What is Digg?52 Comments
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -1/+26That's not what superseeding is at all.
While the protocol does not specify what pieces a seed should give out, nearly all clients will prefer the piece that is rarest in the swarm. This is normal behavior.
Superseeding is a method of seeding where the initial seed lies to the clients and tells them that he has very few pieces. Then the seed tells the clients that he obtained a new piece, and the client requests it and gets it. The seed then watches the swarm to see how fast that piece makes it to some other client. In this way, the seed can determine who sends out the pieces they receive the fastest, and send more data to that client than to others. The idea being that if a client is able to get the data out there quicker, then the entire torrent will be seeded faster, thus reducing the bandwidth that the initial seed has to use. Superseeding is surprisingly effective, but it does make it appear that a new torrent has no seeds at all, because the initial seed is lying to the clients about what data he has. - PaddyTheChump, on 10/12/2007, -4/+28That's what superseeding is for. Most clients have it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19The best solution called "super-seeding". And I hardly consider that a design flaw. That is just an impatient human with an insufficient connection
- SirSid, on 05/27/2009, -11/+27Ok i think this should hit the front page. Sure there have been lots of things like this but this is for all those new users who havnt read about it yet.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+23I digg+ for your desperation :)
- Daniel591992, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19"You lose, *****"
No. He wins :) - LaughingMan11, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Overall it's a decent high level description of Bittorrent, but doesn't go too deep into the nice technical details. No mention of trackerless torrents or DHT.
Sort of what I expected from howstuffworks.com. - tjlsmith, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14BT has a serious design flaw in it. When you share the file, such as you have it, your software gives the pieces away at random to people who don't have it in the swarm. What it SHOULD do is give away pieces that the swarm has the LEAST thereby spreading the full file among the swarm in a more complete manner.
This way when the originator of the file quits after offloading 97% you don't see 20 people with 97% waiting for him to return, as has happened to me many times. - LowFuel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8From the originators point of view it uses less bandwidth, since it's not having to serve up 1000x1GB if 1000 people download it. The users are getting large percentages of it from other seeds and users.
- marnaq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Yes, that's a spam/scam site. There used to be a great tracker on that domain, but they got sued and someone bought the domain.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5You're right. That isn't what superseeding is, but as I said; it is the best solution.
- LycoLoco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The popularity is that no one site is paying for bandwidth. Want to be a band and put out your new album for free, but don't have the costs to pay for 100 meg per person who wants the album? BitTorrent offloads those costs for you and life is good. That's why you see so many legal torrents out there that are so well seeded. It's free, it's easy, and it's definitely simpler for the site owners.
- Ademan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It all depends on what you're downloading, if you're downloading a file that has 4 leechers and 1 seeder, you're not really gonna have any luck (I know someone's gonna kill me for this reference) but the Ubuntu torrents are very well seeded(or seem to be) and I got around 400 kb/s download, about 4 times better than I've EVER downloaded from an http server
cheers
-Dan - subflames, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I must say I do feel this is very well written like most "How stuff works" articles and I hope for more people to use and I hope by having this on the front page more people will use BitTorrent
- edzieba, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4One of the sits linked is http://www.btefnet.com/ . I may be entirely mistaken (I haven't tried registering) but it looks a lot like the various 'pay for p2p' scams that crop up whenever a prominant site goes down and domain squatters kick in.
A click on the 'Webmasters' link seems to substantiate this. - MarvelingOne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4tjlsmith use the superseed method where the program checks to see what files are out there, then it prioritizes.
- twenster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5In France, not only the download of copyrighted materials is forbuidden, but also tthe use of any programm that may be used to download it.... So any P2P software is outload. This is a paragraph named 'Amendement Vivendi-Universal' from our new Act : DADVSI law
Firefow is by law outlawed as it may be used to download copyrighted materials ;) Mozila France CEO is aware !
