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Deluge Anonymizing Browser Now Includes Bittorrent
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:27 PM
from the how-do-you-spell-that-anyway dept.
from the how-do-you-spell-that-anyway dept.
markybob writes "An open-source bittorrent client, Deluge, now provides an internal, anonymizing browser to protect its users from overzealous ISPs. The client runs on Windows, Linux and OS X. From the site: "Everyone knows that it is common practice for ISPs to do their best to either block or throttle bittorrent users. We believe that this is wrong and unethical, as there are many legal uses for bittorrent. If an ISP is throttling or blocking bittorrent traffic, you can pretty much bet that they're tracking which users visit bittorrent-related sites so that they can better block or throttle those users." Their forum has more info"
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More Accurate Headline... (Score:5, Informative)
"Deluge BitTorrent Client Now Includes Anonymizing Browser"
And to be exact, this is Deluge 0.5.8RC1
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Mac OS X (Score:5, Informative)
Anonymizing Browser Now Includes Bittorrent? (Score:5, Informative)
In related news, semantically reversed article headlines now include slashdot!
Also, the summary is highly misleading. This is not a bittorrent-based replacement for TOR as one might conclude from the summary. The browser is merely designed to conceal the IPs of people surfing websites hosting torrents by going through a proxy. You also see ads while using the service. I wonder how long it will take ISPs with an anti-bittorrent agenda to block their proxies... Quoting TFA's FAQ:
Ad-supported and whitelisted sites (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ad-supported and whitelisted sites (Score:5, Insightful)
This on top of the fact that he's already dedicating his time to writing the software... Geez.
It's worth pointing out that the ads aren't showing up in the actual program. If you don't want to see them, don't use the anonymous browsing service.
Parent
Pay for the things you value (Score:5, Insightful)
To give you those "free roads" you drive on, the government charges you taxes. To give out free services, charities accept contributions.
I doubt many of the gimme,gimme, free software takers actually develop anything substantial or contribute anything, apart from annoyance.
Perhaps with time people will mature in their outlook and freely contribute better than they do now: "Hey I like service x or software y. Here's $20 to say thanks!". This is not yet happening but perhaps it will one day.
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Re:Pay for the things you value (Score:5, Insightful)
This can be done in a few ways. First, you can get value from using the software you wrote. Often the value you receive more than offsets the cost of development. If the software is popular and useful, then you can also benefit from forming a consortium with other parties to do development. You each share the costs and share the benefits. People who fund development get a greater say in what gets written (i.e., they write it
Second, you can get value from future work on the software. If it is a popular, useful work, then often someone else will be able to receive value from funding you to do some new development. Probably the best example of this is the GCC tool set as it was developed by Cygnus software (google around for Michael Tiemann's description of how to make this work -- it's brilliant.)
Finally, you can gain value (either directly or indirectly) through advertising. Usually (as is the case with this software), the software allows you to connect with a service that gains value from advertising. The best example of this is Mozilla who make nearly $100 million a year from the google search bar in Firefox.
Now, I hope you'll excuse my tangent, I'm finally coming to the point. What all these methods of creating value have in common is that they work best (return the most value) when the software is *popular* and *useful*. Take, take, take, gimme, gimme, gimme people are essential to creating popular and useful software. First, they are often the absolute best sources for ideas. They are so internally focussed (i.e., selfish) that they have a really highly developed sense of what they want. Yes, they are annoying, but if you cut through the annoyance, you find gold. Second, these people are like rats. When one finds a good source of food *all their buddies join in*. This is indispensable for a Free software project.
Now, what I read from the posts above is that these selfish users are not happy with direct advertising on the associated service. This is incredibly useful feedback! It means that there is significant risk involved in the venture. People are not against advertising per se. Take the google search bar in Firefox. I've never heard anyone complain about it. The connection between the google advertising and the search bar is removed enough to appease the user. But I would worry, in this case, that users will not accept the advertising on the associated service.
In the end, cherish your selfish users. They are a PITA, but they are honest and they will spare no expense to tell you what they think. For software projects that don't have budgets for things like user studies, these people will pave the road to success.
