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Per-Torrent Policing - A Bad Idea


TheDude

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Don't go "tl; dr, you're an idiot"

Nowhere have I ever called anyone an idiot in this Forum, nor any other personal attack. Do not confuse statements like "what you say is wrong" with personal attacks.

Time to refresh your memory:

The point in that paragraph ignores what I wrote in the first post. That sort of thing is what I was referring to.

It's been done in various build since 1.3 without you complaining

Because it was global, not per torrent.

Hence the title of this thread "Per-Torrent Policing".

I have my whole upload speed going to torrents 24/7 - I just want to choose which ones. I want to choose the ones where I am the only seeder left, rather than the ones where there are many other seeds.

utorrent 1.8 now wants to make the choice in advance, despite the fact it refuses to make those sorts of distinctions.

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There is little difference between 6 KiBps global upload and 4 KiBps torrent upload. If you don't want to seed, set the upload limit to 4, and do however many peers you connect to as slots. That does the same effect low upload gives you... petered out downloads until you get nothing as you're snubbed for being a BAD SHARER.

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Ok, I thought if you were seeding that it wouldn't matter if you put the upload speed to only 1 KiloBYTE/sec for that torrent.

...Was the latest uTorrent ( somewhere between v1.7.7 and v1.8) changed so even if you reduce upload speeds on 1 seeding torrent that it affects ALL torrents' download speeds?

If that's the case...where a per-torrent upload speed affects global download speeds, yeah I can see why you're a bit upset. ...Especially if you're seeding the torrent!

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There is little difference between 6 KiBps global upload and 4 KiBps torrent upload.

No, what is desired is 1 k/s on the torrent and 30 k/s global, because the typical situation is:

- Torrent A on private tracker with many seeds, where I have a high ratio and want to allow others to upload more, since the newbies are often desperate for opportunities to upload.

- Torrent B on private tracker which is old, and where I am the only seeder.

So, if I can limit A to 1 k/s, then I can give the guy on B 29 k/s and he can finish that much sooner. So, I am being a better sharer for doing this, but utorrent wants to force me to upload a higher amount on the torrent with many seeds, and a lower amount on the torrent where I am the only seeder.

I am not talking hypothetically, this happens frequently, including a couple of days ago.

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In your example, I don't understand your problem.

...When you limited that torrent to 1 KB/sec upload speed, then something bad happened which prevented the other torrent from seeding at 29 KB/sec?

uTorrent isn't currently programmed to automatically choose the "best" place to spend the majority of your upload speed. But I don't see uTorrent's minimum upload speed per-torrent policies as the cause of that. ...Or at least the lone cause of that!

So you already lowered priority on the overseeded torrent to LOW, set the upload slots on it to 1...and that didn't help?

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So, his request sounds like a two parter:

1) Seed based on lowest seed/peer ratio first

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=1722

2) Download without any limits even if the upload value is below the allowed threshold.

I could see #1 being implemented. I doubt #2 being implemented because of the leech abuse on public trackers. Like I said before, while your problem is a real one on private trackers, it affects such a small population that it does more harm than good to remove the limit.

Easy solution: Leech all you want until your ratio is 1:1. Don't seed old torrents. If you don't seed, give someone else a chance to seed. You also could be encouraging more downloading from members by making old torrents available.

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2) Download without any limits even if the upload value is below the allowed threshold.

I could see #1 being implemented. I doubt #2 being implemented because of the leech abuse on public trackers. Like I said before, while your problem is a real one on private trackers, it affects such a small population that it does more harm than good to remove the limit.

Two comments:

- The limit is not implemented yet on any released version of utorrent. It is only present in the beta versions. There is not any problems for the last few years that would be solved by adding this limit. But it would cause new problems that I have described in this thread.

- Even if you feel you must limit public torrents, you don't have to limit private torrents. Private torrents have a private flag. If the limit is disabled when the private flag is sent, then utorrent's social engineering of public torrents would not affect private sites.

In your example, I don't understand your problem.

...When you limited that torrent to 1 KB/sec upload speed, then something bad happened which prevented the other torrent from seeding at 29 KB/sec? [...]

