A Bit of Edu Torrents?. I've got some back of the cranium wonderings about educational uses of BitTorrent -- if this has not yet crossed your scope, check out the January 2005 Wired article The BitTorrent Effect (no, the article does not star Ashton Kutcher as BT creator Bram Cohen):
BitTorrent lets users quickly upload and download enormous
amounts of data, files that are hundreds or thousands of times bigger
than a single MP3. Analysts at CacheLogic, an Internet-traffic analysis
firm in Cambridge, England, report that BitTorrent traffic accounts for
more than one-third of all data sent across the Internet.
Ok, the primary use the record and movie companies quiver about is
the illegal trading of copyrighted movies and music (cue the violins).
But the way the technology works to enable fast downloading of files is of interest.
The problem with P2P file-sharing networks like Kazaa, he
reasoned, is that uploading and downloading do not happen at equal
speeds. Broadband providers allow their users to download at superfast
rates, but let them upload only very slowly, creating a bottleneck: If
two peers try to swap a compressed copy of Meet the Fokkers - say, 700
megs - the recipient will receive at a speedy 1.5 megs a second, but
the sender will be uploading at maybe one-tenth of that rate. Thus,
one-to-one swapping online is inherently inefficient. It's fine for
MP3s but doesn't work for huge files.
Cohen realized that chopping up a file and handing out the pieces
to several uploaders would really speed things up. He sketched out a
protocol: To download that copy of Meet the Fokkers, a user's computer
sniffs around for others online who have pieces of the movie. Then it
downloads a chunk from several of them simultaneously. Many hands make
light work, so the file arrives dozens of times faster than normal.
Paradoxically, BitTorrent's architecture means that the more popular
the file is the faster it downloads - because more people are pitching
in. Better yet, it's a virtuous cycle. Users download and share at the
same time; as soon as someone receives even a single piece of Fokkers,
his computer immediately begins offering it to others. The more files
you're willing to share, the faster any individual torrent downloads to
your computer. This prevents people from leeching, a classic P2P
problem in which too many people download files and refuse to upload,
creating a drain on the system. "Give and ye shall receive" became
Cohen's motto, which he printed on T-shirts and sold to supporters.
As pointed out in a parallel Technology Review article Digital Movie Forecast: BitTorrential Downpour, an interesting aspect of BitTorrent's decentralization is:
unlike Kazaa, or Napster before it, BitTorrent has no
central interface through which users can search for files.
“Programming a good search interface was pretty tough,” says Cohen, who
lives in the Seattle area. “I decided to make it someone else’s
problem.”
Other uses pointed out in the article include computer game
companies pre-releasing versions of new games to seed interest. Also,
distributions of open source software such as Fedora are taking
advantage of BT.
So what might be going on in the education-iverse? Is there any thinking yet on BT? I did some quick googling and came up more or less dry. The first site Filesoup.com - A BitTorrent Technology Community mentions "eduction" in the sense of educating people about the technology (a good resource BTW).
And while I have grumbled about the limited use of big chunks of linear content (see Yawncasting) and commented Will's Podcasting Blues thoughts-- I would not say there is not a place for efficient use and sharing of large hunking files.
So maybe it is a way of sharing full sized versions of Digital
Storytelling. Or maybe sharing of very complex desktop simulation
programs. Or even if they were really worth the weight, (I cannot
believe I am writing this) a big old fat PowerPoint with embedded
audio. I would think there should be interest in a way of providing
large sized files of educational use between institutions beyond just
plunking them on an FTP server and saying, "hope you have a good time
downloading".
Again, it is the concept and social aspects of BitTorrent I find
compelling. Imagine educators (and learners) around the world who are
able to share and contribute as "swarms" of interest areas like French
Literature, Egyptology, Encryption Algorithms, Classical Music....
Anyway, The BitTorrent Effect is a good read.
[cogdogblog]
10:02:15 AM  Google It!.
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