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This is a really myopic view on uses of crypto and the BitTorrent protocol. There's so much more going on than criminal applications. BitTorrent is used in a l

This is a really myopic view on uses of crypto and the BitTorrent protocol. There's so much more going on than criminal applications. BitTorrent is used in a lot of settings for data distribution and for software distribution. Saying it's just for pirating reveals the author's laziness. Several of these use-cases are listed in the wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent As for crypto, I recommend people read about Bitcoin being used for the purposes of sending remittances to start.

bawolff 5y ago
Also the author laments that bittorrent is not used for 1:1 transfers. Bittorrent's strength is in distributing bandwidth for popular files. Direct file transfers between people who know each other isn't really its target. So i feel that's a pretty unfair criticism. You don't always need to take over the world to be succesful. Its fine to have a niche and just do that really well.
- the8472 5y ago
  I think Bittorrent could be made usable for 1:1 transfers. The building blocks are there. But you'd have to streamline the process and build a client optimized for that case instead of the more common usage. The main missing piece would be a standardized encryption format. That doesn't really need protocol changes, just a storage-level convention how the data is encrypted before turning it into a torrent.
  - tomphoolery 5y ago
    Agreed, but I don't think there's a lot of motivation to do so. At that point, BitTorrent is just DCC in a new fur coat. As stated earlier, BT is most appropriately used in a setting where you want to download a single file from multiple sources, distributing the workload between them and your network. This results in faster downloads, and does so in a way that is decentralized (for the most part) and scalable by design. So while it could be done, the question is really "should it be done"? I'd love to be able to send a file over the internet easily without using some centralized service, but if there's only 2 people that are meant to have the file, does the overhead of BitTorrent make any sense?
  - halikular 5y ago
    We already have SFTP for this.
    - the8472 5y ago
      sftp doesn't do nat hole punching, does it?
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Isn't this basically Resilio's Sync ? I've been using it for years on smartphone backups that otherwise wouldn't be able to hold a sustained transfer.
    - Moru 5y ago
      Yes, me too. It also have 1:1 functions for sending a file easily or sync a folder between all your oomputers and phones.
  - ayyy 5y ago
    What do you mean, could be? https://instant.io/ https://instant.io/ is just one of many webtorrent sites that do this. It's a wonderful use of bittorrent.
    - the8472 5y ago
      Webtorrent is not fully decentralized since webrtc needs signalling servers for each session (you can't even store credentials in a cache and reuse them later) and it doesn't have a DHT since UDP isn't available in browsers. It's not the same as bittorrent proper.
  - samatman 5y ago
    I'm not sure I see the point though? For 1-to-1 transfers, Magic Wormhole is the system to beat, and I struggle to imagine how it could be improved. https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole
    - bccdee 5y ago
      I really wish magic wormhole worked conveniently on windows without obliging me to install python and pip and such. It's my go-to when sftp isn't an option, but for sftp not to be an option almost always means that one of the computers I'm trying to transfer between is a windows box.
      - samatman 5y ago
        That's reasonable, it's a great candidate for a rewrite in Go.
        throwaway2556 5y ago
        It's already a thing: https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william
        synctext 5y ago
        Wormhole requirement: "the URL of a publicly-available Rendezvous Server" This means its not a self-sovereign system, like Bittorrent, GIT, and Bitcoin. Its no different then a central Napster server, the one that got dragged into court on November 1999. Scientists are still working on creating self-sovereign peer-to-peer systems. Its hard, but we're going to solve it in coming years. Scientific community: "International Workshop series on Distributed Infrastructure for Common Good", https://dicg2020.github.io/ https://dicg2020.github.io/ (disclaimer: involved scientist)
      - throwaway2556 5y ago
        Magic Wormhole has a good implementation in Go. It has windows binary. https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william Windows binary: https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william/releases/download/v1.0.5/wormhole-william-windows-386.exe https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william/releases/downlo... There's GUI: https://github.com/Jacalz/wormhole-gui https://github.com/Jacalz/wormhole-gui Android app too: https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile The author is on HN as psanford
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
If bittorent is used by hundreds of millions of people, if thsts not mainstream then nothing is. How it's being used is a different problem, but it's certainly effective and popular.
