On Sunday 07 December 2008 03:28 am, Jeff Lasman wrote: > the ISPs learn how to identify it and aggressively throw away the > packets. > > Which is actually much easier to do than the article points out ... > deep packet inspection isn't going to be necessary. Only traffic > rate.
On page two of his second article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/05/richard_bennett_bittorrent_udp/ the author, Richard Bennett, points out: <snip> Several management tweaks can prevent perverse side-effects like this from happening, such as reconfiguring traffic shapers to key on stream volume rather than protocol type. </snip> So he and I see the same "fix" implemented by ISPs to solve the problem of the 'net coming to a standstill. He also points out that what the torrents are looking towards is an entirely new protocol, uTP, which can still seriously impact traffic (if routers that currently limit TCP/IP traffic don't limit uTP traffic, more uTP traffic will cause more congestion on, and thus more limiting of, TCP/IP traffic. But the fact that this is a new protocol actually makes it easy for the ISPs to enter "reactive mode" (as Bennett also says on page two of his more recent article); they can and will eventually learn to shape it as much as they do now, or more so. What Eric Klinker (CEO of BitTorrent) has really done, is given the ISPs ammunition to tell governments "See, they don't play fair, so we have to identify and shape." In the long run: We could see a meltdown We could see traditional ISPs spend billions more on capacity or dramatically raise their rates, or go out of business We could see them implement new terms of service (if necessary) with one month lead times, and start shutting down the 5% of their users causing the problem. Care to bet on the outcome? Note that the disclaimers as to time-of-day from my previous message apply to this one as well. Jeff -- Jeff Lasman, Nobaloney Internet Services P.O. Box 52200, Riverside, CA 92517 Our jplists address used on lists is for list email only voice: +1 951 643-5345, or see: "http://www.nobaloney.net/contactus.html";
