Valve snaps up Bittorrent Creator

I think you guys are bickering about Valve trying to distribute their products via a BT-like network without seeing reason or one of the really great possibilities.

1. Someone said earlier that Valve would be better off purchasing more content servers... well, they basically did. Remember Valve partnering with LimeLight Networks? Whenever HL2 comes out, LimeLight will throw their incredible bandwidth around and we'll all be fine. Don't worry, they won't BT HL2...that would just be silly.

2. Bittorrent is a great idea for one thing though... Mods! Imagine a steam section that just lists all Available mods... you just click on one, and everyone who has that mod installed starts to bittorrent it to you in a reasonable fashion.. It would allow much wided mod distribution, as well as allowing in-game mod acquisition... you click a server, it says "sorry, you do not have Op Co-In... would you like to acquire it?" and you click yes... play regular DM for a half-hour, and then bam, youv'e got the mod.

that sounds good to me. If anyone knows the positives AND negatives of BT, it's the program's creator.
 
Note to those wanting to read the NYTimes without registering.
Paste the URL into google, then you can click and go to it. They let google in for free so that it will crawl their site. :p
 
Fenric said:
Ok then, what do you suggest the 56k users do if they can't get cable in their area? Should they be discriminated against because of where they live?

Something all cable users should realise, cable providers go out of business a heck of a lot. I hope that doesn't happen to you and you end up stuck on dialup and being shut out by those you once saw as friends, even though it would be poetic justice :p
The point i'm trying to make is that 56k users will experience nothing but pain and suffering trying to keep up with broadband users. So much so that i think they should give up while they're down. The future is not good unless some genius discovers a way to compress data to a millionth of it's original size. Both streaming and static data...highly unlikely. To the people who can't get ADSL or cable in their areas. You are cursed!! CURSED I TELL YOU! I'd assume you're living in a rather isolated..***ral area. The sort of place where broadband connection would be ideal....that would suck to the max.

The only game i played online when i had 56k was starcraft. I stayed away from first person shooters because the ping didn't reach my satisfaction criteria (what a geek..!)
 
Mr-Fusion said:
Theres the reason.

Running servers and paying for bandwidth is quite a lot of money. Peer-peer would solve so many problems.

Wow, you reek of arrogance.

P2P has so many problems, I cant see why Valve would go with such a method.

1) Unchecked downloads, yep that means people could throw viruses and trojans on to the P2P system before anybody knows about it.
2) Network security. How many people in this forum knows what a firewall is and knows how to use one?
3) How does this P2P use system resources. 3.5 megabyte songs are way different than 250 megabyte content updates. This puts more strain on P2P services and participating computers.
4) How does valve implement their pay model on such a service, where trust remains a critical issue.
5) How does a P2P service integrate with Steam?
6) How do you restrict files from being put on a P2P server? If you Valve allows anyone to share files over the network, serious security issue arise.

Those are just some of the issues that Valve would have to overcome if they went with a P2P method. If they move to a purely pay for play (or pay to download) business model, I would demand servers, none of this P2P crap.

Mr-Fusion said:
And to the 56k users complaining, i don't care. I'm going to be harsh, but you don't belong on modern day internet with a connection that slow. If I had 56k i would not partake in hobbies that require connections that are 10 times faster (gaming and downloading game patches).

56k users --> GTFO.

How old are you, 13? You are so naive.

Do you know that the average broadband speed in South Korea is like 6 megabits per second? In the U.S. its around 3 megabits per second. Internet speed is all relative. If it wasn't for 56K users, could you imagine how bloated net code would be for games? Though playing games online with dialup is not as convienent as it is playing on broadband, it still works rather well.

I think its obvious you've never used dialup before, other wise you not be complaining. I bet you've never had a lack of money before either, probably because of your mommy and daddy always gave you everything you needed. For me to pay an extra 40 to 50 a month to get cable is not worth it. Thats 480 to 600 dollars a year in extra internet charges. That extra 500 dollars a year can be better spend elsewhere like food, gas, or college tuition . Man, some of you guys piss me off so much....
 
All I know is that I live in one of the nicest areas in Melbourne, and we still don't even have ADSL enabled here...
 
blahblahblah said:
Wow, you reek of arrogance.

P2P has so many problems, I cant see why Valve would go with such a method.
ROFL no it doesn't...

1. ? I wonder out of the millions of people using BT - who has ever had malicious code specifically because of BT as opposed to downloading an infected file through the system?

