Matt wrote:
Don't most broadband Internet user agreements have a clause that says something like "no servers"? Is bittorrent a server?
If you want to get really technical, there is no such thing as a server. :P
There are programs that listen to certain TCP and UDP ports, but that's absolutely required for all Internet traffic anyway. (If you request a Web page, for instance, the request gets sent off, then your computer listens on a certain port, specifically the one it used to make the request, for a response. That's no different from their computer listening on, say, port 80 for people to request Web pages.)
The customary definition would probably be "program that listens of certain ports for requests all the time," but BitTorrent even cleverly circumvents that. Most BT clients can be configured not to listen, but they'll still send out parts of files to peers that they already know about, because perhaps they've already connected to that given peer to /download/ part of a file. I'm not aware of any BT clients that permit you to turn that off; in fact, most of them are configured to reward others' uploads. (If you're not uploading back to the swarm, other clients will shun you and your download speeds will be decreased.)
While I imagine most of our contracts have "no servers/daemons" clauses, and you could technically use them to fire ANY customer (zomg your computer was listening on port 1234 right after you requested a Web page!) it's a bit of a heavy-handed way to solve the problem. (Anyone have a better way to solve the problem?)
David Smith MVN.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
