Bitorrent sync

[johnwhelan]

It's alpha but it seems to work quite well and much simpler than the old methods for torrents of setting up seeds etc. You tell it the location of a folder on your machine and generate a password. Send the password to someone else and it will transfer the contents to their machine, but its a torrent so it can be used to transfer quite large files to many people. ie routes etc.

http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync/get-started.html#


Cheerio John

 

[cascaderailroad]

I don't even know what an iPad, iPod, Tablet is, let alone a BitTorrent (I once read up on it, and dozed off, as after @ 100 overly technical wurdz, I tend to get a little sleepy).

Please relate more on this.

 

[slabay]

I don't even know what an iPad, iPod, Tablet is, let alone a BitTorrent (I once read up on it, and dozed off, as after @ 100 overly technical wurdz, I tend to get a little sleepy).

Please relate more on this.

BitTorrent is peer to peer file sharing. I tried to explain it a few times and my descriptions made it sound overly complicated, so here is the description on Wikipedia. Unfortunately, BitTorrent is frequently used for piracy so it gets a bad reputation. BitTorrent is not the bad guy, it is the people that use it for bad purposes that are the bad guys. It is a good way to share large files, and the more people are sharing it, the faster it is to get stuff. When used for legitimate purposes (videos - think of a video podcast or a indie film distributed by its creators; software - Linux operating systems, Open Office, etc.) it is great because you don't have to maintain a central server to host it. The original person shares it out, and once it is out there being shared, it is always available. The drawback of course, is that you need to always have a bittorrent client running to share it back out again once you download it or you don't perpetuate the system.

An issue for a content creator using a water analogy, once you host it on a server, you open the valve and let the water run free. If you want to stop sharing it (i.e. you come up with a new version release, etc.), you turn the valve off again. Under Bittorrent, once you start sharing it, you are knocking the valve off of the end of the pipe and there is no stopping it. Of course, you can still share out updated versions too.......

 

[johnwhelan]

I have a file that I want to send to twenty people. I place it in a folder on my local machine. I start Bitorrent sync and tell it to generate a password. I send the password to twenty people or just make it available. The file is split into chunks and the first user downloads a chunk from my machine. The next user then can either download the same chunk from the first machine or any other machine that has it.

It's basically a way of spreading the load across many machines. For example you could replace TPR download area with a folder then when some one wanted an asset they would link to the folder and pull chunks of the .cdp from anyone who was connected at the time. You could even do a virtual DLS.

Torrents got their bad reputation since they are used to distribute movies but they can be used for other legal things. Once you have a shared folder you can move assets back and forth for beta testing etc.

Cheerio John

 

[nicky9499]

Some potential issues that may crop up with such a distribution method. First is the niche nature of Trainz. The Trainz target audience is tiny compared to, say, the aformentioned Linux distros or indie films. This number goes down further when you consider the people who are interested in route, have the correct version and build to run route and people who are willing to try out torrenting, which often involves lots of configuration and tweaking to get it running smoothly. Also consider not everybody can afford a 24/7 broadband connection to support a torrent.

The small number of peers may mean a slow download speed, which might put some off. Then when an update is release, the few peers already on the original release have to jump ship and start all over again.

Torrent is sort of like economies of scale. It works best when there are huge amount of peers and seeds, which will keep it going for months, if not years after the original uploader stops seeding. For small scale distribution it doesn't work so well; I've tried it before, sharing lots of photos (~10GB) with a bunch of classmates. It was a nightmare.

All in all, it would be easier for everyone if the route is just dumped on a free and reliable host such as Mediafire or Dropbox.

 

[johnwhelan]

Some potential issues that may crop up with such a distribution method. First is the niche nature of Trainz. The Trainz target audience is tiny compared to, say, the aformentioned Linux distros or indie films. This number goes down further when you consider the people who are interested in route, have the correct version and build to run route and people who are willing to try out torrenting, which often involves lots of configuration and tweaking to get it running smoothly. Also consider not everybody can afford a 24/7 broadband connection to support a torrent.

The small number of peers may mean a slow download speed, which might put some off. Then when an update is release, the few peers already on the original release have to jump ship and start all over again.

Torrent is sort of like economies of scale. It works best when there are huge amount of peers and seeds, which will keep it going for months, if not years after the original uploader stops seeding. For small scale distribution it doesn't work so well; I've tried it before, sharing lots of photos (~10GB) with a bunch of classmates. It was a nightmare.

All in all, it would be easier for everyone if the route is just dumped on a free and reliable host such as Mediafire or Dropbox.

It doesn't need a large number of users, its very simple to use quite unlike the traditional torrents.

As a demo I've put four GWR 1922 coaches up, The key is UZJMVFQXIQHNIBP5UFPRIW75JVMB7PUF

You'll need the software from here: http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync/get-started.html#

I don't guarantee my machine will be on 24 hours a day but when it is on the files should flow.