Much more likely they got penetrated by not having a firewall, browsing dodgy porn sites with java scripts, downloading trojans through kazaa, using a vulnerable e-mail and or browser client, or just not having up-to-date virus definitions. BT is the least likely of all those to invite malicious code through negligence...

2. Lots, and many use programs like Peer Guardian to reduce visibibility and prevent exploits...

3. ROFL you've never used BT have you? People download 2 gig plus torrents of xvid movies @ 100k all the time, and with Steam it would only be an optional load balancer not the primary download source...

4. Trust isn't at issue. You're way more paranoid about the security deficits of a properly integrated BT system than you need to be...

5. Most likely as an optional load balancing check-box that helps take the strain off the content servers. Which is exactly what every non-alarmist forum member has been saying over and over again for a while now... Funny that so many people keep missing it and assuming the worst, most incompetent inplementation. In debating when you assign another party this made-up weaker argument without them actually asserting it - it is called a 'strawman'.

6. Huh? There would be no P2P 'server' as such, only the Steam content network supplimented by voluntary Seeding / Peer network. The Steam client controls when P2P is used as part of the standard content downloading. I think you're getting confused about more centralised P2P 'networks' like e-mule, dc etc.

If they move to a purely pay for play (or pay to download) business model, I would demand servers, none of this P2P crap.
Why would they do that - that's just scaremongering...
 
blahblahblah said:
Wow, you reek of arrogance.

P2P has so many problems, I cant see why Valve would go with such a method.

1) Unchecked downloads, yep that means people could throw viruses and trojans on to the P2P system before anybody knows about it.
2) Network security. How many people in this forum knows what a firewall is and knows how to use one?
3) How does this P2P use system resources. 3.5 megabyte songs are way different than 250 megabyte content updates. This puts more strain on P2P services and participating computers.
4) How does valve implement their pay model on such a service, where trust remains a critical issue.
5) How does a P2P service integrate with Steam?
6) How do you restrict files from being put on a P2P server? If you Valve allows anyone to share files over the network, serious security issue arise.
Points 1, 2 and 3 i have never encountered problems with on any other P2P services. P2P services that have minimal security implementations. A company like Valve would be far more cautious. I'm not ruling out that other people haven't had problems either, just that i use the programs with caution coupled with firewalls, virus checkers etc :cheers:


How old are you, 13? You are so naive.

Do you know that the average broadband speed in South Korea is like 6 megabits per second? In the U.S. its around 3 megabits per second. Internet speed is all relative. If it wasn't for 56K users, could you imagine how bloated net code would be for games? Though playing games online with dialup is not as convienent as it is playing on broadband, it still works rather well.
For some perhaps. Not for me. Again, that perspective is relative.....

I think its obvious you've never used dialup before, other wise you not be complaining. I bet you've never had a lack of money before either, probably because of your mommy and daddy always gave you everything you needed. For me to pay an extra 40 to 50 a month to get cable is not worth it. Thats 480 to 600 dollars a year in extra internet charges. That extra 500 dollars a year can be better spend elsewhere like food, gas, or college tuition . Man, some of you guys piss me off so much....
How dare you make such a judgement about me. I work damn hard to support my computer habbits. That paragraph is so far off the truth, i'm appalled!

Absolutely appalled

/storms out of thread in disgust and throws a hissy fit
 
Wolf said:
ROFL no it doesn't...

1. ? I wonder out of the millions of people using BT - who has ever had malicious code specifically because of BT as opposed to downloading an infected file through the system?

Much more likely they got penetrated by not having a firewall, browsing dodgy porn sites with java scripts, downloading trojans through kazaa, using a vulnerable e-mail and or browser client, or just not having up-to-date virus definitions. BT is the least likely of all those to invite malicious code through negligence...

2. Lots, and many use programs like Peer Guardian to reduce visibibility and prevent exploits...

3. ROFL you've never used BT have you? People download 2 gig plus torrents of xvid movies @ 100k all the time, and with Steam it would only be an optional load balancer not the primary download source...

4. Trust isn't at issue. You're way more paranoid about the security deficits of a properly integrated BT system than you need to be...

5. Most likely as an optional load balancing check-box that helps take the strain off the content servers. Which is exactly what every non-alarmist forum member has been saying over and over again for a while now... Funny that so many people keep missing it and assuming the worst, most incompetent inplementation. In debating when you assign another party this made-up weaker argument without them actually asserting it - it is called a 'strawman'.

