Verizon Gets Cozy With P2P File-Sharers

March 14th, 2008 By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer

Sun glints off a Verizon store sign in a Portland, Ore. file photo Oct. 30, 2006. Verizon Communications Inc. has broken ranks with the industry and is set to announce Friday that it plans to help its users share files faster -- at least those who do it legally. (AP Photo/Don Ryan)

(AP) -- Peer-to-peer file sharing, the primary vehicle for online piracy, has been as unpopular with Internet service providers as it has been popular with users.

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• gopher65 - Mar 14, 2008
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  I've been saying someone needed to create this very software for some time now. I'm glad someone finally did:). I never understood why P2P connection software was so "dumb" in how it connected.
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• Argiod - Mar 15, 2008
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  When industry stops fighting P2P and begins to embrace it, and learns how to make it commercially viable, we'll all benefit from it. As it is, they are waging a war they cannot win.
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• am_Unition - Mar 15, 2008
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  Industry embracing P2P will result in one or both of two things: 1) The service will no longer be free, or 2) Massive advertising assaults. How does everyone benefit from this?
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• deepsand - Mar 17, 2008
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  Industry embracing P2P will result in one or both of two things: 1) The service will no longer be free, or 2) Massive advertising assaults. How does everyone benefit from this?

  
  
  Considering that the technique described is no more than the equivalent of getting any other good or service from the nearest - in this case the logically nearest, as opposed to the physically nearest - source, why must either of your suggested consequences necessarily ensue?
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• deepsand - Mar 20, 2008
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  I've been saying someone needed to create this very software for some time now. I'm glad someone finally did:). I never understood why P2P connection software was so "dumb" in how it connected.

  
  
  Bearing in mind that P2P relationships are, by definition, many-to-many, with the "many" entities being in an ever changing state of flux, as opposed to the many-to-one relationship of a client-server environment, precisely what constitutes "smart" and "dumb" P2P?
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• gopher65 - Mar 20, 2008
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  "dumb" P2P connections are connections which are purely random, or connections that are based only on available speed. "Smart" connections take into account geographical location and attempt to reduce overall network clogging by carefully managing their traffic.
  
  For instance: With current software if I have 1 open connection and two possible connections that can fill it, the first 2 continents and several undersea cables away from me and the second in the apartment building across the street, then it will connect with the faster one.
  
  Obviously speed is important, but with the internet framework as a whole stressed to the limit due to years (decades) of underinvestment and a surge in video, some consideration needs to be given to making sure that things run as smoothly as possible.
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• deepsand - Mar 23, 2008
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  "dumb" P2P connections are connections which are purely random, or connections that are based only on available speed. "Smart" connections take into account geographical location and attempt to reduce overall network clogging by carefully managing their traffic.
  
  For instance: With current software if I have 1 open connection and two possible connections that can fill it, the first 2 continents and several undersea cables away from me and the second in the apartment building across the street, then it will connect with the faster one.
  
  Obviously speed is important, but with the internet framework as a whole stressed to the limit due to years (decades) of underinvestment and a surge in video, some consideration needs to be given to making sure that things run as smoothly as possible.

  
  
  
  Firstly, routers already handle the job of directing and re-directing traffic based on both traffic load conditions and latency considerations.
  
  Secondly, since P2P relies on clients whose continued presence is not guaranteed for the duration of any session, with the result that a disrupted session cannot simply be re-directed, and the underlying protocol cannot know which route(s) any given packet will traverse, P2P lacks the ability to provide the all-in-one service that you suggest.
  
  And, in this regard it is no different from any other internet protocol; no application controls all layers of the stack.
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