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This "service" allows you to get away with pirating movies and music. (Otherwise, if it were legal downloads, why would you need to be anonymous?) And to receive this protection, you have to pay this guy to use it?
How is this any different from Kazaa charging for pirating media? Except that with this service you're slightly less likely to get caught.
Picture if you will... (Score:5, Interesting)
Picture if you will a pasty-white geek who has written some software. "The service my software provides puts people who use it at risk," he muses, "How might I protect those who may not know how to protect themselves?"
Suddenly, a light goes off. Or on. I think it goes on. Anyway, he thinks, "I could integrate a browser that accesses a limited number of related services in such a way as to provide a safety net for the non-nerds whom I appreciate so well!"
Time passes. "Oh, fuck. This is going to cost me money," the nerd thinks, "How can I provide this service when it costs me money, and I need to buy Ramen?"
Another lightbulb does its thing. "Advertisement!"
There you have it. If you don't like it, cut pasty-dude a check.
Parent
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I've used Deluge for a long time before the announcement of this feature. It's a bittorrent client, just like Azureus or Ktorrent. The new anonymous browsing feature is nothing more than a built in web browser that uses their proxy.
I haven't been able to run the new release yet (download links are broken), so I might be wrong on this, but I'm pretty sure the anonymous part is only referring to f
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In the long run, yes - this is the primary objective. But if this tool is just one more head of a hydra that overzealous ISPs or the **AA have to fight then it is a good thing, even if you or I never use it and it only works for a limited time. If they have to fight this war on 100 fronts then they will soon find that even their pockets have a limited depth and decide the fight is not worth it. Yeah, a
Everyone knows: I don't know (Score:2)
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Basically bittorrent is slow because you always end up downloading from people on dialup etc. instead of downloading from a fast mirror as you do with FTP. Plus unless your firewall is wide open you aren't uploading.. which means the trackers will throttle you because your upload ratios are too low.
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Relakks, an anonymous VPN (Score:5, Informative)
apartment that comes with horrible, horrible Comcast DSL (who actively reset with your TCP connections [slashdot.org]).
In these cases say Aye, matey and hook up to the swedish Pirate Party's Relakks [relakks.com] VPN service (as seen on Slashdot [slashdot.org])
to get past your pesky ISPs rules. It's also be very useful if you use coffeeshop wireless a lot and your email provider still requires plain-text passwords.
Arrr, we be lootin' again!
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Oh wait, I'm in RIAA country now. Did I say looting? I meant to say "sending holiday greetings to our loved ones".
5GB/day? Why yes, officer, I do write long emails.
not this ISP (Score:5, Informative)
We don't single out users, we monitor nodes, which many customers are attached to. If a node is exceeding healthy levels (different nodes have different max levels, there's no one set "healthy" level) then that node is shaped until the traffic goes down.
A Better Solution (Score:2)
While the anonymization may be useful for other reasons, if your problem is filtering by your ISP then a better solution is, if possible, to get a different ISP. If you keep giving them your money, then not only do you seem to be implicitly consenting to their behavior, you're actually financially supporting it.
Now I realize that in some places people may really have no reasonable choice, but it's been my experience that many people who live in an area where there is a choice still go with providers (
Deluge is great. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Legitimate use? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a horrible method of distribution. Its an excellent method of distribution, especially for free software. Thats why it is being used for such distribution.
Parent
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Also, "ratios" enforced by trackers is only done by pirate sites. The purpose being to ensure there are seeds for infringing torrents because nobody wants to be left "holding the bag." Legitimate torrents have dedicated seeds, s
Re:Legitimate use? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you think FTP can saturate your 10 mbit link when its downloading from my FTP server sitting on a 384 kbit up DSL line?
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Re:Legitimate use? (Score:4, Informative)
*waaa* I can't download via p2p, all the free stuff I want, at work
Either go home and do it, or work with your IT. If you have a business need to download linux distros, it's up to your ork IT to provide that to you. If you don't, well, go suck at Microsoft's teat.
