final release - p2p or mirrors

[Jim Cornette]

Chris Kloiber wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-05-16 at 05:33, Jim Cornette wrote:
> 
> 
>>I was thinking in reference to someone posting about a high 
>>fragmentation level on a bittorrent acquired iso. I was also thinking 
>>that bittorrent used bits and pieces of files available. I never thought 
>>about tcp/ip delivering packets. I assumed that the files on mirrors 
>>would be streamed consecutively. (keeps stream of data first to last on 
>>file being downloaded.)
> 
> 
> This can be overcome in most BT clients by pre-allocating the space for
> the download at the beginning.

Would this be like a partition with no prior data installed? A partition 
previously formatted and mounted to a specified point. Say, for example 
/mnt/bittorrent?

Having a low fragmentation level would be desirable goal for a to be 
created CD set.

> 
> 
>>Having a pool of computers grabbing some info from one user and some 
>>more bits from another source, then another source seems a little too 
>>open for foul play.
> 
> 
> Not a problem, each piece is hashed and checked. Anyone feeding you more
> than a few bad chunks (accidents do happen) gets banned (and you accept
> no more from them). Only possibility I can see for foul play is if the
> original seed was a trojan. And that can be checked for with public
> md5sums, which already exist. (Ie: Downloading things from suprnova.org
> is potentially hazardous, especially to Windows systems.)
> 

Thanks for pointing out the safegaurds setup for a transfer of this 
type. Would the unmatching chunks be discarded or would the bittorrent 
process be interrupted? Either way, the bittorrent does not sound as 
risky as it once did. I still prefer ftp transfers from familiar 
mirrors. This is mainly because with bittorrent, you have to learn how 
to open ports for the torrent, people are pulling bits from my machine, 
I am pulling bits from machines that are unfamiliar to me.

With ftp transferring, I get fairly decent rates. I can use a simple GUI 
ftp program that does not take a lot of time configuring.

End point, http, ftp, bittorrent transfers or whatever other method of 
retrieval of information should exist. One method should not be 
discontinued just because some think that one method is the "in thing", 
"the advancement of software at it's best".

Thanks for calming my fears with bittorrent transfers and pointing out 
ways to get a less fragmented image and keep security levels high.

Jim