There are now many technologies for P2P file sharing:
- Usenet
- Bittorrent
- IPFS
- Tenfinger
- more?
And also several technologies for anonymization:
- VPNs
- Tor
- I2P
AFAICT the most popular option is still Bittorrent with various public and private trackers and indexers. Private trackers seem to be the most effective option that communities have converged on.
I’ve tried all of the above solutions over the years and while I think something like I2P sounds great in theory, it doesn’t seem to actually work well in practice. Because it’s not terribly popular, it’s hard to know what to expect.
We clearly still haven’t found the ideal model that can provide both good performance, discovery, access, availability, and anonymity. But do you think we will actually make progress on these problems? We seem to have stabilized on a local maximum.
I miss audio galaxy
You included memes (IPFS), and omitted important shit (DC, original Freenet), not to mention some old networks (ed2k, gnutella/G2) that went out of fashion, but are not fully extinct.
As for the future, the situation could get grim at a much lower level, as both the “file” as an ubiquitously accessible unit, and desktop computers in general as ubiquitously available and affordable hardware, are both under threat, with the latter already affected by the semi-fake partial (for now) scarcity supposedly fully caused by the AI craze.
Reading through the docs about it here, it sounds like it’s only an indexer, not a tracker.
Usenet is client-server, not P2P.
The issue with “good performance” on P2P systems is that you’re reliant on other users’ bandwidth, and there’s a lot of people in the world that have slow upload speeds. Some users use a seedbox with a fast datacenter-grade 10Gbps or 40Gbps connection, but it’s not common.
The obvious approach if you want to download something from people with slow connections is to download parts of the same files from a lot of them in parallel, which is exactly what BitTorrent does. That’s good enough for plenty of use cases, which is why BitTorrent has been around for so long. The protocol is designed pretty well for this use case.
It’s got plenty of legit use cases too, especially in research (where it’s common to have data files that are tens or hundreds of gigabytes and need to be shared with other researchers) and in gaming (where it was common to use BitTorrent to download updates, at least outside of Steam).
usenet is p2p: server p2p. The servers share the articles between themselves in a p2p manner
BitTorrent is a good middle ground between decentralization, adoption and user-friendliness. I think the transport layer is pretty solid, and there’s no need to stick an anonymity layer at the protocol level, as the preferred method might change over time.
Combined with a VPN to handle the anonymity part, I think it’s solid and modular enough.
I agree the transport layer is good and having anonymity in a different layer works. I think my main gripes with it today are:
- Anonymity is paid for and trust-based. It’d be awesome if something like I2P started working well enough that anyone could have anonymity for free without needing to trust a company or worry about poor performance.
- Private trackers. While I understand the logic behind this form of community (incentivize seeding and make bans meaningful), I think it’s possible to solve those problems with a public tracker. I have ideas on how this could work if anyone is interested.
I try alternatives but keep returning to ‘old fashioned’ BT + VPN.
Bittorrent is peak filesharing technology.
SoulSeek? Its like old limewire; dangerous and also full of really kind people too.
Nicotine+ is a client.
I think a combination of Soulseek and bittorrent, so you can share your library in the file structure you want, then collectively seed files with the same hash.
so you can share your library in the file structure you want, then collectively seed files with the same hash.
So… … … emule and gnutella? Both have DHT and that’s how they work…
Cool what client would you recommend?
It’s a bit suspicious to recommend two protocols as I question if you use it yourself or just looked it up.
I haven’t tried SoulSeek. What does it do better than Bittorrent?
It’s like Napster or Limewire if you ever used them. You download files directly from individual users. You can also browse all of a user’s shared files.
It requires inbound connectivity to work well, so you’ll have to ensure your VPN supports port forwarding. The VPN that’s usually recommended for Soulseek (and torrenting) is AirVPN.
Do people not recommend PIA anymore? I’ve used it for a long time and never had issues. Supports port forwarding. Audits have shown they don’t store activity logs, and they even run RAM-only servers.
EDIT: Just looked at AirVPN. It’s nice they don’t request any identifying info on signup.
In older versions of Soulseek, you had to have two consecutive port numbers (eg. 20000 and 20001, or 12345 and 12346, etc). AirVPN was the only VPN that let you pick the port numbers, so you could guarantee getting two consecutive ports.
I don’t think modern Soulseek clients require that any more (slskd only requires one port as far as I can tell) so it’s not important any more, but AirVPN is still the most recommended by Soulseek users.
Private Internet Access only give you a single forwarded port, so you couldn’t use it for both torrents and Soulseek at the same time (for example). AirVPN used to provide 20, but I think they reduced it to 5 for new accounts.
AirVPN’s forwarded ports are also not server-specific; you get your chosen ports regardless of which server you use.
PIA is owned by Israel. https://hackread.com/private-internet-access-pia-vpn-sold-israel-privacy-concerns/
Well fuck me. I mean I don’t think that’s an immediate issue for me but that does suck.
EDIT: Although if we’re being honest, has PIA been found doing anything shady in the 7 years since they were acquired?
Soukseek is great, I recently discovered people sharing also movies and other stuff, so not only music which is what is famous for. You can also ban Israel from your sharing!
It’s more like (old) Facebook where you make your media folder available to download, add buddies so you can check out their library later, thank them using the in built chat.
Just use a vpn with a port. And don’t add identifiable stuff to share.
Wait since when have you had to use a VPN with soulseek? I’ve never done that and I live in the states.
Really great explanation. I’ve always thought about giving it a go but haven’t tried yet.
I guess anything too convenient is bound to be attacked by lawyers.
Yeah, of it either becomes too popular or too conventient, then it MUST be destroyed! :(
Some type of multi-dimensional quantum storage will be developed that will allow simultaneous, unlimited, instant sharing across as many different people as want to. This will all fit into something the size of a thumb drive and allow direct viewing/listening through implants.
I thought we will be running around with tablets, separate tablet for each new file, like in star trek :D
This, but batteries will not be replacable or rechargable. They will be disposable entertainment devices.
Ive trued private trackers, but there is very little for me to try and keep up the ratio them while on public my share ratio is well above 5.
Public trackers and no vpn gets it done
Public trackers never seem to have as good of releases or swarm health, except for the most popular content.
see, I don’t really do popular (except for the kids) and private trackers just seemed like too much hard work
They’re certainly an imperfect solution, downloading shit you don’t care about just to build ratio, at least at first, seems really stupid.
But you can’t argue with the quality of the content on good private trackers.
Most private trackers have a point system where you accumulate points that you can exchange for upload credit, as a mean to provide an incentive to keep less popular torrents active.
That way you can build up your ratio without downloading stuff you don’t want.
Yeah I’m in multiple private ones, I know how it works, it’s still not easy
Keep seeding and your ratio goes up, even if people aren’t downloading the file.
Or, donate to the site.
Most people do the former and that’s perfectly fine.
Donating means either having a trace that links you to an illegal entity, or getting into the crypto mess
getting into the crypto mess
which leaves the trace as well, don’t kid yourself that crypto is anonymous
