Hi,
Just as Popcorn already includes a torrent client, it can include a
BitMessage client, it would be entirely transparent to the users, just
as the torrent client already is.
The rolling blockchain: it is OK if the "master file" is broadcast every
two days. BTW the "master file" is a list of mirrors, which can and will
change, where you can get the meta-data used for popcorn-time to operate.
Bitmessage isn't anonymous to network-level attackers: the person who
broadcast the file can be behind Tor. It will be make them much harder
to find than if they have to seed a torrent file. And it can be
different persons sharing a private key to post from different locations.
* * *
The question is not whether BitMessage is *the* perfect protocol, but
what protocols are there to distribute a master file in a way that:
- the sender can easily change the master file,
- the receiver can easily locate the master file (a single key to
locate: a URL or a public key),
- the message is not hosted at a single or a limited number of places
(because those can be taken down),
- and the sender itself is difficult to find.
Cheers,
On 04/07/2014 01:14 PM, Natanael wrote:
Bitmessage isn't ideal for this.
Both because it has a rolling blockchain (the data to distribute needs
to be uploaded repeatedly), because the users will need a special
client to download it, and then special instructions to find the file,
and because Bitmessage isn't anonymous to network level attackers
(your ISP, the router you're connected to, etc), and because of
scaling problems.
The easiest way IMHO is to have a network of mirror sites hosting it,
reminding people they can download it over Tor.
- Sent from my phone
Den 7 apr 2014 09:50 skrev "ChaTo (Carlos Alberto Alejandro CASTILLO
Ocaranza)" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>:
Hi,
An answer to the "single point of failure" of having a URL to pull
the content is to use a secure distribution mechanism.
I think a great candidate is BitMessage, which I have been using
for some months now: https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page
BitMessage is a secure peer-to-peer communications protocol that
allows you to broadcast a message (or receive a broadcast message)
without revealing your IP address.
Cheers,
On 04/06/2014 11:41 PM, Jonathan Wilkes wrote:
Hi list,
Can some tech liberator out there versed in javascript and
video streaming please take over the popcorn-time project? It
looks like it was developed pseudonymously by at least three
teams now which have all disappeared (probably due to pressure
from Hollywood).
If you haven't heard of it, see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time
Why should this interest you?
* Licensed GPL v3
* Has the most user-friendly interface I've seen in a piece of
free software
* Runs on GNU/Linux, OSX, Windows
* Streams downloads efficiently and uses Bittorrent to seed while
the user watches (with no setup or intervention by the user)
* Accessibility. Looks like the project is getting bullied with
a game of whack-a-mole, probably due to pressure from Hollywood.
AFAICT there is no new technology being used-- the original devs
used mostly pre-existing libs to make something that is easy to
use. What everyone on this list can do using Transmission and
VLC can now be done by non-experts.
How to stop the game of whack-a-mole?
There needs to be something like a "popcorn kernel" team. It
should use exactly the same API as the software currently does,
but just have a place where the user can type in an address from
which to pull the content. It'd be pretty easy to host a tracker
with one or two public domain titles and test with that. Then if
a site like archive.org <http://archive.org> decides to adopt the
YTF API to access its public domain videos, users can just add
that address and start streaming the content. (And again because
they are also seeding this helps out archive.org
<http://archive.org>, so it's a win-win.)
That would remove the only controversial line of code-- the url
of YTF-- so that anyone who wants to improve the software may do
it without being bullied. Also, if there were a well-known
organization dedicated to hosting and defending free software
that could host the repo and front page it would lower the risk
of a rogue, suspicious site putting up downloads with malware in
them. (And each time Popcorn-time gets resurrected at some new
domain that risk increases.)
The original code is still on github. Not sure about the other
incarnations. It's worth noting that there seemed to be quite a
bit of activity on each incarnation (bug fixes, improvements) so
it might be worth it to try to find a link to the most recent
incarnation. (And since it's git it should be easy to audit the
changes.)
I really wish I knew javascript and node.js. Then I'd just do it
myself. :)
Best,
Jonathan
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