[ih] reinventing the wheel, was Internet History Lives on the Internet?

[Vint Cerf]

setting aside reputation, bittorrent is a pretty clever scheme for a
implementing a distributed cache.
I thought it included cacheing so you can find multiple sources but maybe I
am wrong about that.

v


On Mon, Feb 25, 2019 at 12:03 AM Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org> wrote:

> I've never used Bittorrent, but it may already have a lot of the needed
> technology.
>
> From what I've read, some of the differences between my "Benevolent
> BotNet" and BitTorrent seem to be:
>
>     - Content is stored outside of BitTorrent per se, e.g., on web
> servers.  Torrent servers essentially act as caches for material in
> transit.  So if there is no server online which has stored the content
> you seek, and it's not recently in transit, it's unavailable until a
> server with that content come online.  That's not persistent.
> BitTorrent is a distribution mechanism, rather than a storage mechanism
> which does replication of material to achieve persistence.
>
>     - There isn't any obvious (to me) way to restrict what your personal
> machine might store or serve.  People willing to donate their resources
> to, for example, host historical material, might not be willing to
> handle all the other stuff that zips around in BitTorrent.
>
>     - BitTorrent has a somewhat dubious reputation as a vehicle for
> illegal activities.  Again, people may be reluctant to use it for
> historical purposes.
>
> I may be wrong in the above, since I've never dug deeply into the
> technology.  But clearly BitTorrent has a lot of the underlying
> technology that could be used to do what I described (which is what I've
> been trying to say).  People do use it to distribute content, but I
> believe that they have to handle the persistent storage themselves by
> keeping the material stored on probably several servers.
>
> The other missing pieces might simply be promoting it as a way to store
> historical material and then start using it.  I suspect some amount of
> "how-to" documentation appropriate for non-techies might be needed too.
>
> /Jack
>
>
> On 2/24/19 6:53 PM, John Levine wrote:
> >> That's what I find intriguing about my Benevolent BotNet notion.  Rather
> >> than depending on finding an institution interested in, competent at,
> >> and willing to save history, and hoping that it has longevity, you rely
> >> on a network of volunteers to provide that survivable infrastructure by
> >> volunteering their excess computing resources.
> > Hi again.  Please look at Bittorrent and tell us how it is different
> > from what you're proposing.
> >
> > Bittorrent has the advantage of already existing and being deployed
> > all over the world.  It's notorious for pirated music but it's also
> > widely used for sharing linux distributions and the like.
> >
> > R's,
> > John
> >
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