6. Huh? There would be no P2P 'server' as such, only the Steam content network supplimented by voluntary Seeding / Peer network. The Steam client controls when P2P is used as part of the standard content downloading. I think you're getting confused about more centralised P2P 'networks' like e-mule, dc etc.


Why would they do that - that's just scaremongering...

1) Half-Life was celebrated for bring many people to playing computer games. Most of these people do not know anything about computer or internet security. I know many people who do not have a firewall on their computer, you are assuming computer users are actually knowledgable about computers.

Half-Life 2 is supposed to have the same effect on computer gaming as the original Half-Life.

2) You are very smart. Too bad not enough people use programs like that.

3) You are right. I havent used a P2P application in over a year. However, I am assuming that the P2P base for Valve will be much smaller than what Bit Torrent currently has. That will affect performance.

4) I trust most software, I dont trust the people who use the software. Too many idiots out in this world.

5) An incompetent application like Steam right? Just kidding. I have a different implementation of P2P and Steam in my mind...

6) Every computer that participates in a P2P network in effect becomes a mini server. Granted, if they go with the plan you mentioned above, you do limit risk, but the risk is still there.

Letme say though, if the world had people like you, I would not have as many concerns about P2P apps. The problem is that most people dont know any better. This problem can only get worse if HL2 reaches a mainstream audience not familiar with computer security.

If you every take an economics class you will hear the saying TINSTAAFL - There is no such thing as a free lunch. Thats why I assuming a pay to pay (or download) model will eventually be implemented.


Mr. Fusion

You seem plently informed too. I'm not worried about people like you, I'm worried about everybody else.

I may have made false assumptions about you, but I just want you to see that not everybody can afford high speed internet. For me personally, its either between having a computer that can play games or having high speed internet. I can't afford both right now. You have to understand my perspective. I would very much like to be able to play games online. If everything goes broadband I'm SOL.

Oh yeah, I didn't read your previous post, otherwise I would have changed or edited what I said. :cheers:
 
Mr-Fusion said:
The only game i played online when i had 56k was starcraft. I stayed away from first person shooters because the ping didn't reach my satisfaction criteria (what a geek..!)

I just moved into a house that has cable access, and I'm lucky for it, and like Fenric said, I don't forget my dial-up days. I remember playing DoD with 300-400 ping and still being quite proficient at it. A good ping for me was 200-250, and I was super stoked one day when it hit 190. All that's needed are good servers.

Dial-up isn't as useless as some people make it out to be. Two or three hundred meg downloads just take longer and a few phone calls, that's all :) Not to mention that broadband prices in Australia (especially Adelaide), are only just coming down to reasonable rates, and some parts of town aren't adsl active.
 
blahblahblah said:
Oh yeah, I didn't read your previous post, otherwise I would have changed or edited what I said. :cheers:
No hard feelings mate :)

I probably went a bit too far with my criticiscm of 56kers. I do actually love all you guys
/takes off pants to show affection :bounce:
 
Read up on BT technology before commenting on it.

Specifically:
A) Viruses / etc. Files are hashed. Attempting to alter the file means that it will hash different. Mod makers submitting virus-filled files is no different then them attaching a virus to their mod and making it available for download. Downloading from a normal mirror, you have no hash to assure you that the mirror hasn't added a virus (intentionally or otherwise). With BT you do.

B) Bittorrent is a bad choice for music. It's a good choice for *LARGE* files. (Full DVD images as well as entire seasons of TV episodes are common. That's 5-9 GBs of data in a single torrent.)

C) Bittorrent supports pause and resume on download. When you want to DL 5 ISOs of your favorite linux distro, having a DL crash with no way to resume reallllly sucks.

Now I doubt they will implement BT directly into steam. However, with only a few modifications the system could help everyone out immensely. The incentive for allowing upload would be faster downloads for those participating in P2P distribution.
 
Look at the way BitTorrent works:
  • You get a torrent file (tiny)
  • You allocate space for the file you are getting
  • You download available parts from other people
  • You upload parts that you have acquired to other people
In this case, the "people" you are getting the available parts from could be restricted (thanks to the expertise of the AUTHOR of BitTorrent) to be only the content servers supplied by the lambda guys and their allies. This way, it would distribute the load very efficiently on each individual server provided. In essence, you are fair to everyone who supplied bandwidth by not straining a few selected ones and using the others as backup.

