[ NNSquad ] Re: pcap files of the Comcast forgeries?

[Edward Almasy <ealmasy@scout.wisc.edu>]

On Dec 18, 2007, at 11:25 AM, Brett Glass wrote:
> Intellectual property issues aside, this is one of the biggest  
> problems
> with P2P software: it is designed to take resources from third parties
> to accomplish the goals of the authors of the software.

I would suggest that (sort of) the opposite is true:  a lot of P2P
applications put much more control over resources consumption into the
hands of the end user than most network applications.  I _wish_ I had an
FTP client or web browser that gave me the sort of control over  
bandwidth
usage that recent versions of the Azureus BitTorrent client provide.
Yes, that means that end users are potentially able to fill more of  
their
pipe without suffering negative consequences by degrading their  
interactive
use, which is obviously bad for ISPs who are banking on under- 
utilization,
but the software was written for the benefit of end users, not ISPs.

The same P2P software authors who've built the aforementioned  
controls may
actually be natural allies (or at least one fertile testing ground) for
NNSquad efforts, since many of their bandwidth management mechanisms are
based on assumptions about the way that Internet connections behave.

Ed