Parg - Swarm discoveries & private torrents

[ekstasee]

hi Parg,
I've had good look thru the wiki and this forum re "swarm discoveries" and "private torrents', but was unable to find an answer, so:The new operators of PrivateHD (formerly PublicHD, resurrected in name only, but is now private with a capped membership currently @ 33%) are considering banning Vuze.  A post by their Admin "abi" cites this reason:   "~~Vuze has some weird swarm system which allow you share torrents from private trackers into public swarm."

I am aware that torrents created as "private" have a flag that should disable DHT & PEX, however, I am wondering whether the private torrent will be displayed in another user's client if they have the "swarm discoveries" plug-in enabled and if it does, will they be able to source the torrent from the swarm.  Apparently, PrivateHD are not using magnets at this time so as to avoid any possibility of any extraneous leaking of their torrents to non-members, at least according to the PHD admin.  I was my intention to post in their forum my understanding of the "swarm discoveries" plug-in, but I thought it prudent to clarify this matter first.

Should you have a spare few minutes, you are most welcome to make conatct with abi and allay any fears or concerns he/she may have regarding Vuze and it's swarm discoveries plug-in, otherwise I will endeavour to do such should your reply confirm the safety and security of "private torrents" in Vuze

[parg]

It sounds as if this might be more a question about the relatively recent 'swarm merging' feature that the older 'swarm discoveries' one? 

Swarm merging allows peers from multiple swarms that happen to contain the same physical files to co-operate when downloading that file. In reality the swarms aren't actually merged though, peers from swarm A don't end up connecting to peers from swarm B (they can't as they are operating on different torrents). What happens is that DATA downloaded to the common file F is automatically copied from the F in torrent A to file F in torrent B and made available to peers in swarm B.

It is simply an automation of what users have been able to do manually forever.

Regarding private torrents - these can't be sourced from the swarm - see the following code references as a starting point

https://svn.vuze.com/public/client/trunk...rrent.java line 239
https://svn.vuze.com/public/client/trunk...tocol.java line 4825

Swarm Discoveries is a simple meta-data sharing layer and it doesn't in any way permit clients to source private torrents.

Please send over details of the config restore issue, I'll take a look.

Thanks!

[GaryE]

Yeah I was going to say if you are correctly quoting that staffer . . . they do not know what they are talking about.  LOL

The private flag is respected in Vuze and to the best of my knowledge Vuze has always respected the private flag.  The private flag actually does disable PEX and DHT in all but a very very very very small number of torrent clients.  I can tell you which ones.  There was a version of bitComet released about I think it was 7 - 8 years ago which had a bug that essentially ignored the private flag ( I want to say it was version 0.68) -- ok I just doubled checked it was 10 years ago and it was version 0.60.  The clients BitLord and BitSprite (or was it BitSpirit) were based on BitComet and had the same problem.  That problem was fixed within about 3 - 5 weeks if I remember correctly.  Other than that there was one version of uTorrent which had a similar bug but it was fixed in very short order (about 10 days I think).  There was one other torrent client which also did that (I really should remember the name of it . . . I was the one who discovered it LOL).  It was a paid torrent client for the Mac which was in Beta testing.  A user on one of the sites I staffed at the time was using it and posted a screen shot that showed PEX and DHT were enabled despite every torrent on our site having the private flag automatically set.  I eventually got in contact with the developer and he said he did not understand that the private flag was supposed to disable PEX and DHT.  LOL  That client was fixed in about 3 days.  The choice of words abi used indicates that abi does not understand this.

The fact that abi seems to think that magnet links are even an option for a private torrent site is troubling.  Because magnet links are 100% completely incompatible with private sites LOL

abi needs to do a lot more reading and research IMNSHO.  Either that or abi needs to choose his/her words better.  Or you need to quote abi more accurately LOL

Honestly it sounds like abi needs to read the bitTorrent protocol document.  I have not read it in about 6 or 7 years but I did read it so that I would not go spouting off nonsense like this LOL

Seriously I do not understand why when a staffer does not understand something . . . they do not go to the source and ask a question instead of going around and saying they are thinking about banning a client.  I know in my staffing career I went to a lot of torrent client forums and asked a lot of questions that sometimes made me look very stupid LOL but I did get the right answer in the end!