I used to run a firewall, and I allow out what is business appropriate. If that includes bit-torrent, so be it.
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Torrents are an anti-slashdotting tool (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's put it another way: there are some firewall administrators who aren't BitTorrent friendly. If you work in a company that has such a firewall and you have a problem with BitTorrent, you should take it to the IT administration. Oh, wait, perhaps your problem is that the IT people in your company aren't Linux-friendly? Then download at home and bring a CD or DVD to work.
The one big advantage BitTorrent has is that it avoids slashdotting the server. Traffic doesn't concentrate, it has a much gentler effect both on the servers themselves and on the internet backbone as a whole, because you end downloading more from those peers that have more bandwidth.
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1. "Most uses are illegitimate". At this point in the game we call the Internet, every new file transfer mechanism is likely to be adopted by pirates first. Yarr. But we both know they still use FTP where needed, and I'd wager there's more illegal FTP servs than legal.
2. "isn't exactly firewall friendly". That's right, FTP isn't firewall friendly. It has crazy rules for control connections vs data connections. The saving grace here is that FTP is not en
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How does the firewall policy in your workplace make one protocol better or worse?
How does the ratio of legal vs illegal content make one protocol better or worse?
Do you realize bittorrent has catched on already?
Do you realize there is one terribly common scenario (PC with enough cycles but not enough outgoing bandwidth) where scatter gather p2p beats ftp hands down?
Definition please? (Score:2)
How are you defining "legitimate"?
The announcement suggests a similar inversion of ethical and legal [gnu.org] when it says "Everyone knows that it is common practice for ISPs to do their best to either block or throttle bittorrent users. We believe that this is wrong and unethical, as there are many legal uses for bittorrent."; does this mean that if there were no legal uses BitTorrent would be "wrong and unethical"?
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Okay, so you're downloading Linux distributions at work? If this is something you are doing for your company, you should be able to have some influence on the firewall, perhaps have a machine in the DMZ to facilitate these types of downloads. If you are just leaching the company's bandwidth to download distros for you own use, I can't work up much sympathy.
In either case, another alternative is to run an ssh server on you
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I was subscriber from day 1 of eu release till last june or so and i personally *never* downloaded a patch from a mirror. And i always got download speeds of 300-900kb/sec
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Huh? Do you have any idea how BitTorrent works?
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Personally i never used background downloading in wow and at the time of the patch going live, there where so many seeds already available that having only 1 official seed from Blizzard didnt really matter. Comparing the "patch" downloading
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Soviet Russia (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Legal uses for Bittorrent (Score:4, Informative)
Most important, copyright and "intellectual property" is no longer necessary for those who are doing the making. I have first-hand experience with the transformation from the creative equivalent of an indentured servant into an artist that has control over my own product and income. Step one was examining just how corrupt and useless the current system has become. Step two was learning about Creative Commons, direct to public domain and other innovative approaches to distributing work and getting paid for it. Step three, at least in my case, was "profit!!" (of course).
The experience has also radicalized me in terms of how I see not only the way artists support themselves, but also how I view the entirety of economic life in these United States (and beyond). Reading Adam Smith and Milton Friedman and comparing their words with the actuality of 21st century life, has convinced me that the entire system of "free markets" "supply and demand" and "the unseen hand" are all so much baloney. It's all been a dodge to keep those of us who work for a living from noticing that we're getting less for working more while our bosses are gaining wealth and producing less.
Notice how the the bosses (executive vice-presidents) at Circuit City have been forced to accept mere 1 million dollar bonuses (called "retention awards") this year because their company has performed so poorly. If any of us were to perform so poorly, we'd get pink slips instead of six-figure Christmas presents. To complete the picture, notice how Circuit City has unceremoniously fired their most experience sales staff, who were earning as much as $14.00 per hour, and then offered them their jobs back a $9 per hour and no benefits! The French Revolution was not so long ago that these "executive vice-presidents" can't learn a few lessons regarding what happens to people who oppress a working class. Hell, some of them must have seen V for Vendetta.
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