The India-based freelance software and web developer takes the time to answer a few questions about his BitTorrent ratio-exploit software and to offer his opinion on why its use is sometimes necessary.
I recently wrote an article describing GreedyTorrent, the latest and greatest ratio-exploit program to hit the streets of the BitTorrent community.
Some of you said that people “…should go to hell and back if you use this program,” or that “…in the end they are just destroying the BitTorrent protocol.”
I think that the real answer to the question of its usage isn’t as cut and dry as people would make it seem. I don’t think it’s matter of right and wrong in all cases but, rather a matter of when and where it should be used.
This opinion will no doubt get me skewered in the comments section that follows but, I truly think that ratio-exploit software has a time and place that justifies its usage.
INTERVIEW WITH ALEX NJ
ZP: What were your motives behind creating this new ratio exploit program and how do you see it’s place in the BitTorrent community?
ALEX NJ: GreedyTorrent is the survival kit for a leech. Its more of a survival program than an exploit. It has been developed solely for the survival of a poor uploader on a private tracker which enforces a 1:1 ratio. There could be situations in which one cannot maintain a 1:1 ratio. For example, you are downloading a very large file, lets say 15GiB in weeks, which is well seeded, no DHT and 0 peers. Even before the file is downloaded completely the ratio at the tracker can go below the necessary level and it might prevent you from accessing other torrent files or even receiving seed information for this file alone. How would you maintain a 1:1 ratio to survive with the same account in such a case?
The “theory behind GreedyTorrent” section in the online documentation tells why this software was made. This software can spare you from the troubles of signing up a new account on tracker each time you get banned for not uploading.
I guess a good percentage of the BitTorrent community is blessed with good upload speeds. The rest should be happy to survive with GreedyTorrent.
ZP: What was the process like in its creation, and do you have any plans for more BitTorrent related software in the future?
ALEX NJ: GreedyTorrent was developed using wxWidgets library to make porting to other platforms easier in the future. I have taken utmost care to keep it user friendly, less complex and well documented. Even the novice user should be able to use it without any trouble.
In the future, I have plans for a Linux and Mac version of the software, depending on the request and popularity.
ZP: How many times has GreedyTorrent been downloaded thus far, and do you think it will be as popular at RatioMaster was, and if so why?
ALEX NJ: GreedyTorrent was downloaded 1000+ times in the first 24 hours after it was made public. I believe it shows the public’s acceptance. GreedyTorrent should be much popular than its competitors as its fully automated, less complex, user friendly and well documented.
ZP: Is there anything else you’d like to include?
ALEX NJ: GreedyTorrent was awarded 4.5 out 5 rating by en.softonic.com on March 15, 2007.
So what do you think? Do you agree or disagree that it sometimes has legitimate time and place to be used?
If you grab a file that has a large number of seeders and relatively few number of leechers, it just may be darn near impossible to ever seed it back to a 1:1 ratio. Is this fair or unfair? I think that there ought to be a mechanism that addresses this issue, such as a “discount” of sorts on the effect it has on your ratio otherwise people will be hesitant to download certain content that has a disproportionate seeder to leecher amount and I don’t think that does anybody any good. It ought to be the case that over time a file gets demoted on a percentage basis as to the amount of data your ratio will be affected by.
For example, a 4.16GB DVD-R file that now has 20 seeders and 0 leechers and has been up for a month. Maybe each week the amount of data download it will affect your ratio by gets reduced by 1GB or so. Wouldn’t that be a good idea? This way people aren’t afraid to grab that 4.16GB knowing they may never have enough leechers connect to the swarm so that they may be able to upload the same amount of data.
Further acknowledging its occasional legitimacy, Bram Cohen has argued that ratio-exploit software is an oftentimes justified response to overzealous private BitTorrent tracker site admins that subjugate newer users to an artificially extended period of seeding in order to maintain their ratios.
He noted:
What typically happens in a single torrent is that at the beginning upload and download ratios are reasonably correlated, then over time people finish downloading, and some of them leave, but a significant number of seeds remain. After a while there’s a period of time where there are many more seeders than downloaders. Anyone who joins the torrent at this late time will be generally get a download rate limited by their download capacity, and anyone who tries to upload to them will only be able to do so at a low rate. Such people will have very out of whack upload/download ratios, but they’re downloading from otherwise unutilized upload resources, and hence not being anywhere near the drain on the system that their total upload/download ratio indicates.
[Leechers are] engaging in perfectly reasonable and non-destructive behavior and the site is trying to punish him for it, thus fostering the creation of clients which lie about their statistics. This is the site’s fault, and the result could do serious damage to the value of BitTorrent statistics generally. Sites which do this are being extremely destructive, and the way they grandstand about how they’re fostering sharing really ticks me off.
So maybe the whole notion of using ratio-exploit software isn’t as cut and dry as some would make it seem. I think it does have a rightful time and place to be used, and that perhaps its very creation is a sign that something about the system as it now exists needs to be changed.
digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/software/Greedy_Torrent_Q_A_with_Alex_NJ_the_developer’;
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I understand legitimate situations in which it can be used. ALL things in the world have good and bad uses (think P2P) but I think it will be used for the abusive reasons moreso than good reasons (think P2P lol) I’m still keep an eye on my private tracker for suspicious stats.
@Meyou123
Oh I agree I doubt too many people will be so upright as to say “I will only use it in situations AB and C”……
Having said that though I think the fact that it’s needed at all hints that maybe the system as it currently is could use a little bit of tweaking so that people wouldn’t necessarily feel compelled to use it at all.
The problem with this is that do you people really think that anyone is going to consider WHEN it should or should not be used? I say NO WAY! They are just gonna use this program to leech period! I don’t doubt that there are circumstances that make using this justified….but let’s get real here….do you actually think that people using this peogram are only going to use it in some situations in the article?
I don’t think so.
Yah thats what I think like a “discount: I guess so that over time the amount of data you are charged with diminishes so that people arent penalized for grabbing a file simply because they werent part of the initial DL and UL peak swatm.
quoted from the creator of the program “What typically happens in a single torrent is that at the beginning upload and download ratios are reasonably correlated then over time people finish downloading and some of them leave but a significant number of seeds remain. After a while there’s a period of time where there are many more seeders than downloaders. Anyone who joins the torrent at this late time will be generally get a download rate limited by their download capacity and anyone who tries to upload to them will only be able to do so at a low rate. Such people will have very out of whack upload/download ratios but they’re downloading from otherwise unutilized upload resources and hence not being anywhere near the drain on the system that their total upload/download ratio indicates.
[Leechers are] engaging in perfectly reasonable and non-destructive behavior and the site is trying to punish him for it thus fostering the creation of clients which lie about their statistics. This is the site’s fault and the result could do serious damage to the value of BitTorrent statistics generally. Sites which do this are being extremely destructive and the way they grandstand about how they’re fostering sharing really ticks me off.
So maybe the whole notion of using ratio-exploit software isn’t as cut and dry as some would make it seem. I think it does have a rightful time and place to be used and that perhaps its very creation is a sign that something about the system as it now exists needs to be changed.”
I agree with this. people download stuff and sometimes the amount of seeders is so high that their ratio to even it out would either take for ever or won’t even out to a 1:1 ratio even if they left it on. So in my opinion there should be a share amount so that one person can only upload to a certain share ratio and then they are taken off of that file’s share so that another person can have the ability to upload in their spot.