> "Tribler" is a peer-to-peer file-sharing client that is completely decentralized. "The only way to take it down is to take the Internet down," the software’s creator says.<p>Which is a pretty f--king stupid thing to say at a time when we are trying to avoid draconian, Big-Media-backed legal shenanigans like SOPA/PIPA and ACTA.<p>Are they <i>trying</i> to demonstrate that the only way to enforce copyright law <i>really is</i> to monitor everyone's communications 24/7, assume that anyone who uses encryption to an unrecognised/unauthorised host an infringer, and ruthlessly cut off Internet access to any such person? Because anyone who thinks such a scenario is unrealistic hasn't been paying attention.<p>People who make and advertise file sharing tools for the obvious purpose of conducting illegal activity are the enemy of those of us who want to have such tools for legitimate purposes and of those of us who want to have the content we honestly pay for in unrestricted formats that don't get in the way of us enjoying them.<p><skeptic>Also, with my technical hat on, how exactly does this work? I'm betting you aren't really as isolated and decentralised as you think you are, because, well, you can't be off the network and yet still be on the network. The article says it's a BitTorrent client, so surely someone is seeding something somewhere.</skeptic>
One word... Kadmelia!<p>It's worth saying (and has been said elsewhere already) that fully distributed search has existed for years. Kadmelia is just one notable example in wide use. I do think it's great that it's coming to the torrent world though!<p>The characterization of it by many seems to suggest that this is novel and groundbreaking.<p>The statements made about how you'd have to shut down the internet to take it down are also a bit hyperbolic. After all, algorithms to sniff, detect and either block or throttle this kind of traffic are widely deployed. Of course it's an arms race and encryption and obfuscation are used to counter. I'm not sure what the current state of that battle is, but clearly the main tool in protecting these kinds of capabilities is our voices, not fundamental technical properties.
Some of this stuff, like peer exchange and magnet links, are not new and are in most torrent clients for years. Pirate Bay has started promoting magnet links and rumour is that they'll stop doing torrents all together.<p>It's the search part that's hard to do, and I wonder how tribler do it? Anyone analysed their code? I wonder how you'd do a true decentralised p2p search system.... (i.e. do to p2p search what google did to web search, come up with a new algorithmic invention)
Is Tribler "better" than Oneswarm and AllianceP2P? And if so, why?<p><a href="http://www.oneswarm.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.oneswarm.org/</a>
<a href="http://alliancep2p.com/" rel="nofollow">http://alliancep2p.com/</a><p>Is it because Tribler is more focused on having everything public, while the other 2 are more focused on "friend sharing" networks, so it's easier to find files on Tribler?? From what I can tell they have more security/anonymization than Tribler, and it's not just because of the limited access between friends.
Quite the contrary - it may force them to evolve into companies fully adapted to thrive in this environment.<p>No. Not really. What will most likely happen is that big-media will just use it to push legislation that assume the users cannot be trusted and that enforcement must be more thorough to catch all those bad guys. If you do a lot of high bandwidth encrypted data exchange, someone will have to search your computer for "stolen" content.
These researchers view of technologies' I would consider to be quite robust -- "we don’t rely on shaky foundations such as DNS, web servers or search portals" -- kind of blows my mind
"Spells trouble to freedom of the net" is more like it. Copyright holders will push repressive legislation sooner or later, and will use projects like this as an example.
I wonder how well it would work as a way to access data from outside national firewalls. Seems pretty topical considering what's happening in Iran right now.