- dominojab 5y ago
  Its used by hundreds of millions to share popular files between themselves. Sharing files 1:1 is easier and more efficient with sFTP or other protocols.
cloudking 5y ago
Blizzard uses BitTorrent to distribute their games and patches https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blizzard_Downloader https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blizzard_Downloader
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  "was" is an important word in the first sentence there. They finished moving away from BitTorrent in 2013, and they'd phased out actual p2p transfers in favor of just using the BT client to download from a web seed a while before that.
bstar77 5y ago
This article is laughably bad. I'm not even sure it's worth the time to give a counter response. The BitTorrent comment he made is objectively false and can be proven as such. Tons of game installers use torrents under the hood to distribute their massive game payloads.
- crummy 5y ago
  Which game installers use torrents?
  - bstar77 5y ago
    Blizzard and Star Citizen use torrents under the hood. Many others do as well, it's just hard to find documented confirmation.
- nomadiccoder 5y ago
  she*
m3kw9 5y ago
If BitTorrent is so great why isn’t it used more today for file transfers vs hosted storage? Also it is mostly used for piracy because authorities cannot shut down a decentralized system.
- ayyy 5y ago
  It is. Blizzard has been using it for years: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blizzard_Downloader https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blizzard_Downloader This company is new and is using it as a CDN: https://www.peer5.com/ https://www.peer5.com/ Bittorrent is everywhere, just like Linux, and you mostly don't notice it.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    Blizzard was been using it for few years, and does not for 8 years now.
- deepsun 5y ago
  Because browsers (except only Opera, it's Norwegian) don't want to turn on built-in torrent downloader, only because they know they'd got troubles from RIAA folks. There are some websites that offer downloads through torrents, like linux distros.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Doesn't the Windows update system use some form of torrents for faster downloads?
macqm 5y ago
I think Windows 10 Delivery Optimization tech is a great example of (nearly) decentralized tech: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-delivery-optimization https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/w...
dehrmann 5y ago
Aside from association with piracy and not being a dropbox alternative because you have to keep the seeder online, it's more expensive for network operators than CDNs, connections often have much more downstream bandwidth, and connections are still sometimes capped. If you're Netflix or an ISP, you're better off getting ISPs to put your hardware in their facilities than having users seed content. The most interesting, viable application I've seen for Bittorrent-like technology is Microsoft seeding updates on a LAN.
lottin 5y ago
> As for crypto, I recommend people read about Bitcoin being used for the purposes of sending remittances to start. I followed your recommendation and this is what I found: bitcoin might, in theory, work for the purpose of sending remittances, but in practice it doesn't. So, returning to the original question, can cryptocurrencies offer an innovative solution for migrant remittances to developing countries? Yes and no. In theory, cryptocurrencies can really provide an effective and economical channel for money transfers to help alleviate poverty through remittances. However, there are two principle problems. Firstly, coins such as Bitcoin remain too volatile, in fact ten times more volatile than major currencies (Baur & Dimpfl 2021). This means that if migrants were to use such channel they would be exposing themselves to extreme risks. But, more importantly users of bitcoin may find themselves victims of speculative attacks, as the cryptocurrencies’ value remains completely speculatively constructed. Secondly, as with international bank transfers, cryptocurrencies need a bank account to buy and sell it. As explained above, having a bank account is not a given and represents a high barrier to entry for many of the poorest migrants. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2021/04/29/cryptocurrencies-an-innovative-solution-to-migrant-remittances/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2021/04/29/cryptocurrenc...
- savingisbadnow 5y ago
  Go learn what Strike just achieved in El Salvador for example. It works in practice and in theory. A big issue is people barely understand Bitcoin and then they try to crtitize it and always seem to fail spectacularly
  - lottin 5y ago
    I can't find any statistics or independent account of what Strike supposedly achieved in El Salvador, but if you have one I'll look at it.
ladyattis 5y ago
if I recall correctly, Blizzard's updater uses Bittorrent to distribute updates for WoW and other applications. So I'm confused by the fact people still focus on the piracy aspect of Bittorrent when there's been many commercial uses of the platform.