This way there would be no expense on the user's upstream. Although Valve Software might surprise us yet again by making the distribution of HL2 p2p-ish, I doubt they would consider it a good idea. A lot of hl.exe users are still on dialup and a system where the user has to contribute bandwidth, as someone said, would alienate too many potential costumers.

Even if they decided to actually include the basic behavior of BitTorrent in Steam, it would ultimately be a step in the right direction for Valve to have a true, professional grade content delivery system. Where games and patches could be delivered seamlessly... transparently... assuming broadband will only get more available and, well, broader.

What does this mean in terms of delays? Well, this could be bad news for the die-hard fan who wants HL2 right now, but at this point it's quite obvious that HL2 will be released when it's ready. Also, like someone cleverly mentioned, Steam can be patched/updated after the HL2 release. One must admit, though, that it would be a good idea to include some kind of improvement for the delivery of HL2 to the masses.

In brief, this is far from bad news!

-que llueva-


edit: grammar/coherence
 
Mr-Fusion said:
The point i'm trying to make is that 56k users will experience nothing but pain and suffering trying to keep up with broadband users. So much so that i think they should give up while they're down. The future is not good unless some genius discovers a way to compress data to a millionth of it's original size. Both streaming and static data...highly unlikely. To the people who can't get ADSL or cable in their areas. You are cursed!! CURSED I TELL YOU! I'd assume you're living in a rather isolated..***ral area. The sort of place where broadband connection would be ideal....that would suck to the max.

The only game i played online when i had 56k was starcraft. I stayed away from first person shooters because the ping didn't reach my satisfaction criteria (what a geek..!)

Actually its just as common for there to be no cable provider in your area if you live in an urban or rural place. I've got NTL here, Telewest don't even cover my street, yet they cover the street leading onto it. If I go a few streets away there's no cable provider whatsoever. And this place is certainly not rural, its just sat in the middle between two very large towns, close to NTL, BT's and Telewests larger offices. So its certainly nothing to do with that. They simply pick and choose what cables they will lay and where.
 
So far we have about a million questions, and we're trying to find answers that everyone will agree to. I don't think there are any, since the questions are hypothetical to begin with. For now we really have to wait and see exactly what Valve has in mind for this guy, and of what use he will be.
 
fifty7var said:
probably nothing new...


Fifty7var says:
is it [steam] a distributed p2p client, or are all downloads coming from the 12 content servers?

johnc says:
it's all coming from the content servers, we don't use your upstream bandwidth

Fifty7var says:
i was just curious, it would seem like a good idea

johnc says:
that feature will be added at some point

Fifty7var says:
cool, thanks a lot


-Adam

Found this in the Info Thread... eh? Pertinent?
 
Interesting. Even though they haven't confirmed anything (and I don't want to step into classical announcement-speculating whinging like a certain Pay to Play statement begun) I hope that they wouldn't make such a system compulsory, merely an option for those with greater bandwidth. Remember, there's nothing finalised. There never really is with Valve :sleep:

I hate the theoretical Steam system of downloading unwanted tweaks and garbage for features you never use- and to me and many others a BitTorrent system is garbage. Damn BT. Uh, British Telecom that is.
 
Anable said:
Fenric, I seriously doubt that valve is going to impliment bit torrent directly into steam in it's native form. In fact, nothing saying they would impliment any portion of bit torrent at all. Most likely they just want the brain power behind the software to help make Steam better.
This is what people should have gotten out of this news.
 
Ruroni said:
This is what people should have gotten out of this news.
Are we reading the same news?

First, John C says "that feature (referring to a distributed p2p client) will be added at some point."

Then, the author of the most popular distributed p2p client gets picked up by Valve.

The only logical conclusion I can see from the information in this thread is that they are adding that feature to Steam. We don't know any of the details... but it seems quite obvious that the BitTorrent technology is what they hired him for.
 
I think that its a great thing :) takes load off the steam servers.
 
Evil Avatar @ evilavatar.com said:
...(valve's) solution? They want to charge me $12.95 a month to use MY bandwidth that I pay $49.95 a month for (I have a business account.) to help them SELL Half-Life 2 and Condition-Zero to other customers.

WTF? You aren't using my bandwidth for $#!t unless you are paying me part of my $49.95 a month.

At this point the best thing you can do when you go to play Condition-Zero or Half-Life 2 is to just freaking unplug the network cable from your computer to keep some Valve spyware BitTorrent thing from trying to leech bandwidth from you.