So you already lowered priority on the overseeded torrent to LOW, set the upload slots on it to 1...and that didn't help?

Answer to first question: The bad thing is that the download is limited, that's the whole point of the thread.

Answer to second question: If you are seeding two torrents, one with many seeders and some leechers and you set that to LOW and upload slot to 1, and one with one leecher only, then both have one leecher, and bandwidth allocation setting won't make things as far apart as 1 kb and 29 kb by itself.

There is a lot of nitpicking of irrelevant aspects of my statements (for example, whether or not the high bandwidth uploaders are only in East Asia).

The point is that utorrent 1.8's new Policeman feature is - like all social engineering - going to cause problems like prevent people from choosing to upload to torrents that lack seeders. The whole point of file sharing is the individual getting to choose when, how and what they download and what they upload, not some Big Agency telling us what to do. Don't become a Big Agency telling us what to do.

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> not any problems for the last few years

I know why you would say such a thing, when hit-n-running on public trackers is a big, big problem. Maybe you meant, not a problem on private trackers with ratios?

> would cause new problems

True. So, I think you are saying we should cut off your arm because you got a cut on your finger. The new problem is very limited in scope. The torrent would have to be on a tracker with ratio enforcement, only a problem when downloading a torrent with an upload limit below the allowed limit, and until you finished the torrent. At worst, you'd have to seed back 8.33% before you stop a finished torrent (assuming a 12 to 1 download:upload ratio).

> Private torrents have a private flag.

I've pointed out before that private torrents can be placed on a public tracker as well. So, using private flag as the criteria for removing download limits would still create hit-n-run issues on public trackers.

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Hand meet foot. . .circles and circles and circles.

If you're seeding... this is moot.

If you're not... you get the same trickle of download @ 4 upload that you would @ 1. Noone except for the afforementioned speedy seeds MAY upload to you with you reciprocating so poorly. You have yet to provide a reason to change the behaviour. <comments about vogon poetry inserted> My only remaining thought is you don't object to the global limiting which has been in since 1.3 because this is how you've been working since then. Why didn't you comment before, in the 1.8 dev thread for example... you appear to be an active forum browser posting on pertinent information... including the addition of seeding values PER TORRENT in 1.2 - Feature: Now there's a checkbox so you have to actually enable seed settings override.

Regarding bandwidth allocation, I think the ratios were 9/5/1 as-in bandwidth to give if available. There is no way to FORCE increase upload to someone (thereby you set the max you want to give to someone and hope enough slots/peers are there to get that OTHERWISE your upload goes to something else). There is however a way to force DECREASE upload to someone (set the limit in torrent properties, or set enough upload slots your bandwidth APPEARS to be negligible).

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I have my whole upload speed going to torrents 24/7 - I just want to choose which ones. I want to choose the ones where I am the only seeder left, rather than the ones where there are many other seeds.
- Torrent A on private tracker with many seeds, where I have a high ratio and want to allow others to upload more, since the newbies are often desperate for opportunities to upload.

- Torrent B on private tracker which is old, and where I am the only seeder.

So, if I can limit A to 1 k/s, then I can give the guy on B 29 k/s and he can finish that much sooner. So, I am being a better sharer for doing this, but utorrent wants to force me to upload a higher amount on the torrent with many seeds, and a lower amount on the torrent where I am the only seeder.

I am not talking hypothetically, this happens frequently, including a couple of days ago.

In all of these situations, you are already done downloading and don't need to download any more. At which point this whole issue - limiting download on individual torrents if you cap your upload on individual torrents - is moot.

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In all of these situations, you are already done downloading and don't need to download any more. At which point this whole issue - limiting download on individual torrents if you cap your upload on individual torrents - is moot.

No, the torrent "A" is one I have not downloaded, that's the point.

I know why you would say such a thing, when hit-n-running on public trackers is a big, big problem.

Hit-and-run is not a mathermatical problem on torrents - there is no problem in anyone getting the torrent quickly. I've looked at this very carefully, and most of the uploading on torrents is done by a very few people who have very large bandwidths. Any number of dialup guys can "hit-and-run" without affecting the overall situation.