bawolff 5y ago

Also the author laments that bittorrent is not used for 1:1 transfers. Bittorrent's strength is in distributing bandwidth for popular files. Direct file transfers between people who know each other isn't really its target. So i feel that's a pretty unfair criticism. You don't always need to take over the world to be succesful. Its fine to have a niche and just do that really well.

the8472 5y ago
I think Bittorrent could be made usable for 1:1 transfers. The building blocks are there. But you'd have to streamline the process and build a client optimized for that case instead of the more common usage. The main missing piece would be a standardized encryption format. That doesn't really need protocol changes, just a storage-level convention how the data is encrypted before turning it into a torrent.
- tomphoolery 5y ago
  Agreed, but I don't think there's a lot of motivation to do so. At that point, BitTorrent is just DCC in a new fur coat. As stated earlier, BT is most appropriately used in a setting where you want to download a single file from multiple sources, distributing the workload between them and your network. This results in faster downloads, and does so in a way that is decentralized (for the most part) and scalable by design. So while it could be done, the question is really "should it be done"? I'd love to be able to send a file over the internet easily without using some centralized service, but if there's only 2 people that are meant to have the file, does the overhead of BitTorrent make any sense?
- halikular 5y ago
  We already have SFTP for this.
  - the8472 5y ago
    sftp doesn't do nat hole punching, does it?
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  Isn't this basically Resilio's Sync ? I've been using it for years on smartphone backups that otherwise wouldn't be able to hold a sustained transfer.
  - Moru 5y ago
    Yes, me too. It also have 1:1 functions for sending a file easily or sync a folder between all your oomputers and phones.
- ayyy 5y ago
  What do you mean, could be? https://instant.io/ https://instant.io/ is just one of many webtorrent sites that do this. It's a wonderful use of bittorrent.
  - the8472 5y ago
    Webtorrent is not fully decentralized since webrtc needs signalling servers for each session (you can't even store credentials in a cache and reuse them later) and it doesn't have a DHT since UDP isn't available in browsers. It's not the same as bittorrent proper.
- samatman 5y ago
  I'm not sure I see the point though? For 1-to-1 transfers, Magic Wormhole is the system to beat, and I struggle to imagine how it could be improved. https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole
  - bccdee 5y ago
    I really wish magic wormhole worked conveniently on windows without obliging me to install python and pip and such. It's my go-to when sftp isn't an option, but for sftp not to be an option almost always means that one of the computers I'm trying to transfer between is a windows box.
    - samatman 5y ago
      That's reasonable, it's a great candidate for a rewrite in Go.
      - throwaway2556 5y ago
        It's already a thing: https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william
        synctext 5y ago
        Wormhole requirement: "the URL of a publicly-available Rendezvous Server" This means its not a self-sovereign system, like Bittorrent, GIT, and Bitcoin. Its no different then a central Napster server, the one that got dragged into court on November 1999. Scientists are still working on creating self-sovereign peer-to-peer systems. Its hard, but we're going to solve it in coming years. Scientific community: "International Workshop series on Distributed Infrastructure for Common Good", https://dicg2020.github.io/ https://dicg2020.github.io/ (disclaimer: involved scientist)
    - throwaway2556 5y ago
      Magic Wormhole has a good implementation in Go. It has windows binary. https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william Windows binary: https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william/releases/download/v1.0.5/wormhole-william-windows-386.exe https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william/releases/downlo... There's GUI: https://github.com/Jacalz/wormhole-gui https://github.com/Jacalz/wormhole-gui Android app too: https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile https://github.com/psanford/wormhole-william-mobile The author is on HN as psanford

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

If bittorent is used by hundreds of millions of people, if thsts not mainstream then nothing is. How it's being used is a different problem, but it's certainly effective and popular.

dominojab 5y ago
Its used by hundreds of millions to share popular files between themselves. Sharing files 1:1 is easier and more efficient with sFTP or other protocols.

