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Encryption has been the default setting in most bittorrent clients for a while now. The fundamental problem is that no matter how good you encryption is, if som

Encryption has been the default setting in most bittorrent clients for a while now. The fundamental problem is that no matter how good you encryption is, if some simply attempts to download the file themself, they can see what IPs are supplying them the pieces. In order to solve this, you would need to add an additional layer to the protocol, where a user downloads and uploads files not related to the ones they want for themselves, so knowing the IP that is uploading the file to you does not help you find someone who is actually responsible. At this point, you are probably better off running existing clients through a TOR proxy.

nwh 14y ago
Please don't torrent through the onion router.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- bionsuba 14y ago
  Could you elaborate?
  - nwh 14y ago
    The Tor anonymity router is run by volunteers like myself. I donate several megabyte a second of my bandwidth to relay data for people avoiding censorship and protecting their anonymity. By torrenting through the onion router, you not only waste mine, but three other nodes bandwidth. It causes unnecessary load and attention to the last (exit) router. For every megabyte transferred over the network, at least 6 is used (in and out) to ensure that the connection is completely anonymous. It's a waste of my money if its being burnt by asshole pirates. If you want to know more about what the router is, there's lots of technical information on the projects website[1]. [1]: https://torproject.org/ https://torproject.org/
  - harshreality 14y ago
    The default number of tor hops in a tor circuit is 3. What would be 2GB (1GB + 1GB) of potentially metered/limited bandwidth for the sender(s) and receiver combined in a point to point connection, becomes 8GB of potentially metered/limited network utilization: 1GB for the downloader, 1GB for the uploader, and 1+1GB (down+up) each for the tor nodes in the circuit. Given that tor node bandwidth is a precious commodity, it shouldn't be difficult to see how downloading large files through tor is a problem. It's not just tor; downloading large files by any means through tor hurts the tor network. Tor happens to be by far the most popular means of redistribution of large files for which people would like to gain anonymity.
oakwhiz 14y ago
Or, you could trade pieces only with trustworthy clients, based on a chain of trust.
- autarch 14y ago
  Which means you rely on anonymous friends of friends of friends of ... to not accept a few thousand dollars from the RIAA to add their network as friends.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    If the RIAA sponsor that person to upload the data then how can they say you're receiving unauthorised data from that person? Also, isn't this a form of entrapment. If I offer to sell you drugs and you accept then it strikes me that I'm more guilty than you - same if I offer to send you works I know are copyright.
tomp 14y ago
Yes, but it's possible to have a network of peers that exchange data (almost) anonymously - TOR is a great example, but it is not scaleable - more users using it means it gets slower, not faster. AFAIK, there are protocols that have scalability built-in, like I2P and another bittorrent like protocol whose name I forgot; political measures such as this will increase their development and adoption and therefore make them useful and practical.

nwh 14y ago

Please don't torrent through the onion router.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
bionsuba 14y ago
Could you elaborate?
- nwh 14y ago
  The Tor anonymity router is run by volunteers like myself. I donate several megabyte a second of my bandwidth to relay data for people avoiding censorship and protecting their anonymity. By torrenting through the onion router, you not only waste mine, but three other nodes bandwidth. It causes unnecessary load and attention to the last (exit) router. For every megabyte transferred over the network, at least 6 is used (in and out) to ensure that the connection is completely anonymous. It's a waste of my money if its being burnt by asshole pirates. If you want to know more about what the router is, there's lots of technical information on the projects website[1]. [1]: https://torproject.org/ https://torproject.org/
- harshreality 14y ago
  The default number of tor hops in a tor circuit is 3. What would be 2GB (1GB + 1GB) of potentially metered/limited bandwidth for the sender(s) and receiver combined in a point to point connection, becomes 8GB of potentially metered/limited network utilization: 1GB for the downloader, 1GB for the uploader, and 1+1GB (down+up) each for the tor nodes in the circuit. Given that tor node bandwidth is a precious commodity, it shouldn't be difficult to see how downloading large files through tor is a problem. It's not just tor; downloading large files by any means through tor hurts the tor network. Tor happens to be by far the most popular means of redistribution of large files for which people would like to gain anonymity.

oakwhiz 14y ago

Or, you could trade pieces only with trustworthy clients, based on a chain of trust.

autarch 14y ago
Which means you rely on anonymous friends of friends of friends of ... to not accept a few thousand dollars from the RIAA to add their network as friends.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  If the RIAA sponsor that person to upload the data then how can they say you're receiving unauthorised data from that person? Also, isn't this a form of entrapment. If I offer to sell you drugs and you accept then it strikes me that I'm more guilty than you - same if I offer to send you works I know are copyright.

tomp 14y ago

Yes, but it's possible to have a network of peers that exchange data (almost) anonymously - TOR is a great example, but it is not scaleable - more users using it means it gets slower, not faster. AFAIK, there are protocols that have scalability built-in, like I2P and another bittorrent like protocol whose name I forgot; political measures such as this will increase their development and adoption and therefore make them useful and practical.