Acutally, hit-and-run is an emotional problem - "Hey, I'm seeding and someone else is not !".

Outside of the things mentioned above, there could be many good reasons for hit-and-run - someone just happened to finish and:

- their PC crashed or their DSL line crashed

- their roommate wants the PC NOW and doesn't want anything using up the bandwidth

etc.

So, they upload later to some other torrent instead.

In other words, the only problem with hit-and-run is that someone wants to be the parent of everyone else, and micromanage their behavior.

It's a myth that file sharing requires some sort of Police or Parents, otherwise everyone would take without sharing. In reality, the sharing occurs because people want to share, not because the Utorrent 1.8 Police force them to share.

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You have a valid point about seeding priority for low seed/peer ratio. All your absolutist opinions have been discussed at least once (if not more) and its just re-hash. Good luck convincing the developers. I don't support removing the download limit.

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Rhetoric is called rhetoric because it doesn't necessarily have a basis in fact (i.e. emotional persuasive speech). I'm trying to be objective here, but you continue to hammer on points which are or have been rejected... Discourse relies on intelligent discussion. If you can't think of any other use for the removal of the feature you should stop posting.

While it is true that in 7 years bittorrent has ballooned and as more people use it more will choose to seed, there is still a dearth of upload bandwith available. Most people have a 4:1 or worse download to upload ratio. I reject hit & run personally because bittorrent doesn't care how much you do, only how fast you do it. There are specialized bittorrent networks which add on this type of "credit" via distributed name/id lists... but that doesn't belong here.

The fact is there is a large imbalance of download to upload means features which encourage or at the very least don't DISCOURAGE bad practices in client configuration (too many slots, high half open, and LOW SET UPLOADS) are a detriment to the swarm as a whole.

... Bringing up inflammatory imagery suggests you don't care about this in principle, you just want it... because

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The fact is there is a large imbalance of download to upload means features which encourage or at the very least don't DISCOURAGE bad practices in client configuration (too many slots, high half open, and LOW SET UPLOADS) are a detriment to the swarm as a whole.

This is mathematically impossible. Download and upload cannot be imbalanced overall.

Again, people with bad ratios don't affect swarms, because most of the uploading comes from a minority of people with very large upload bandwidth.

Many times I have uploaded my entire bandwidth at the same time as 2 or 3 other users and end up providing 1-2% of the upload speed on the swarm - because theirs is so much larger.

Making rigid upload requirements in the client ignores specific differences in people's individual situations. That is the main point, and no one has contradicted it, because it is obviously true.

Instead, things are brought up like "why didn't you say something earlier" which are irrelevant (and the answer is simply because I was doing other things than keeping track of utorrent).

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This is mathematically impossible. Download and upload cannot be imbalanced overall.

I'd like to see the math behind this. Instead of, you know, generalized statements that don't prove anything.

Again, people with bad ratios don't affect swarms, because most of the uploading comes from a minority of people with very large upload bandwidth.

Many times I have uploaded my entire bandwidth at the same time as 2 or 3 other users and end up providing 1-2% of the upload speed on the swarm - because theirs is so much larger.

With private trackers (like the ones you claim to care about), it's not like this after the initial 24 hours of uploading.

On public trackers - with popular anime at least - those two or three people seeding to thousands of peers are usually from boxes the group (or people for the group) provide. Where they just upload and don't care about download. Essentially functioning as an http server that always has the file available because a majority of the other people hit and run.

If you're going to mix and match based on which suits your argument, at least be specific about which you're referring to at any given moment.

Instead, things are brought up like "why didn't you say something earlier" which are irrelevant (and the answer is simply because I was doing other things than keeping track of utorrent).

Because it's not a big deal and you never noticed before. It's still not a big deal, you just have nothing else to do.

Making rigid upload requirements in the client ignores specific differences in people's individual situations. That is the main point, and no one has contradicted it, because it is obviously true.

