But seriously I see this as both good and bad. In terms of getting me my torrents faster it's potentially a good thing. But at the same time if it starts to actually impact VoIP, gaming and other technologies -Cisco VPN over UDP, for example. Then it's a problem. I mean right now my torrents aren't actually coming in slow....
Right. It could potentially be bad, but many things on the internet are potentially bad. Seems like there's one new THIS WILL KILL THE INTERNET AS WE KNOW IT post every week. Wait and see. Wait and see.
Agreed that there should be a 'take a breath' moment here and actually figure out what is happening today and what could potentially happen tomorrow. It will be interesting however to watch what impact this might have on ISPs use of DPI, potentially this time in a more pragmatic (and most would argue, ethical) manner.
I welcome no overlord, but looking forward to watching them closely.
Anywhere else this would be called growth. Here's an idea; ISPs should use some of that money we send them every month to upgrade their infrastructure if they're starting to get strained rather than sinking cash in R&D for "congestion management". I fork over extra cash for the phat pipe so they'd better guarantee the service I'm paying for.
I actually read your article this morning and was glad to see that you had posted a followup. I am in complete agreement that BitTorrent owes anyone interested in the health of internet traffic complete details regarding the underpinnings of uTP.
My support for uTP is apparent, but I am no more interested in the implosion of the A-level internet than anyone else. I hope that the protocol's development under the eyes of the IETF will put my confidence on solid ground.
In the end, I guess we'll see how things pan out! Thank you for taking the time to comment on my piece, Richard. It's good to hear from you.
I believe that this is a good step for the evolution of the Internet. Our over-reliance on TCP is not healthy for long-term development of the network. Particularly in media applications, such as streaming, high-definition audio/video, the possibility of moving most of the data validation from the packet level to the chunk level via post-processing of traffic on local machines shows a lot of promise.
I can imagine this software technology being adapted to provide streaming HD A/V on a short delay to allow for buffering and hash verification of data chunks.
By the way, I think that the reaction to this news by some people is completely overblown. While it is true that UDP traffic is not as well routed as TCP traffic, that much we can fix, and in the long term, transferring large quantities of *known* data will be far more efficient over UDP. With UDP, you don't have the overhead of ACK packets constantly going back to the server! Like I said, very promising stuff. It might take the infrastructure a little while to catch up with the increase in UDP traffic, but once it does, it will be a good thing moving forward.
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
Comments
But seriously I see this as both good and bad. In terms of getting me my torrents faster it's potentially a good thing. But at the same time if it starts to actually impact VoIP, gaming and other technologies -Cisco VPN over UDP, for example. Then it's a problem. I mean right now my torrents aren't actually coming in slow....
I, too, welcome our new UDP overlords.
I welcome no overlord, but looking forward to watching them closely.
<a href="http://www.breakingpointlabs.com" rel="nofollow">Kyle</a>
It's like the nerdy kid that everyone's been picking on, finally lashes out, and he's the one that gets detention.
Hey. I was under 18, the records are sealed. You're not supposed to know about the incident.
-drasnor
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/05/richard_bennett_bittorrent_udp/
A lot of questions remain about the soundness of the BitTorrent approach.
Richard Bennett
My support for uTP is apparent, but I am no more interested in the implosion of the A-level internet than anyone else. I hope that the protocol's development under the eyes of the IETF will put my confidence on solid ground.
In the end, I guess we'll see how things pan out! Thank you for taking the time to comment on my piece, Richard.
I can imagine this software technology being adapted to provide streaming HD A/V on a short delay to allow for buffering and hash verification of data chunks.
By the way, I think that the reaction to this news by some people is completely overblown. While it is true that UDP traffic is not as well routed as TCP traffic, that much we can fix, and in the long term, transferring large quantities of *known* data will be far more efficient over UDP. With UDP, you don't have the overhead of ACK packets constantly going back to the server! Like I said, very promising stuff. It might take the infrastructure a little while to catch up with the increase in UDP traffic, but once it does, it will be a good thing moving forward.