34 ms·

It could still have been 3 hours as you would have been constrained not only by your own download speed, but also the peer’s upload speed, and they might have

by jl6 2y ago

It could still have been 3 hours as you would have been constrained not only by your own download speed, but also the peer’s upload speed, and they might have been on an even crappier dial-up line or sharing their bandwidth with other uploads.

brabel 2y ago
IIRC Napster downloaded from multiple peers if possible. Each peer could restrict bandwidth so that they didn't get overwhelmed with outbound traffic. So speed would depend vastly on the popularity of content... if many people could provide a song, you could download it quickly (for the time: maybe a few minutes per song), but those where you had to rely on a single peer at a time could take hours.
- bawolff 2y ago
  I'm not sure, but i think it was napster's succesors that introduced that. I dont think napster had that sort of thing.
  - brabel 2y ago
    Too long ago, you could be right, maybe KaZaA?
    - bawolff 2y ago
      I think so. KaZaa was somewhat famous for implementing that feature using the non-cryptographically secure UUHash algorithm (instead of something like sha1) for better performance, which allowed trolls to insert fake file parts into your downloads.
      - brabel 2y ago
        I found a post talking about KaZaA and Napster, and that's right: I forgot but Napster had a central server to provide files, that's why it was so easy to shut down... https://computer.howstuffworks.com/kazaa.htm https://computer.howstuffworks.com/kazaa.htm KaZaA didn't store the files itself so it was thought they wouldn't be possible to shutdown. From the site above: "While Kazaa claims to be "completely legal," there are those who disagree: The free-to-download blue files are controlled by Kazaa users and include copyrighted content." "Later that year, Kazaa was sued again, this time in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPAA). As of February 2005, the decision in that suit is still pending." I remember they started suing individual users at that time... I found an article explaining that: https://www.videoproc.com/resource/what-happened-to-kazaa.htm https://www.videoproc.com/resource/what-happened-to-kazaa.ht... "In September 2003, the RIAA filed lawsuits against over 250 individuals, accusing them of illegally distributing about 1,000 copyright music files each, using P2P networks. RIAA sought an average compensation of $3,000 per case." The result of the first case: "In July 2006, the MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. caused Sharman to settle for $100 million, the amount to compensate the loss of four major music labels – EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music, and Warner Music. The company also agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the studios in the industry." It's unclear exactly how Kazaa got down, the article concludes with "In August 2012, the Kazaa website was no longer active."... "the rise of legal streaming services such as iTunes, Spotify, and Netflix further compounded Kazaa's demise.". Looks like the music industry managed to scare people away from pirating instead of actually succeeding in bringing them down directly, which is more or less what I remember.
        bawolff 2y ago
        bit torrent is basically the succesor to all this, and torrenting sites like the pirate bay are still going strong.
        nostrademons 2y ago