Applying individual situations to every situation is just as bad. No one's contradicted your point because to everyone else, bittorrent is about the swarm in general. To you it's about your own wants.

Micromanaging bittorrent is a very bad idea. I'd advise you against doing so.

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I'd like to see the math behind this.

While trying not to be personal, most of the people who discuss torrenting have very little grasp of math.

No byte can be downloaded that has not been uploaded. It has to be one-to-one.

Secondly, if you have two people uploading to a torrent:

- one with 30 kbps upload (me)

- one with 300 kbps upload (guy in East Asia or some other advanced country)

then I am always going to end up with 9% of the bytes uploaded to the torrent and the other guy is going to end with 91% of the bytes uploaded to the torrent. So, it takes me 10 times longer to achieve any ratio goals, 10 times longer to download anything.

Now I am not complaining about this - but Utorrent 1.8 makes it worse, because you have chosen a fixed number of kbps. Some people, like this guy, are never going to have a problem with it not because they are more diligent, but because their local ISPs happen to provide more upload bandwidth.

In my location, I cannot buy more than 30 kbps upload.

there is a precedent for what we're doing. eMule.

Wrong. eMule uses limits based on your global upload.

It's not the limits that are a problem (although they are unnecessary), it is per-torrent limits.

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NoOneButMe said:

"In all of these situations, you are already done downloading and don't need to download any more. At which point this whole issue - limiting download on individual torrents if you cap your upload on individual torrents - is moot."

If limiting upload on 1 torrent to 1-4 KB/sec ALSO limits download speeds on other torrents, yeah...that'd be an issue. I thought that's why TheDude was complaining in the first place!

TheDude said:

"Answer to first question: The bad thing is that the download is limited, that's the whole point of the thread."

I cannot understand how download speed matters on seeding torrents that you have 100% of.

"Even if you feel you must limit public torrents, you don't have to limit private torrents. Private torrents have a private flag."

Numerous public trackers (that don't require username and password to use) have private flagged torrents on them, and ironically they are WORSE off from hit-and-runners because of private flag effects! They are worse off because such private torrents can fragment easier into pools/domains of peers+seeds that are unaware of each other...because Peer Exchange has been disabled. The tracker itself either allows limited requery rates for additional ips, gives out limited (often repeated!) sets of ips...often of dead hit-and-run ips, and may even go offline due to overloads as they are FAR more vulnerable to single-point-of-failure issues than multi-tracker open torrents. Banning hit-and-runners by ip proves only semi-useful considering many people have dynamic ips. And "disgruntled" banned ips may also seek means to knock the tracker offline.

"Don't become a Big Agency telling us what to do."

BitComet last I looked had a MINIMUM global upload speed of 10 KB/sec.

BitTornado had a minimum upload speed of 3 KB/sec PER torrent with 2 upload slots.

(It was a 1-window-per-torrent client rather than interface for multiple active torrents at once using shared bandwidth.)

Is either of those behaviors preferable for uTorrent to use to reduce leeching?

"It's a myth that file sharing requires some sort of Police or Parents, otherwise everyone would take without sharing. In reality, the sharing occurs because people want to share, not because the Utorrent 1.8 Police force them to share."

Shall we add a checkbox in advanced settings then to disable sharing, since it's a myth?

No-can-do, because it is a REQUIREMENT of the BitTorrent protocol.

Likewise, it is also a requirement to upload to (a limited number of) few peers at once to maintain good TCP flow control...in other words at a speed of 1 KB/sec PER PEER or more. Any slower and packet payloads shrink relative to packet overheads.

Incidentally, uTorrent uses fewer upload slots than specified IF you're uploading too slowly. Should this police effect be removed too, to compete with BitComet's many-upload-slot behavior?

jewelisheaven said:

"there is a large imbalance of download to upload means features which encourage or at the very least don't DISCOURAGE bad practices in client configuration (too many slots, high half open, and LOW SET UPLOADS) are a detriment to the swarm as a whole."