Surprisingly, Vivendi will sell soon a game based on BitTorrent, that will be by law forbidden in France ! - tjlsmith, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4OK, I researched super-seeding and it's a good idea at the beginning of the torrent and in fact is supposed to be used when you are the only seeder.
However, what I propose is to spread the file around the peers as much as possible all the time. You want the SWARM to have as many complete copies as possible thereby making it more difficult for someone to stop the torrent by going away with the last piece which only they have, which I have seen repeatedly and sounds to me like one of those cheesy RIAA tactics. - PaddyTheChump, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Private torrent sites have very fast downloads. For example, on OiNK I have reached download speeds of over 700 kb/s.
- KJSatz, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9I learned how BitTorrent works from Kevin Rose on TechTV. It was on a chalkboard...that's pretty much all I remember....
- iAlan, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7I've never had any luck "fast downloading of large files" with BitTorrent. So I've never understood its popularity.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Smart seeding algorithims in many clients do just that. The idea is to upload the rarest piece to somebody who you know will send it to other people quickly, making it not as rare anymore. These seed algorithims are standard in most clients nowadays. uTorrent has an exceptionally good algorithim, as does Azureus.
- kotton, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I agree iAlan I have used BT a bunch, and usually I leave the client open and running long after I have downloaded the entire file as to seed instead of just being a leecher and I never downloaded anything as quick as if use good ol' Limewire. Now granted its alot more trustworthy IMHO to use a BT than Limewire, but speed wise I still go for the latter.
- DWatch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3*cough* Usenet! *cough*
- doctornkul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think you have it backwards. In France all P2P for personal use is legal. There was a digg article a few months ago about it.
- DWatch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Any decent seeder will watch his torrent and not shut it down before there is at least 5 to 10 seeds in place. Just because you got burned a few times by ***** seeders, that doesn't mean it happens so often as to require a re-write of the BT protocol. If you're having that much of a problem with abandoned torrents, change your source of torrents. I have been using torrents now for several years, and rarely if ever have a fully abandoned torrent, even when downloading from crappy un-popular torrent sites.
- mcdpa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Agreed,
I would have dugg this if it had linked to an article that had explored the technical aspects in detail and had some descent graphics.
Some of the definitions in the article are misleading too. For example "leeches" in the bittorrent context are peers that don't have the complete torrent, not peers that don't share at all. - sphinx13, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A leecher is someone who is downloading the file, but hasn't finished yet. It's not someone who has disabled uploading as that page says. You are uploading while downloading.
- oavina, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5The smallest and meanest bittorrent out there. :)
http://www.utorrent.com - LKBM, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2'If you continue to run the BitTorrent client software after your download is complete, others can receive .torrent files from your computer; your future download rates improve because you are ranked higher in the "tit-for-tat" system.'
Ranked higher by whom? You mean if I want to download another file from someone in the same swarm? Does every client keep track of who has sent it stuff for future reference? - quam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2What's ironic is that while one nation may outlaw an application, another nation may grant copyright protection. An application, like Firefox, should receive protection, "[t]o protect software with copyright, therefore, an author must fix the original or unique application on a tangible medium, such as on a hard disk or a CD or DVD." ( http://www.lawocracy.com/copyright-law-for-software ).
