Microsoft working on secure Torrent-like service

Engineers at Microsoft are hard at work on a P2P program that they see as a way to address the need for a BitTorrent-like service — for legal file-sharing only. Like BitTorrent, the Avalanche system will allow files to be broken up into small segments that individual users can share with other computers on the network. Unlike BitTorrent, no centralized tracking servers will be needed, and the system will include built-in DRM, making it impossible to use it to distribute copyrighted works. But, then, you didn't expect Microsoft to help you download "Revenge of the Sith," did you?

[Via waxy.org]

[Digital Religion @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

So basically Microsoft is going to create this thing and then no body is going to use it?

What a brilliant idea!!

ok but seriously we all know its so they can sell HD movies online for a higher profit since they can cut bandwidth costs.

[Asher @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

And like Longhorn is planned to be, this will surely track everything the user is doing and report it to the mother(ship).

[Cem @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Very smart move of MS, bittorrent is a great way to share and transfer files, especially for legal content.

[Sean @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

You know, if Windows didn't need so many updates in the first place, Microsoft wouldn't need a bittorrent system to get them to everyone either...

[Trae Shaw @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Sean: They could just compile all the updates into an upgrade (that they named after various animals) you had to purchase each year.

[jg @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

i agree with #3 bit torrent is a great way to transfer files. it would be a great way to send legal files, if they make a good biz plan.

[Eric Pobirs @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

THe whole point of having DRM is so it CAN distribute copyrighted works, provided the recipient is a paying customer. This would be a very effective tradeoff for letting Xbox 360 owners buy games and other stuff online and allow them to earn stuff like free Gold level Xbox Live service by lending their storage and upload capacity when their console isn't being used for games.

[Graeme @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

They'll develop it. It won't be as good as BT, but it'll be adopted by content distributors who want to save on servers and bandwidth but can't let go of DRM.

What's worrying is the eventual "if a secure, corporate, DRM enabled version of BitTorrent exists...what need is there for one that people can use for content piracy? (and terrorism! and child pornography!)" mentality that will emerge.

[jamima69 @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

this sounds like a great idea-microsoft putting their considerable resources and experience behind a project like this is bound to improve on the already great file sharing app that is bitorrent.

oh wait-what's that?

it's a pig flying past my window,and i think he's going south for the winter!!

i mean,honestly.

[t0dd @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

"Unlike BitTorrent, no centralized tracking servers will be needed" The new BT Beta 4.1.2 has trackerless support: www.bittorrent.com

[Brent @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

leave it to Microsoft to steal another great idea from a hard-working freeware programmer. Braham Cohen (the actual creator of Bit-Torrent, and this whole idea), probably won't get any credit for this.
Anyone heard of Microsoft's Xbox Media Center? Well it's been around a lot longer than MS's been selling it.. someone else wrote a media player for modded xbox's that did all this same stuff (streaming from your computer etc) WAY before microsoft ever touched the product.
cheats.

[Jake T @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Aren't there aleardy BitTorrent things that don't need a central tracker?

[psych @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

ummm, sounds like a cross between bitorrent and par files to me...

[David @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

To #11: Bram Cohen did not invent the BitTorrent concept. I clearly remember using Morpheus about 4 or 5 years ago, and it downloaded multiple chunks simultaneously - it even had a nice little bar graph showing which chunks were being downloaded from which peer. The only major difference was that the chunks were bigger, and no central server was used.

[damien @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Wow, Microsoft is taking an existing idea and calling it their own?
who woulda thunk it?

[Yuliy @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

To #14: Actually Bram Cohen did invent it. No he didn't invent downloading different chunks from different people and putting it together later. Yes, most file sharing apps did have that in one of their forms or another. What he did invent though was a way to distribute content by allowing the user to upload as he was downloading, greatly increasing the efficiency of filesharing (and decreasing the ammount of leachers). Really huge files can be downloaded on bittorrent faster than they ever could on Morpheus or the like.

[__redruM @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

A Bit-Torrent service is about "Sharing." That is sharing your harddrive space for access to free content. Why on earth would I lend microsoft, or any other content seller free hard drive space for something I have to buy.
But ofcourse since microsoft will add it to the OS, I won't have a choice.

[Wes Felter @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Yet another article that doesn't distinguish between research and products. :-(

[Andrew @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Didn't EDonkey have this download/upload thing going on several years ago as well? I seem to remember using it way back in the dawn of time (2000?).

[Mikan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

Yes edonkey/emule has had piece uploading for years, long before bitorrent was around, along with the Distributed Hash Tables/trackerless concept that was recently implemented. However it is often known for slow speeds.

Bittorrent became successful because he centralized the tracking of peers into sets of files which made speeds go much faster since you weren't sharing hundreds of random files simultaneously. But now that all the major Bittorrent apps are jumping onto DHT, all you need is to add in a built-in search and you have basically recreated emule with less features.

[Antti Rasinen @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

There are a few things that need clarification here.

1. This is not simply Microsoft taking BitTorrent technology and wrapping it into a pretty application. The main result, in my view, is the research paper made by two guys, one of which happens to work for Microsoft Research.

The technology is a very clever take on distributed downloading. Instead of sending pieces of a file, you send different linear combinations of the pieces. The file reconstruction process is slightly more involved, but the network as a whole is more efficient and robust to sudden reconfigurations.

2. The distribution mechanism itself does not specify any DRM. It's only the actual product which Microsoft might develop in the future --or is in the process of developing it right now-- that has the soul-sucking feature in it. Unless the research is patented, it would be possible to write a non-DRM client and build a free network. (I'm planning to do a proof-of-concept implementation in the near future.)

3. The research paper was quite agnostic about how to find peers in the network. They proposed that one might use the tracker mechanism (a la BitTorrent), but in the end, finding peers is an orthogonal problem. As we know from the latest BT betas and Azureus, there are ways to operate without a tracker.

(Ie. it's only hype. They are comparing their solution to the most common BT mode of operation and try to claim an edge.)

[yaniv @ Dec 19th 2005 1:36AM]

I wish that the new P2P program will be without holes for hackers....
(like exploder...)

I want a PRIVATE computer!