 |
January 13, 2014, 08:46:33 AM |
|
(requesting whitelist, move to better section... I'm an old-timer here but am posting under a new account)
Bitcoin experts, altcoin enthusiasts, fellow academics...
First let me describe the current state of things surrounding private torrent trackers. If you are familiar with private bittorrent trackers you can skip the next paragraph.
Bittorent is a protocol that allows peers to download files from each other, in a distributed and highly efficient fashion. Sites that host torrent files/links do not host any copyrighted material; a torrent file merely points to peers who have a desired file. Most people scratch their warez itch via publicly indexed torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, kickass-torrents, isohunt (RIP), etc. These are fine and good, but do pose problems for some (lots of spam, low quality encodes, slow speeds, poor seed retention, lack of niche content). Private torrent sites exist to meet these concerns. These invite-only torrent sites generally enforce strict rules about content, seed times and ratios, etc., cultivating vibrant torrent communities with very high quality content.
The "tracker" is a server that facilitates peer transfer and more importantly record and verify upload/download stats which are used to enforce site rules. Peer transfer has already been re-implemented on public torrents in a distributed fashion; peers help each other connect via distributed hash tables (DHT). The Pirate Bay doesn't worry about ratios and cheating, so public sites like The Pirate Bay have done away with the tracker server altogether.
Currently, some of the most successful private torrent sites are having their trackers DDoS'd for an extended period of time (probably a butthurt skiddie who was banned from the sites). The tracker is the sole centralized component in an otherwise decentralized P2P ecology. I am on a mission to solve this problem.
Discussion and brainstorming has already begun on reddit... /r/trackers/comments/1v0fu7/preventing_ddos_andor_government_takedown_of/
We need your brainpower, bitcointalk!
|