Valve truly knows how to @%#$ up a good thing.
Interesting perspective.
 
Based on totally unconfirmed speculation. We have no idea what form peer-to-peer will take in Steam. Like I suggest in my post, it may well be for distribution of custom content, and most likely will be a toggleable option anyway.

EDIT: Plus anyone who thinks that Valve isn't going to have enough bandwidth for everybody for HL2 is missing one big factor. People are going to have to PAY before they can start downloading via Steam. This means that the money is in Valve's account by the time you're downloading. Not to mention that for a week or more previous to the game's release, they'll do preloading. This means, you pay up, and they begin streaming HL2 to you. By the time the game is released, most people would be done / nearly done with the download. If there isn't enough bandwidth, the preloading eases this problem, and if things get congested in the pre-load, they can spend the money all the people have paid them to temporarily buy more bandwidth and put more severs online.
 
jasonh1234 said:
Interesting perspective.

..that guy is an idiot if he thinks Steam is going to be pay to play. I have no idea what he means by $13/month, please expand the quote/enlighten me as to what he was talking about?
 
Personally, I think this is just ****ed up beyond belief.

Steam doesn't work. Fact facts - both Half-Life 2 and Condition Zero have been massively delayed just because Steam doesn't work.

Valve found out with just Counter-Strike patch files that they can't make Steam work. There isn't enough bandwidth in the world for them to serve up a 1 GB game like Condition-Zero and a 2 GB game like Half-Life 2 to their online customers via Steam without the whole system coming crashing down around them.

Their solution? They want to charge me $12.95 a month to use MY bandwidth that I pay $49.95 a month for (I have a business account.) to help them SELL Half-Life 2 and Condition-Zero to other customers.

WTF? You aren't using my bandwidth for shit unless you are paying me part of my $49.95 a month.

At this point the best thing you can do when you go to play Condition-Zero or Half-Life 2 is to just freaking unplug the network cable from your computer to keep some Valve spyware BitTorrent thing from trying to leech bandwidth from you.

Valve truly knows how to **** up a good thing.

I'm still confused.. what is this guy on about? Make him pay $12.95 a month? He seems to be confused the two acronyms, P2P. Peer 2 peer and pay 2 play..
 
An interview in the NY Times. You have to register, not a real problem but I'll just c/p it here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/technology/circuits/12shar.html?pagewanted=1

AFTER working for a parade of doomed dot-com startups, a young programmer named Bram Cohen finally got tired of failure.

"I decided I finally wanted to work on a project that people would actually use, would actually work and would actually be fun," he recalled.

Three years later, Mr. Cohen, 28, has emerged as the face of the next wave of Internet file sharing. If Napster started the first generation of file-sharing, and services like Kazaa represented the second, then the system developed by Mr. Cohen, known as BitTorrent, may well be leading the third. Firm numbers are difficult to come by, but it appears that the BitTorrent software has been downloaded more than 10 million times.

And just as earlier forms of file-sharing seem to be waning in popularity under legal pressure from the music industry, new technologies like BitTorrent are making it easier than ever to share and distribute the huge files used for video. One site alone,

*************, routinely offers hundreds of television programs, recent movies and copyrighted software programs. The movie industry, among others, has taken notice.

What Mr. Cohen has created, however, seems beyond his control. And when he was developing the system, he said, widespread copyright infringement was not what he had in mind.

Rather, he was intrigued by a problem familiar to many Internet users and felt acutely by friends who were trading music online legally: the excruciating wait while files were being downloaded.

"Obviously their problem was not enough bandwidth to meet demand," Mr. Cohen said in an interview at a Mexican restaurant near his home in Seattle. "It seemed pretty clear to me that there is a lot of bandwidth out there, but it's not being used properly. There's all of this upload capacity that people aren't using."

That was the essential insight behind BitTorrent. Under older file-sharing systems like Napster and Kazaa, only a small subset of users actually share files with the world. Most users simply download, or leech, in cyberspace parlance.

BitTorrent, however, uses what could be called a Golden Rule principle: the faster you upload, the faster you are allowed to download. BitTorrent cuts up files into many little pieces, and as soon as a user has a piece, they immediately start uploading that piece to other users. So almost all of the people who are sharing a given file are simultaneously uploading and downloading pieces of the same file (unless their downloading is complete).