cloudking 5y ago

Blizzard uses BitTorrent to distribute their games and patches https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blizzard_Downloader https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blizzard_Downloader

plorkyeran 5y ago
"was" is an important word in the first sentence there. They finished moving away from BitTorrent in 2013, and they'd phased out actual p2p transfers in favor of just using the BT client to download from a web seed a while before that.

bstar77 5y ago

This article is laughably bad. I'm not even sure it's worth the time to give a counter response. The BitTorrent comment he made is objectively false and can be proven as such. Tons of game installers use torrents under the hood to distribute their massive game payloads.

crummy 5y ago
Which game installers use torrents?
- bstar77 5y ago
  Blizzard and Star Citizen use torrents under the hood. Many others do as well, it's just hard to find documented confirmation.
nomadiccoder 5y ago
she*

m3kw9 5y ago

If BitTorrent is so great why isn’t it used more today for file transfers vs hosted storage? Also it is mostly used for piracy because authorities cannot shut down a decentralized system.

ayyy 5y ago
It is. Blizzard has been using it for years: https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blizzard_Downloader https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Blizzard_Downloader This company is new and is using it as a CDN: https://www.peer5.com/ https://www.peer5.com/ Bittorrent is everywhere, just like Linux, and you mostly don't notice it.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  Blizzard was been using it for few years, and does not for 8 years now.
deepsun 5y ago
Because browsers (except only Opera, it's Norwegian) don't want to turn on built-in torrent downloader, only because they know they'd got troubles from RIAA folks. There are some websites that offer downloads through torrents, like linux distros.
frosted-flakes 5y ago
Doesn't the Windows update system use some form of torrents for faster downloads?

macqm 5y ago

I think Windows 10 Delivery Optimization tech is a great example of (nearly) decentralized tech: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/waas-delivery-optimization https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/update/w...

dehrmann 5y ago

Aside from association with piracy and not being a dropbox alternative because you have to keep the seeder online, it's more expensive for network operators than CDNs, connections often have much more downstream bandwidth, and connections are still sometimes capped. If you're Netflix or an ISP, you're better off getting ISPs to put your hardware in their facilities than having users seed content. The most interesting, viable application I've seen for Bittorrent-like technology is Microsoft seeding updates on a LAN.

lottin 5y ago

> As for crypto, I recommend people read about Bitcoin being used for the purposes of sending remittances to start. I followed your recommendation and this is what I found: bitcoin might, in theory, work for the purpose of sending remittances, but in practice it doesn't. So, returning to the original question, can cryptocurrencies offer an innovative solution for migrant remittances to developing countries? Yes and no. In theory, cryptocurrencies can really provide an effective and economical channel for money transfers to help alleviate poverty through remittances. However, there are two principle problems. Firstly, coins such as Bitcoin remain too volatile, in fact ten times more volatile than major currencies (Baur & Dimpfl 2021). This means that if migrants were to use such channel they would be exposing themselves to extreme risks. But, more importantly users of bitcoin may find themselves victims of speculative attacks, as the cryptocurrencies’ value remains completely speculatively constructed. Secondly, as with international bank transfers, cryptocurrencies need a bank account to buy and sell it. As explained above, having a bank account is not a given and represents a high barrier to entry for many of the poorest migrants. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2021/04/29/cryptocurrencies-an-innovative-solution-to-migrant-remittances/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2021/04/29/cryptocurrenc...

savingisbadnow 5y ago
Go learn what Strike just achieved in El Salvador for example. It works in practice and in theory. A big issue is people barely understand Bitcoin and then they try to crtitize it and always seem to fail spectacularly
- lottin 5y ago
  I can't find any statistics or independent account of what Strike supposedly achieved in El Salvador, but if you have one I'll look at it.

ladyattis 5y ago

if I recall correctly, Blizzard's updater uses Bittorrent to distribute updates for WoW and other applications. So I'm confused by the fact people still focus on the piracy aspect of Bittorrent when there's been many commercial uses of the platform.