TheDude said:

"This is mathematically impossible. Download and upload cannot be imbalanced overall."

jewelisheaven is talking about speed of people's internet connections, not per-se how fast they're uploading and downloading torrents. But yes, you can't go faster than the speed of your connection. :lol:

However even when talking in terms of torrent swarms, individual torrents CAN have download and upload imbalances!

Combined download speed on a torrent is generally less than combined upload speed. Losses from hash fails, lost packets, and wasted (duplicate) data prevent them from being equal...and the more connections you have at once the worse that tends to get!

My connection is asymmetric to the extreme... over 15 to 1! Barring any "greed" on my part but unaware of that imbalance, I could easily be running ratios of <0.1 on torrents with sufficient participants even if most aren't seeds. It would not take too many such hit-and-runners on a torrent to effectively kill it off just days after the initial seed left. Reasonable means are needed to reduce that problem.

Reducing that problem by pure ratio enforcement on private torrents and private trackers runs into problems PRECISELY for the reasons TheDude has stated:

"On many trackers, the ability to upload is severly limited by the massive bandwidth of [fast] broadband users. On those trackers, the ability to upload in order to meet minimum ratio requirements is highly prized. Some users with ratios greater than 1 are often criticized for hogging the uploading."

* Far East Asia changed to [fast] because not all fast connections are in Far East Asia, nor are all Far East Asia connections terribly fast.

hermanm said:

"Your issue is an overabundance of high-speed seeders. ...The issue you describe is something between you, other members, and the private tracker's policy."

In other words, a failure of the private tracker to accomplish the goal of well-seeded torrents for the sake of the members and tracker. Going further, ratio-cheating software has proliferated. Private trackers then seek to locate and ban the cheaters. The cheating becomes more subtle...and the war of private trackers versus their users continues.

Are you offering an alternative means to what is already implemented in uTorrent v1.8 to reduce leeching?

...because it seems the point of your thread that private trackers do not work!

Firon said:

"there is a precedent for what we're doing. eMule."

I seem to recall that eMule is notorious for rare-but-desirable files having queues measuring in the 1000's and wait times measured in days just to START. I am adamantly opposed to emulating THAT part of eMule. :P

Firon, do you mean the "favored downloader" status?

If anything, eMule's behavior is probably closer to initial seeding...where peers that fail to propagate pieces are no longer considered as upload targets by the initial seed. Initial seeding in theory could create a deadlock if the participating peers fail to announce new pieces they have available for upload. Initial seeding is a bit of a kludgey workaround for the seed not being able to choose which pieces to upload to a peer in the first place.

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State an argument different from "I want to download without uploading" ... It does not benefit you as a downloader, nor does it benefit the swarm.

No, my argument is I want to upload to a different torrent. All of my upload is always going to torrents.

Again, what I want to do is:

- Give only 1 kbps to a giant torrent with hundreds or thousands of peers (that I have not completed), so I can then

- Give 29 kbps to a torrent where I am the only seed

Let's forget about Asia, what date it is, and private flags on public torrents, and just talk about this example (and in fact, I am doing that today with torrents, so it is not just hypothetical). Let's even forget about private trackers at all.

With Utorrent 1.7, I give a slight imperceptible decrease of speed to the huge torrent (~0.001 %), in return for a significant increase in speed to the torrent where I am the only seeder, and some guy is patiently waiting. I can save him hours by doing this.

I'm sorry, but I won't upgrade to 1.8 if it forces me to make the wrong choice, while claiming it is the right choice. (Gosh, I can't think of a better definition for "politician".)

Over the years, I'm always amazed at the number of people in the file sharing community ( which may not be you ) who one minute say " DMCA and DRM are wrong, I should be able to choose when I make a copy and who I give it to " and the next minute say " You can't be trusted to share, I need to force you to share ". The same people who are cheering the DRM crackers are the ones making the "ratio" rules. :rolleyes:

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That is 3 kbps that I cannot upload to the torrent where I am the only remaining seeder.

If two such big torrents happen to coincide, then that makes 6 kbps I cannot upload to the torrent where I am the only remaining seeder.

It's exactly the same as forcing people to donate 10% of their money to rich people, instead of allowing them to choose some poor local person to give 100% of their money to.

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