The practical implication is that the BitTorrent system makes it easy to distribute very large files to large numbers of people while placing minimal bandwidth requirements on the original "seeder." That is because everyone who wants the file is sharing with one another, rather than downloading from a central source. A separate file-sharing network known as eDonkey uses a similar system.

For Mr. Cohen, BitTorrent was always about exercising his brain rather than trying to fatten his wallet. Unlike many other file-sharing programs, BitTorrent is both free and open-source, which means that those with enough technical know-how can incorporate Mr. Cohen's code into their own programs.

While writing the software, "I lived on savings for a while and then I lived off credit cards, you know, using those zero percent introductory rates to use one credit card to pay off the previous card," Mr. Cohen said.

The first usable version of BitTorrent appeared in October 2002, but the system needed a lot of fine-tuning. Luckily for Mr. Cohen, he was living in the Bay Area at the time and his project had attracted the attention of John Gilmore, the free-software entrepreneur, who had also been one of the first employees at Sun Microsystems. Mr. Gilmore ended up helping Mr. Cohen with some of his living expenses while he finished the system.

"Part of what matters to me about this is that it makes it possible for people with limited bandwidth to supply very popular files," Mr. Gilmore said in a telephone interview. "It means that if you are a small software developer you can put up a package, and if it turns out that millions of people want it, they can get it from each other in an automated way."

BitTorrent really started to take off in early 2003 when it was used to distribute a new version of Linux and fans of Japanese anime started relying on it to share cartoons.

It is difficult to measure BitTorrent's overall use. But Steven C. Corbato, director of backbone network infrastructure for Internet2, the high-speed network consortium, said he took notice in May. "We started seeing BitTorrent traffic increase right around May 15, 2003, and by October it was above 10 percent of the traffic," he said.

Data for the week of Jan. 26, which Mr. Corbato said was the latest reliable information, showed that BitTorrent generated 9.3 percent of the total data traffic on Internet2's so-called Abilene backbone, which connects more than 200 of the nation's biggest research universities, in addition to laboratories and state education networks. By contrast, no other file sharing system registered more than 1 percent of the traffic, though Mr. Corbato said his network might be underreporting the use of those other services.

Just a few months ago, however, that success still had not translated into dollars for Mr. Cohen.

"This past September I had, like, no money," he recalled. "I was just scraping along and doing the credit card thing again."

But unknown to Mr. Cohen, BitTorrent was serving as a job application. Out of the blue, he heard from Gabe Newell, the managing director of Valve Software, based in nearby Bellevue, Wash. Valve is developing what gaming experts anticipate will be a blockbuster video game, Half-Life 2, but it is also creating an online distribution network that it calls Steam. Because of Mr. Cohen's expertise in just that area, Valve offered him a job. He moved to Seattle and started work in October.

"When we looked around to see who was doing the most interesting work in this space, Bram's progress on BitTorrent really stood out," Mr. Newell said. "The distributed publishing model embedded in BitTorrent is exactly the kind of thing media companies need to build on for their own systems."


All along, Mr. Cohen had accepted donations from BitTorrent users at his Web site, bitconjurer.org, but the sum had been minimal. In October, however, Mr. Cohen's father prevailed on him to ask a bit more directly. Now, Mr. Cohen said, he is receiving a few hundred dollars a day.

"It's been a pretty dramatic turnaround in lifestyle in just a few months, with the job and the donations coming in," Mr. Cohen said. "It's nice."

According to survey data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, file sharing is on the wane, apparently as a result of the music industry's legal offensive. Last May, 29 percent of adult Internet users in the United States reported that they had engaged in file sharing; that figure dropped to 14 percent in a survey conducted in November and December. Nonetheless, the ranks of the BitTorrent faithful - whether anime fanatics, Linux users, Deadheads or movie pirates - appear to be growing. And some are quite thankful to Mr. Cohen.

"I think Bram is going to be like Shawn Fanning in terms of the impact this is going to have," said Steve Hormell, a co-founder of etree.org, a music-trading site that predates the file-sharing phenomenon, referring to the inventor of the original Napster service. "It is a bit of paradigm shift and I can't stress the community aspect of it enough. You have to give back in order to get. Going back 15 years, that's what the Internet was all about until the suits came along."

Not surprisingly, the movie industry is not amused. "BitTorrent is definitely on our radar screen," Tom Temple, the director for Internet enforcement for the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a telephone interview. While the association first became aware of the technology about a year ago, BitTorrent's surging popularity prompted the group to start sending infringement notices to BitTorrent site operators in November.

