P2P-Based DNS Seeks to Counter ICANN and Thwart Domain Seizures
december 2010 by cloudseer
With the news of Pirate Bay convictions upheld in Sweden, website seizures in the U.S., and now threats to "do something" about Wikileaks, it's no surprise that there are now calls for an alternative DNS, one outside the reach of governments and of ICANN.
The DNS, or Domain Name System, is one of the foundational elements of the Internet, responsible for translating the numbers in IP addresses to the more human-friendly names. And ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a nonprofit organization tasked with managing both the IPv4 and IPv6 Internet Protocol address spaces, maintaining the registries of IP identifiers, and managing top-level domain names.
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Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde recently tweeted that he long ago lost his trust in ICANN, arguing that the "core of the DNS problem is not ICANN. It's that governments and companies can control ICANN (i.e. it's centralised)." Indeed, it appears as though the U.S. government has ordered ICANN to remove the names of copyright infringing websites from the global DNS. So in response, Sunde has called for an alternative - and most importantly, distributed - domain name system.
A Distributed Alternative to the Domain Name System
Arguing that "we want the internet to be uncensored," Sunde has formed a group to work on the project, a DNS that would not utilize a centralized root but would instead take advantage of peer-to-peer technology. He writes, "By using existing technology for de-centralisation together with already having a crew with skilled programmers, communicators and network specialists, an alternative system is not far away. We're not going to re-invent the wheel, we're going to build on existing technology as much as possible."
The technology may exist to make a BitTorrent-based alternative possible, but such a system would face a massive uphill battle to provide a viable alternative - in terms of delivering speed and performance, but also in terms of gaining widespread adoption. And as Ars Technica notes, one of the biggest problems will be around the ownership of domain names. "The stakes are high," writes Iljitsch van Beijnum, "even a small fraction of the traffic of a popular site, or even just an interesting search term, can be worth a lot of money. It's hard to imagine that with such high stakes there wouldn't be any abuse of such an open system, or at the very least, widely diverging points of view of what's best."
Despite these obstacles, Sunde's proposal has been met enthusiastically in some circles, which considering the intersection of politics and web technologies over this past week, is hardly a surprise.
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The DNS, or Domain Name System, is one of the foundational elements of the Internet, responsible for translating the numbers in IP addresses to the more human-friendly names. And ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is a nonprofit organization tasked with managing both the IPv4 and IPv6 Internet Protocol address spaces, maintaining the registries of IP identifiers, and managing top-level domain names.
Sponsor
Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde recently tweeted that he long ago lost his trust in ICANN, arguing that the "core of the DNS problem is not ICANN. It's that governments and companies can control ICANN (i.e. it's centralised)." Indeed, it appears as though the U.S. government has ordered ICANN to remove the names of copyright infringing websites from the global DNS. So in response, Sunde has called for an alternative - and most importantly, distributed - domain name system.
A Distributed Alternative to the Domain Name System
Arguing that "we want the internet to be uncensored," Sunde has formed a group to work on the project, a DNS that would not utilize a centralized root but would instead take advantage of peer-to-peer technology. He writes, "By using existing technology for de-centralisation together with already having a crew with skilled programmers, communicators and network specialists, an alternative system is not far away. We're not going to re-invent the wheel, we're going to build on existing technology as much as possible."
The technology may exist to make a BitTorrent-based alternative possible, but such a system would face a massive uphill battle to provide a viable alternative - in terms of delivering speed and performance, but also in terms of gaining widespread adoption. And as Ars Technica notes, one of the biggest problems will be around the ownership of domain names. "The stakes are high," writes Iljitsch van Beijnum, "even a small fraction of the traffic of a popular site, or even just an interesting search term, can be worth a lot of money. It's hard to imagine that with such high stakes there wouldn't be any abuse of such an open system, or at the very least, widely diverging points of view of what's best."
Despite these obstacles, Sunde's proposal has been met enthusiastically in some circles, which considering the intersection of politics and web technologies over this past week, is hardly a surprise.
Discuss
december 2010 by cloudseer
You're the Backup: Pirate Bay Archive Available for Download
august 2009 by cloudseer
The Pirate Bay is like a gigantic inch worm. If you cut it down, it's various pieces rise up and keep growing. As The Pirate Bay prepares to be passed on to Global Gaming X AB, the service is offering the ultimate legacy gift to users. It looks as if an anonymous user uploaded the entire site's archive in order to ensure that multiple backups exist in case torrents are removed post-purchase. Users who would like to download an archival copy of the site, can access it as a massive 21.3 gigabyte download for free.
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According to TorrentFreak, "The backup includes a mock up site and all of the 873,671 torrent files hosted on The Pirate Bay's servers." Users who plan on downloading it are warned to be patient as a file of this size will take a few days to download from a limited group of torrents. Nevertheless, given that the file represents 2 million Pirate Bay torrents, it's actually fairly compact.
Before jumping to it, it may be smart to remind yourself of the legal issues currently facing both the Pirate Bay founders and perhaps more importantly, the non-commercial cases of Joel Tenenbaum and Jammie Thomas-Rasset.
Most recently, the Department of Justice upheld the award of 1.92 million dollars to the RIAA from single mom Jammie Thomas-Rasset. Minnesota woman Thomas-Rasset is expected to pay $80,000 per song for 24 KaZaA files she'd downloaded in 2004. The RIAA has gone after more than 20,000 people for music piracy, but has more recently chosen to focus on internet service providers rather than on non-commercial infringers. Depending on your country of residence, getting caught using the Pirate Bay archive file could be devastating.
If you're still curious, or you simply want to read the comments, the download page is available here.
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According to TorrentFreak, "The backup includes a mock up site and all of the 873,671 torrent files hosted on The Pirate Bay's servers." Users who plan on downloading it are warned to be patient as a file of this size will take a few days to download from a limited group of torrents. Nevertheless, given that the file represents 2 million Pirate Bay torrents, it's actually fairly compact.
Before jumping to it, it may be smart to remind yourself of the legal issues currently facing both the Pirate Bay founders and perhaps more importantly, the non-commercial cases of Joel Tenenbaum and Jammie Thomas-Rasset.
Most recently, the Department of Justice upheld the award of 1.92 million dollars to the RIAA from single mom Jammie Thomas-Rasset. Minnesota woman Thomas-Rasset is expected to pay $80,000 per song for 24 KaZaA files she'd downloaded in 2004. The RIAA has gone after more than 20,000 people for music piracy, but has more recently chosen to focus on internet service providers rather than on non-commercial infringers. Depending on your country of residence, getting caught using the Pirate Bay archive file could be devastating.
If you're still curious, or you simply want to read the comments, the download page is available here.
Discuss
august 2009 by cloudseer