experience on the ground.

And I don't know what you mean by "quality" - the download speed is dictated by the number of people connected to a particular swarm, obviously. And they drop-in and drop-out constantly over time - not much anyone can do when I turn my machine off. But it's nothing compared to the overall picture.

So how is that any better than Kad2?

It has nothing to do with Kad - Kad is just the initial connection which shares the libraries - the actual work is handed off to eMule which still just uses stock public nodes like everyone else (who really owns your phone-line after all?)... the only difference is how much of the connection is encrypted/compressed, and that's entirely up to the users themselves no matter what system you're using.

[Tuxman]

Kad2 is the P2P protocol used, so is BitTorrent - that's why I compare these together. I still fail to see where torrent excels. You even mentioned one of its most relevant weaknesses: Files don't live long there. Torrent users tend to unshare stuff quickly.

[Kilmatead]

Kad2 is the P2P protocol used, so is BitTorrent - that's why I compare these together.

Er, well, I'm explicitly not comparing them together because:

Note that the Kad network is not used to actually transfer files across the P2P network. Instead, when a file transfer is initiated, clients connect directly to each other (using the standard public IP network). This traffic is susceptible to blocking/shaping/tracking by your ISP or any other opportunistic middle-man.

As I read it, that means that Kademlia is just a variation on generic DHT - and so has nothing to do with content transfer at all, it's just a glorified librarian system.

I still fail to see where torrent excels. You even mentioned one of its most relevant weaknesses: Files don't live long there. Torrent users tend to unshare stuff quickly.

I'm not claiming anything "excels" in one way or another (nor do I care, since I've never seen any of these terrible things you're blaming on torrenting) - I'm just saying your negativity seems unfounded, and sounds more like eMule propaganda than factual experience.

Who cares if a torrent dies? You seem to place an awful lot of importance upon "finding what you want" in the first place - and since in 6 years I have never once failed to find - well, everything - via public networks, I just don't get it. Private networks are for child-porn, no one else needs them.

[Tuxman]

As I read it, that means that Kademlia is just a variation on generic DHT - and so has nothing to do with content transfer at all, it's just a glorified librarian system.

Content transfer is roughly done by Kad2 too (if we define Kad2 as "post-server ed2k"). Quite complicated indeed.

I'm not claiming anything "excels" in one way or another (nor do I care, since I've never seen any of these terrible things you're blaming on torrenting)

What do you torrent then? If you torrent (now that's a nice verb) DW episodes exclusively, you might have been lucky as you never had to use "registration-only" torrent portals. I guess the What.cd website pretty much clears up what it is with torrent outside your mainstream world: You're part of an elitist community of a relatively small size. That's pointless when it comes to P2P networking, but it might fill your empty life with some kind of sense. Here on Kad2, everything's public. Yes, even the child porn.

[Kilmatead]

Content transfer is roughly done by Kad2 too (if we define Kad2 as "post-server ed2k"). Quite complicated indeed.

Claiming something is complicated does not make it so. Sounds more like base eD2k is dying and suffering all the usual P2P woes as anyone else. Hardly nuclear proof, no matter what forked iterations claim they get up to.

What do you torrent then?

With typical modern-day spoilt nonchalance (that is, with an awareness that culture itself is dying by my hand), I can safely say "whatever takes my fancy"; as a rule (and as anyone who reads around here would know) my tastes would hardly be described as mainstream - I can say I have never once "failed" to find what I was looking for, regardless of how obscure it may be (short of simply not existing, as not everything does).

Sometimes it's quite amusing what people choose to put out there. Makes me wonder why the idea of sharing needles would make anyone squeamish.

Then again, where possible, I try to buy my own needles, just to keep the deluded establishment amused.

[Tuxman]

Sounds more like base eD2k is dying and suffering all the usual P2P woes as anyone else.

eD2k has been dead since Kad1 was introduced, back in eMule 0.40 days - about ten years ago, if I remember correctly.

Sometimes it's quite amusing what people choose to put out there.

Judging by the "charts" of movies, music and books, mankind should have been died of stupidity many centuries ago.

[Kilmatead]

...mankind should have been died of stupidity many centuries ago.

Well, there's a reason the Renaissance came to an end, and cultural complacency had a lot to do with it. Largely the Victorian notion of the middle-classes introduced a malaise which prefigures the cultural dissolution which is just beginning to take hold now. In other words, once the human race aspires to little more than the poor imitation of what went before (be it intellectual achievement or mere entertainment), the seeds are sown, as they say, and the long cycle begins again.

The "modern age" is, as it has always been, little more than the sadness of what the past failed to achieve leaking into the public consciousness (a sense of doubt and mortality setting in, but on a larger scale). These days you add a little electricity, put a man on the moon, and map a strand of DNA, and people begin to think of themselves as "apart" from the rest of time - when in reality, that's exactly what every age has insisted upon - and failed miserably because of it.

(But humans tend not to like that sort of thing, so in the anguish of trapped desperation they spend their time and energy adding animated snow to websites, calling it seasonal cheer, and hoping it passes the muster. )

[Tuxman]

Humans also tend to think they're still homini sapientes. I guess human tendences are nothing to think about too much.