Re: BitTorrent swarms have a deadly bite on broadband nets

[Joe Provo <nanog-post () rsuc gweep net>]

On Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 03:13:42AM +0000, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> According to
> http://torrentfreak.com/comcast-throttles-bittorrent-traffic-seeding-impossible/
> Comcast's blocking affects connections to non-Comcast users.  This
> means that they're trying to manage their upstream connections, not the
> local loop.

Disagree - despite Comcast's size, there's more "Internet" outside of 
them than on-net.  Even with decent knobs, these devices are more blunt 
instruments than anyone would like.  See my previous comments regarding 
allowing the on-net to on-net (or within region, or whatever BGP community 
you use...) such that transfers with better RTT to complete quicker.  

Everyone who is commenting on "This tracker/client does $foo to behave" 
is missing the point - would one rather have the traffic snooped further
to see if such and such tracker/client is in use? And pay for the admin
overhead required to keep those non-automatable lists updated? Adrian
hit it on the head regarding the generations of kittens romping free...

While I expect end-users to miss the boat that providers use stat-mux 
calculations to build and price their networks, I'm floored to see the
sentiment on NANOG.  No edge provider of geographic scope/scale will 
survive if 1:1 ratios were built and priced accordingly. Perhaps the
M&A colonialism era is coming to a close and smaller, regional nation-
states... erm last-mile providers will be the entities to grow with
satisfied customers?

Cheers,

Joe
-- 
             RSUC / GweepNet / Spunk / FnB / Usenix / SAGE