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Seems like a bad idea. First, BitTorret is unreliable and slow, whereas a single transport server is very fast and reliable, and mirroring makes it both global

Seems like a bad idea. First, BitTorret is unreliable and slow, whereas a single transport server is very fast and reliable, and mirroring makes it both globally redundant and verifiable. Second, protocols that build in all features (discovery, transport, verification) are less flexible and more centralized than decoupling into different protocols. Third, when random participants can contribute anything, you get a bunch of malware (look at every app store). Linux distributions' app repositories don't have any malware. Fourth, you don't need a distro maintainer to do anything at all if you want someone to download your app from your own repo. You just serve your public key and put your files online somewhere. Anyone can download the key, add the repo, and install the packages. You can even put them on GitHub, GitLab, etc.

boramalper 5y ago
> First, BitTorret is unreliable and slow, whereas a single transport server is very fast and reliable, and mirroring makes it both globally redundant and verifiable. BitTorrent has higher latencies indeed but also much higher bandwidth. I am not sure what you mean by "reliable". > Second, protocols that build in all features (discovery, transport, verification) are less flexible and more centralized than decoupling into different protocols. I agree in theory, but I haven't seen any alternatives in practise that works here and now---I am happy to be proven wrong. > Third, when random participants can contribute anything, you get a bunch of malware (look at every app store). Random people being able to share content is one thing (which is not to different from saying "random people can open TCP sockets!"), random people being able to participate in helping spread your content (which you protect with your cryptographic primitives) is whole another. > Fourth, you don't need a distro maintainer to do anything at all if you want someone to download your app from your own repo. You just serve your public key and put your files online somewhere. Anyone can download the key, add the repo, and install the packages. You can even put them on GitHub, GitLab, etc. Again, you are missing the point: discoverability of mirrors in a permissionless system where participants can join and leave any time. I am not saying BitTorrent nailed it on its first try either (they simply spun up trackers), but DHT is more or less a solved problem that works reasonably well today.

boramalper 5y ago

> First, BitTorret is unreliable and slow, whereas a single transport server is very fast and reliable, and mirroring makes it both globally redundant and verifiable. BitTorrent has higher latencies indeed but also much higher bandwidth. I am not sure what you mean by "reliable". > Second, protocols that build in all features (discovery, transport, verification) are less flexible and more centralized than decoupling into different protocols. I agree in theory, but I haven't seen any alternatives in practise that works here and now---I am happy to be proven wrong. > Third, when random participants can contribute anything, you get a bunch of malware (look at every app store). Random people being able to share content is one thing (which is not to different from saying "random people can open TCP sockets!"), random people being able to participate in helping spread your content (which you protect with your cryptographic primitives) is whole another. > Fourth, you don't need a distro maintainer to do anything at all if you want someone to download your app from your own repo. You just serve your public key and put your files online somewhere. Anyone can download the key, add the repo, and install the packages. You can even put them on GitHub, GitLab, etc. Again, you are missing the point: discoverability of mirrors in a permissionless system where participants can join and leave any time. I am not saying BitTorrent nailed it on its first try either (they simply spun up trackers), but DHT is more or less a solved problem that works reasonably well today.