"We do have investigations open into various BitTorrent link sites that could lead to either civil or criminal prosecution in the near future," Mr. Temple said.

For his part, Mr. Cohen pointed out that BitTorrent users are not anonymous and that their numeric Internet addresses are easily viewable by anyone who cares. "It amazes me that sites like Suprnova continue to stay up, because it would be so easy to sue them," he said. Using BitTorrent for illegal trading, he added, is "patently stupid because it's not anonymous, and it can't be made anonymous because it's fundamentally antithetical to the architecture."

That said, Mr. Cohen is not in the nanny business.

"I'm not going to get up on my high horse and tell others not to do it because it's not my place to berate people," he said. "I just sort of watch it with some amusement."
 
Shuzer said:
..that guy is an idiot if he thinks Steam is going to be pay to play. I have no idea what he means by $13/month, please expand the quote/enlighten me as to what he was talking about?

Let me enlighten you, Valve have already said that one of their options is going to be a subscription service where you get access to all their content. It won't be pay2play in the sense you must pay to use Steam, you can still buy HL2 and play normally. But Valve plan on releasing lots of content afterwards, CS2 TF2 etc and this subscription would include that. They say that Subscriptions will prove cheaper than buying each thing individually.

:)
 
OMG.... sorry for my last post, I thought the NY Times interview was a new one.... silly me.. ;(

Can't edit it anymore either
 
Bittorrent is overrated. It's useless when people disconnect after they download. And if you have to rely on permanent seeds, then it's just like regular downloading anyway.

It's a nifty idea, but I don't see it as revolutionary or even practical.
 
Brian Damage said:
All I know is that I live in one of the nicest areas in Melbourne, and we still don't even have ADSL enabled here...

Where abouts in Melbourne do you live Brian?
 
Netherscourge said:
Bittorrent is overrated. It's useless when people disconnect after they download. And if you have to rely on permanent seeds, then it's just like regular downloading anyway.

It's a nifty idea, but I don't see it as revolutionary or even practical.

well, as it's been stated many times in this thread, there is no indication that BT will be implemented in it's original form.

You can't argue that the author of BT is one of the most innovative thinkers when it comes to the large scale distribution of huge files across the network. He developed an incredibly adaptive load-bearing system, and those things are the exact area that Valve will be needing help in when people start downloading the 2 gigabyte hl2 game files over steam. I trust the creator of bittorrent more than i trust Valve when it comes to providing a solid structiure for HL2's release, not to mention mods, patches, and updates.

On another note, it's good to see that Valve is still hiring folks... growth means things are going well. If they were struggling to stretch their resources to finish hl2, they probably wouldn't be hiring anybody. They are, as usual, committed to a good final product, and the best support around.
 
Wilco said:
Let me enlighten you, Valve have already said that one of their options is going to be a subscription service where you get access to all their content. It won't be pay2play in the sense you must pay to use Steam, you can still buy HL2 and play normally. But Valve plan on releasing lots of content afterwards, CS2 TF2 etc and this subscription would include that. They say that Subscriptions will prove cheaper than buying each thing individually.

:)


I know this, but, Steam won't be pay 2 play for the majority of gamers. It'll be like it is now, but with more options. He seems to think when, referring to P2P, they're speaking of pay 2 play, not peer 2 peer. I'm just saying, he's confused.
 
Fenric said:
With that kind of attitude to their customers their doomed to failure. Alienating those who have limits, those on dialup and those who decide to pay across steam. Thats a MASSIVE number of potential customers they'd be pretty much saying "oh well, f*ck off then if you can't use it" Can't tell me thats good business :). It would make far more sense to have some other company do it first, learn of the pitfalls then cease trading as the case will be, then Valve wouldn't risk anything themselves, let another business take the fall while its working out what isn't going to work

In answer to your answers

1) If its a part of Steam, then your going to have to keep it open to play, and just because you might have what you need downloaded, it doesn't mean others have. It's assuming everyone will download at the same time and be finished at the same time. Which is quite obviously impossible

2) So a 1mbit connection isn't fast enough then? Thats just dumb. Many ISP's have limits on downloads per day, NTL had one briefly too. Others continue to have them, many US cable providers have them for example.