        Napster used a centralized server for indexing but downloads were peer-to-peer. This is what made Napster so awesome on college campuses: you could find anything, but if you chose a local peer, the actual download would happen over the college LAN at godly speeds. Gnutella brought peer-to-peer searches. Basically it used a flood-fill algorithm: your search would be broadcast to all connected peers, which would broadcast it to all peers that hadn't seen it yet, until somebody responded with the file and their IP and you could download directly from them. Interestingly Ethereum uses basically the same algorithm for block distribution, with some optimizations that were first published by RTM, who was one of the founders of YCombinator. Kazaa's innovation was to split the peer space into "ordinary nodes" and "superpeers", with the observation that not all bandwidth links were equal. It would enlist hosts on high-bandwidth connections to form quasi-centralized indexing nodes to organize the network topology for all the low-bandwidth consumer nodes. It's a similar principle to how the Lightning Network works for Bitcoin, or how L2s on Ethereum operate. This also made it easier to shutdown than Gnutella though, because being a superpeer made you a legal target for the RIAA.
        tithe 2y ago
        Fun fact: Kazaa's inventors (and their P2P architecture) would later go on to build "Sky peer-to-peer" AKA Skype.
        nostrademons 2y ago
        And Napster's co-founder went on to become the first angel investor in Facebook.
        Rinzler89 2y ago
        Justin Timberlake?
      - parineum 2y ago
        Napster kept a central repository if who had what files, not the files themselves. Kazaa and ed2k were distributed. I think ed2k is still viable.
Ylpertnodi 2y ago
25 years ago i had an engineer come out: everyone on the street was sharing a connection in the local box. We chatted about tech etc and he put me on a single connection. Sod the neighbors (their connections didn't get slower, mine got faster).
ethbr1 2y ago
Curious to hear more informed thoughts from old ISP folks, but afaik one of the things that made Napster possible was that 56kbps connections were roughly symmetrical (~33kbps up?). By capitalizing on the oft unused upload bandwidth, Napster provided a benefit at little cost. Would be fascinated to hear what this looked like on the PSTN backend load side, ~2000.
- dpkirchner 2y ago
  One of the coolest things about the modem age is that you could easily try a different ISP if you weren't happy with your current ISP's performance (upstream and down).
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    You can still do that in some places that have open fiber networks! I actually have two ISPs right now running over the same fiber connection (via separate PPPoE connections) - one ISP gives you fixed IP addresses with custom reverse-DNS for cheap so I use it for my apex domain, and the other ISP is Dynamic DNS but has much better performance.
- temporarely 2y ago
  I would think symmetric bandwidth is baked into switched circuit networks by definition. A bit earlier than 2000 /g https://lineofsightgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/phoneoperator.jpg https://lineofsightgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/phon...
- fsckboy 2y ago
  >56kbps connections were roughly symmetrical I don't think so, asymmetry was the innovation that made 56K possible on POTS (plain old telephone sevice, with only enough bandwidth for squawky voice)
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    From a spec standpoint, acoustic modems were building over wires spec'd for bidirectional voice transmissions, i.e. symmetrical. I'm curious about the nuances, but it seems like the last mile download/upload imbalance was created by the originating signal mode? Download = First mile internet to ISP could be upgraded to digital, and thus grab some extra throughout by avoiding analog noise handling Upload = First mile user to ISP was inherently analog over phone lines, and so sacrificed throughput for line noise tolerance https://www.edn.com/an-introduction-to-the-v-90-56k-modem/ https://www.edn.com/an-introduction-to-the-v-90-56k-modem/