- DWatch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@tjlsmith,
No matter what the order the pieces were sent out, if the initial seeder leaves after 97%, no one will get any more than 97% until he comes back to the swarm. Superseed (or in uTorrent, 'initial seed') will allow the initial seeder to get the file uploaded faster, by not sending the same piece out to different peers over and over again. Once a piece has been sent out, the recipient of that piece shares it with the rest of the swarm while the seeder is sending a different piece to another peer. Its not perfect, but allows for much lower bandwidth usage for the initial seeders. You still have no way to complete a download if the seeder vanishes mid-upload, though. Everyone still swaps pieces that he has already sent out, until everyone reaches a point where they all have every piece he sent out, and are all stuck at a certain percentage. It has nothing to do with sending out pieces that are needed the most. Every piece is needed the most. - DWatch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Its a tracker side limit. Some trackers only allow you to get as much as you upload, or a certain ratio, then they start to choke your connection. Some trackers look at your overall ratio for them, and lock you out completely from the torrent, or allow you, depending on the site limits. Some trackers watch your upload/download speeds realtime and reduce your download speeds on the fly if you are not uploading fast enough. This is kind of rare these days, since there is so much BT traffic nowdays, trackers are overwhelmed, so tracker admins shut this feature off. When I first started using BT years ago, as long as you had a decent upload speed, your downloads were blazing, but reduce your upload, and your download speeds fell off quickly.
However, what you do on one tracker will not affect you on another tracker. Trackers don't talk to each other and share info on your ratio. - LogicallyGenius, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I hope someone soon uses this technology to create a group discussion
technology that allows a group to EMAIL without intervention of governments,
or any servers.
I mean to replace YahooGroups, GoogleGroups, MSNGroups etc, etc.
A new era in freedom of expression; what say ? - Newton2001, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4I would argue that this statement, "enables fast downloading of large files using minimum Internet bandwidth" is not correct. If you download 1GB of data using BT, you are still going to transfer 1GB of data over the Internet. So, how is BT using "minimum Internet bandwidth"?
- osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Nice work linking to the printable version, HSW always takes like 5 pages.
- TheKingInYellow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1so now you know.
you can stop breaking those 7 to 10 video_ts files into a billion rar files because doing that only makes it worse. - robmiller99, on 12/07/2008, -0/+1Bittorrent is not the problem its the users posting all the junk with hidden spyware
http://whatisspyware.org/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Outload?
- joevill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Really good article, great find!
- arlene1985, on 12/01/2007, -0/+0Piracy has been legalized long ago. Many softwares which are claimed as 100% safe collect sensitive data and report to insitutions few people want to deal with. And all is done without prior agreement! I believe that a couple of reliable antispyware programs from reputable privacy protection companies like Webroot Spy Sweeper http://spy-sweeper-download.blogspot.com and ParetoLogic http://xoftspyantispyware.blogspot.com XoftSpy are a must on every Internet-connected Pc or laptop. There can't be too much protection!
- techaddress, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Is 180solutions/Zango Spyware?
There is always a lot of attention surrounding the Bellevue, Washington online media company Zango, Inc. (formerly 180solutions). The popular press claims that millions of users are crying out for help against Zango’s unlawful acts and frustration stemmed from the desktop advertising software that is installed on their personal computer. However, Zango announced this morning that the class action lawsuit filed against the company last year in federal court in Chicago was dismissed, with prejudice. Meaning the dismissal ends the litigation, is final, and is binding on the plaintiffs.
Let me know your opinion: http://techaddress.wordpress.com/2006/09/07/is-180solutions-zango-spyware/ - osbjmg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2It's odd, that page evnetually causes Firefox to spike my CPU...
- xophonic, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Hmmm. Bittorrent huh? never heard of it. Whatever, this will never catch on.
- MrViklund, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3http://azureus.sourceforge.net/
- klinsek, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0BitTorrent.. feh!
Usenet for the win. ;) - payamsabz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0I agree, Azureus is much better and easier to use.
This article is doing a good job explaining how torrents work and meanwhile advertising bit-torrent client without talking about the alternatives! - krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -5/+0maybe im one of the few who agrees with you. this isnt "news" and i recall hearing about bittorrent at least 4 years ago.
marked as lame. - ohhhL3ThaL, on 10/12/2007, -16/+1Is this seriously on the frontpage? Like it hasn't been done x amount of times.
- SirSid, on 05/27/2009, -30/+5Ops sorry bout the repost. When I hit reply and refreshed the page nothing showed up so I re-replyed to fix it..appearently it did show up.
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