3) see 1 :p

4) That doesn't fix the problem. That was what bit torrent was supposed to do in the beginning, to try make it fair.. It failed and people end up uploading far more than they can download. In theory its a nice idea, in practice its proven itself unworkable

5) "Then don't rent"? But thats going against everything Valve are trying to do. They want you to rent via steam. It works out cheaper for them so more profits for them. Making it a problem to do that is going to put people off doing the very thing they want them to do.

6) 56k users will find it unplayable. They'll already be stuck with bag connection speeds, throw in torrent style uploading/downloading in the background and they don't have very much bandwidth left to play the game. This too goes against what they've said about HL2 "we want to keep it playable for those with less powerful systems"

If they also include the option of getting files _without_ the need to use Steam, then it might save it. If they force everyone to use it then well its going to fail. All of it in theory are great idea's.. It's just more and more like someone has an idea and they decide to change direction mid flow and do something different. I used to have a lot of faith in Valve, Source, HL2 and Steam... I just don't know anymore. I hope they do know what their doing, I really do. I hope its not simply grasping at straws like its beginning to sound :(

I dont know why you guys are so upset over the whole 56k user thing. A game of this magnitude will barely have any 56k players anyway because of horrible lag. Most computers alone will have trouble running this game decently, let alone computers with slow connection speeds. Plus, no one with any brain is going to sit there with their 56k modem and try to download the, most likely, 3+ gigs of this game. If they want to play it, they'll just go to the store and buy it. It also seems to me that most people leave steam open for the most part anyway and it doesn't intrude on bandwitdth at all anyway. None of your logic makes sense, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
Habibapotamus said:
Where abouts in Melbourne do you live Brian?

Well sorry, I'm not trying to be rude here, or anything like that, but I'd rather not say.

/me acts paranoid.
 
Brian Damage said:
Well sorry, I'm not trying to be rude here, or anything like that, but I'd rather not say.

For what reason? Let's say you pinpoint one neighborhood in Melbourne, what then? Certainly, if someone were to plan on carpet bombing a large swath of melbourne, then it might not be a bad idea to keep it a secret. Other than that, there's no real reason to act paranoid though.

/me thinks Brain doesn't actually live in Melbourne
 
Fine, fine, Melbourne, in the suburb of the City of Casey, then. You happy now, Mr Track-Em-Down :p ?
 
you better watch your back now... i'll be looking for you.

even though i don't know where that is, what you look like, how old you are, whether you're male of female, or what your real name is.

that's right, i'm comin' for ya.
 
Brian Damage said:
Fine, fine, Melbourne, in the suburb of the City of Casey, then. You happy now, Mr Track-Em-Down :p ?



Cool live kinda near ya. Live in a suburb that finished with Waverley.
 
I got a huge pipe and download very large files regularly, for people in my situation bittorent really is a great solution. I use it all the time and it's the best thing on the internet for huge downloads at great speeds. I can't even remember finding 3 or 4 gig files on the internet before bittorent . For 56 k people bittorent shares your bandwidth based on a percentage of your total bandwidth this means you will share virtually nothing and get your download speeds maxed, plus you will have resume and fragment download capabilities. If I was on a 56 k I would still use bittorent p2p features, for large files. Many of the problems of other p2p applications do not apply to a torrent download. Nodes are not picked at random like other systems but can be intelligently picked based on available bandwidth. Even distributed file sharing systems still need some kind of supernode functionality, other programs allow anyone to be a supernode, but bittorent uses the original provider of the file or one of their mirrors as the supernode, this allows them to control what gets transferred, because the very small torrent starter file that you download from the source and only the source contains the checksum information for the file. Bittorent supernodes do not blindly list any file like others do but require a copy of the file to physically reside on the supernode, be in a public web available folder, and use the torrent file extension(this qualifies it as a very centralized p2p application, even more than the original napster). This will most likely all be transparent to end users it may only share your connection while you’re currently downloading a file and you would not even know its happening. Users could also have the option to enable connection sharing while their not downloading and mod others using the system would have to agree to share their connection for other files when necessary, this way if a mod download becomes relatively inactive for a day that server could start to help out other servers. The benefits would be tremendous the overall network bandwidth would be virtually unlimited as more people download more bandwidth is shared also. Mod makers could get away with a very modest server, and be able to have millions download at ok speeds.

I’m may have made a few errors in the workings of the system but overall that stuff should be right, the point is to dispel some the myths that popped up in this thread about the bittorent system.
:cheers:
 
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