by jl6 2y ago

brabel 2y ago

IIRC Napster downloaded from multiple peers if possible. Each peer could restrict bandwidth so that they didn't get overwhelmed with outbound traffic. So speed would depend vastly on the popularity of content... if many people could provide a song, you could download it quickly (for the time: maybe a few minutes per song), but those where you had to rely on a single peer at a time could take hours.

bawolff 2y ago
I'm not sure, but i think it was napster's succesors that introduced that. I dont think napster had that sort of thing.
- brabel 2y ago
  Too long ago, you could be right, maybe KaZaA?
  - bawolff 2y ago
    I think so. KaZaa was somewhat famous for implementing that feature using the non-cryptographically secure UUHash algorithm (instead of something like sha1) for better performance, which allowed trolls to insert fake file parts into your downloads.
    - brabel 2y ago
      I found a post talking about KaZaA and Napster, and that's right: I forgot but Napster had a central server to provide files, that's why it was so easy to shut down... https://computer.howstuffworks.com/kazaa.htm https://computer.howstuffworks.com/kazaa.htm KaZaA didn't store the files itself so it was thought they wouldn't be possible to shutdown. From the site above: "While Kazaa claims to be "completely legal," there are those who disagree: The free-to-download blue files are controlled by Kazaa users and include copyrighted content." "Later that year, Kazaa was sued again, this time in the United States by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association (MPAA). As of February 2005, the decision in that suit is still pending." I remember they started suing individual users at that time... I found an article explaining that: https://www.videoproc.com/resource/what-happened-to-kazaa.htm https://www.videoproc.com/resource/what-happened-to-kazaa.ht... "In September 2003, the RIAA filed lawsuits against over 250 individuals, accusing them of illegally distributing about 1,000 copyright music files each, using P2P networks. RIAA sought an average compensation of $3,000 per case." The result of the first case: "In July 2006, the MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. caused Sharman to settle for $100 million, the amount to compensate the loss of four major music labels – EMI, Sony BMG, Universal Music, and Warner Music. The company also agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the studios in the industry." It's unclear exactly how Kazaa got down, the article concludes with "In August 2012, the Kazaa website was no longer active."... "the rise of legal streaming services such as iTunes, Spotify, and Netflix further compounded Kazaa's demise.". Looks like the music industry managed to scare people away from pirating instead of actually succeeding in bringing them down directly, which is more or less what I remember.
      - bawolff 2y ago
        bit torrent is basically the succesor to all this, and torrenting sites like the pirate bay are still going strong.
      - nostrademons 2y ago
        Napster used a centralized server for indexing but downloads were peer-to-peer. This is what made Napster so awesome on college campuses: you could find anything, but if you chose a local peer, the actual download would happen over the college LAN at godly speeds. Gnutella brought peer-to-peer searches. Basically it used a flood-fill algorithm: your search would be broadcast to all connected peers, which would broadcast it to all peers that hadn't seen it yet, until somebody responded with the file and their IP and you could download directly from them. Interestingly Ethereum uses basically the same algorithm for block distribution, with some optimizations that were first published by RTM, who was one of the founders of YCombinator. Kazaa's innovation was to split the peer space into "ordinary nodes" and "superpeers", with the observation that not all bandwidth links were equal. It would enlist hosts on high-bandwidth connections to form quasi-centralized indexing nodes to organize the network topology for all the low-bandwidth consumer nodes. It's a similar principle to how the Lightning Network works for Bitcoin, or how L2s on Ethereum operate. This also made it easier to shutdown than Gnutella though, because being a superpeer made you a legal target for the RIAA.
        tithe 2y ago
        Fun fact: Kazaa's inventors (and their P2P architecture) would later go on to build "Sky peer-to-peer" AKA Skype.
        nostrademons 2y ago
        And Napster's co-founder went on to become the first angel investor in Facebook.
        Rinzler89 2y ago
        Justin Timberlake?
    - parineum 2y ago
      Napster kept a central repository if who had what files, not the files themselves. Kazaa and ed2k were distributed. I think ed2k is still viable.

Ylpertnodi 2y ago

25 years ago i had an engineer come out: everyone on the street was sharing a connection in the local box. We chatted about tech etc and he put me on a single connection. Sod the neighbors (their connections didn't get slower, mine got faster).

ethbr1 2y ago

Curious to hear more informed thoughts from old ISP folks, but afaik one of the things that made Napster possible was that 56kbps connections were roughly symmetrical (~33kbps up?). By capitalizing on the oft unused upload bandwidth, Napster provided a benefit at little cost. Would be fascinated to hear what this looked like on the PSTN backend load side, ~2000.

dpkirchner 2y ago
One of the coolest things about the modem age is that you could easily try a different ISP if you weren't happy with your current ISP's performance (upstream and down).
- kalleboo 2y ago
  You can still do that in some places that have open fiber networks! I actually have two ISPs right now running over the same fiber connection (via separate PPPoE connections) - one ISP gives you fixed IP addresses with custom reverse-DNS for cheap so I use it for my apex domain, and the other ISP is Dynamic DNS but has much better performance.
temporarely 2y ago
I would think symmetric bandwidth is baked into switched circuit networks by definition. A bit earlier than 2000 /g https://lineofsightgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/phoneoperator.jpg https://lineofsightgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/phon...
fsckboy 2y ago
>56kbps connections were roughly symmetrical I don't think so, asymmetry was the innovation that made 56K possible on POTS (plain old telephone sevice, with only enough bandwidth for squawky voice)
- ethbr1 2y ago
  From a spec standpoint, acoustic modems were building over wires spec'd for bidirectional voice transmissions, i.e. symmetrical. I'm curious about the nuances, but it seems like the last mile download/upload imbalance was created by the originating signal mode? Download = First mile internet to ISP could be upgraded to digital, and thus grab some extra throughout by avoiding analog noise handling Upload = First mile user to ISP was inherently analog over phone lines, and so sacrificed throughput for line noise tolerance https://www.edn.com/an-introduction-to-the-v-90-56k-modem/ https://www.edn.com/an-introduction-to-the-v-90-56k-modem/