Cheerio John

 

[clam1952]

Sounds like a good idea but....
Data limits, not everyone has unlimited data, think about it, download a 1GB file you use 1GB, download it by torrent and with the uploading you are going to use in excess of the file size, uploading also uses your data allowance, therefore those with data caps are unlikely to actually upload anything.

We tried this with a Linux distro a while back, it got abandoned due to only a tiny number of people actually uploading compared to the large number of downloads. Only works with people you know and trust to play fair.

 

[johnwhelan]

Sounds like a good idea but....
Data limits, not everyone has unlimited data, think about it, download a 1GB file you use 1GB, download it by torrent and with the uploading you are going to use in excess of the file size, uploading also uses your data allowance, therefore those with data caps are unlikely to actually upload anything.

We tried this with a Linux distro a while back, it got abandoned due to only a tiny number of people actually uploading compared to the large number of downloads. Only works with people you know and trust to play fair.

You're right of course I only have unlimited data between 2 am and 8 am or rather my ISP doesn't count data at that time, otherwise I'm limited to 300 Gigs of data a month unlike mother who has unlimited data from BT for £16 a month.

Cheerio John

 

[cascaderailroad]

Can a disrespectful person make an illegal Bittorrent of redistributing other persons payware ... and can some unscrupulous person insert a virus, Trojan, and malware in a legal Bittorent ?

 

[nicky9499]

Can a disrespectful person make an illegal Bittorrent of redistributing other persons payware ... and can some unscrupulous person insert a virus, Trojan, and malware in a legal Bittorent ?

This is absolutely possible. The only way to protect oneself is to scan each download with an antivirus program.

Like Malc said, having seeders is critical. If the swarm is full of gimmepigs who just hit and run, the torrent's not going to last too long.

 

[johnwhelan]

Can a disrespectful person make an illegal Bittorrent of redistributing other persons payware ... and can some unscrupulous person insert a virus, Trojan, and malware in a legal Bittorent ?

The files are transferred to a folder if we use .cdp files then they are extremely difficult if not impossible to be infected with a virus. I'm inclined to zip the .cdp file just to provide a check digit but if you're handling zips then its important to use something such as 7-zip to extract them. There is a certain type of zip file that can be infected.

Technically it is possible to restrict the fires transferred to the ones that were on the original machine. This stuff is fairly new but some one else has used it to transfer some beta Trainz assets to me and it worked quite well.

Go mad and see if you can pick up the four gwr 1922 coaches I've set up.

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

This is absolutely possible. The only way to protect oneself is to scan each download with an antivirus program.

Like Malc said, having seeders is critical. If the swarm is full of gimmepigs who just hit and run, the torrent's not going to last too long.

It's not a conventional torrent and do you download each asset from the DLS by FTP then run an antivirus program on it? If so you're even more paranoid than I am. Have a read up of TRA or Threat Risk Analysis sometime.

Cheerio John

 

[JCitron]

In theory this is a wonderful idea. But...

As Cascade brought up, malware will be a problem. The person sharing the files doesn't necessarily have bad intentions when distributing a virus as well. Their machine could be infected with something and then the malware gets transferred to another party or parties as the content gets distributed.

John

 

[nicky9499]

It's not a conventional torrent and do you download each asset from the DLS by FTP then run an antivirus program on it? If so you're even more paranoid than I am. Have a read up of TRA or Threat Risk Analysis sometime.

Cheerio John

Hi John, I was referring to each torrent download. It would be obsessively time consuming to scan every file the enters the computer.

 

[johnwhelan]

In theory this is a wonderful idea. But...

As Cascade brought up, malware will be a problem. The person sharing the files doesn't necessarily have bad intentions when distributing a virus as well. Their machine could be infected with something and then the malware gets transferred to another party or parties as the content gets distributed.

John

It's a tool which can be used in the same way as an email attachment, dropbox, Google drive, etc. Some email systems will only accept a 10 mb attachment, you normally can't send an attachment to a mailing group or if you can its much smaller. You are correct that the person sending might have Malware on their machine but that applies to an email attachment, Google Drive etc. I think you're confusing the risk with the method of transmission.

It can either be used to send to a group or to one person.

I am yet to be convinced that a .cdp file which is only a data file can be infected in any meaningful way by the way.

Cheerio John

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi John, I was referring to each torrent download. It would be obsessively time consuming to scan every file the enters the computer.

So why does the method of transmission make a difference?

Thanks John

 

[nicky9499]

You have a point. In general, I tend to be more wary of torrent-distribution and tread with more caution then I do when, say, downloading a zip file full of photos that my friend uploaded to his Dropbox.

 

[amigacooke]

Hi John,

Looks interesting. I note there is a read only version that stops the contents of your 'sync' folder being open to 'interference'.

Is your demo read only?

 

[johnwhelan]

Hi John,

Looks interesting. I note there is a read only version that stops the contents of your 'sync' folder being open to 'interference'.

Is your demo read only?

No its just thrown together using the default settings.

Cheerio John