I know parg is a coder and knows far better what he is talking about than I do.  But what he said corresponds exactly with my understanding of how those features work.  LOL  Not that my say so is worth as much as his!

Good luck keeping Vuze unbanned on that site!

[ekstasee]

Howdy GaryE,

Yes, I did quote abi correctly (via copy/paste). As previously stated, there was a post on KAT explaining that these operators are not associated with the former operators of the OLD PublicHD, so whether these new ppl are novices or dimwits is yet to be determined. 

With regard to the issue of magnet-links, I don't know enough to know whether they're incompatible with private sites as such.  Surely that characteristic would depend on the tracker software/configuration and for that matter, the only difference between a private site and a public site is that most public sites do not require registration and those that are characteristically described as "private" seem to have a maximum membership availability, I suspect purely for the "exclusivity" (read snobbish elitism) and or ease of database maintenance.  There are of course sites that require registration but do not cap their membership number, so, would they be described as public, private or what?  I'm not arguing or debating here, just thinkin' out aloud!

I do use a site that requires registration but I think their membership is uncapped, however, both their torrents and magnet-links have a member identifier on the tracker URL. (I'll pm the site to you).  Then of course, there is Demonoid who have now closed registrations and they use magnet-links, so I lean back to my previous question about tracker software/config ??  Maybe parg might venture forth with a response on this question if he rechecks this thread.

Nothin' else to do but keep on learning!

[GaryE]

I am telling you that private torrent can not use magnet links.  It is not possible.  The ability to use magnet links does depend on the site software of course . . . but magnet links can not be used on private torrent sites.

Also there are open registration private torrent sites that require you to sign up for an account before you can download or upload.  I think you are confusing private invite only sites and private sites.  Not all private sites are invite only . . . and not all invite only sites are private.

There are open registration private sites which have a maximum number of users.  And there are private invite only sites which have a maximum number of users.  There are also examples of both that do not have a maximum number of users.

It seems like you are new to private torrenting and there are lots of variations of private sites and many people do not understand what makes a torrent site public and what makes it private.

The one thing that distinguishes a private site from a public site is that anyone can download content that is posted on a public site; however, to download content from (or upload content to) the peers on a private site you must be a member of that private site.  If you are not a member with a valid passkey in each of the .torrent files you download from the site in question you will be unable to seed or leech data from torrents which have been posted to that private site -- because without that valid passkey the request for the peer list that your torrent client sends out to the private site in question will never get answered.

Demonoid is not a private site.  Demonoid is an invite only public site -- to the best of my knowledge it is the only invite only public site in existence -- it is possible this other site which you pm'd me works the same way as Demonoid . . . it is a invite only public site -- I do not read the language of that site and even if I did I am not joining a random site just to confirm what I already know!  LOL

You would not be the first person to think that just because you need an invite that Demonoid is a private site.  It is not.  I can (and have) accessed Demonoid swarms without being a member because it is not private.  It does not require a passkey to get data from the peers in the swarm of their torrents -- it is that use of a passkey which differentiates a public site from a private site.  Demonid does not use them therefore it is not a private site.

If this other site to which you are referring has magnet links it is not a private site.  There is no mechanism to insert a passkey into a magnet link that I have ever heard of.  If there is . . . it is a very very new development (as in the last several months).

To make sure that nothing has changed recently I just scanned over the bittorrent protocol change history and there is no mention in the change history log of the bitTorrent protocol about the protocol being modified to allow individual passkeys to be sent via magnet links.  So unless something has changed which was not mentioned in the official bitTorrent protocol document  . . . it is not possible to use magnet links with private torrents -- for the record there is a 0% chance of the bitTorrent protocol being modified without the official protocol document being modified.

If you need to hear this from someone other than me what I am telling you is also mentioned in the following links:

http://forum.utorrent.com/topic/94276-pr...gnet-link/

http://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comment...rrents_on/


Back to my original point.  If abi thinks it is possible to have magnet links on a private site . . . abi does not know what he/she is talking about.

[ekstasee]

In your last reply, you write of "private torrents" as opposed to your previous reply where you write of "private torrent sites and "private sites" which are NOT private torrents (because they are websites).  My statements were in reference your "private sites" comments.