Category Archives: BitTorrent Inc.

Where Are uTorrent’s Comments and Ratings Stored?

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Last week uTorrent rolled out the first Beta version of their 3.0 release. Among other things, uTorrent 3.0 allows users to rate and comment on the torrents they’re downloading. It’s a feature that many people have requested, but for the more privacy conscious user, it also begs the question where these comments and ratings are stored.

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With their roll-out of uTorrent 3.0 last week, BitTorrent Inc. introduced a bunch of new features. Users can now stream video files while they’re downloading, and they can also add comments and ratings to torrents.

Interestingly enough, these comments and ratings also work on torrent files that are shared on private trackers. Among some of the more privacy concious BitTorrent users this raised a few questions. Most importantly, where is this data stored and what information is attached to it?

To answer the above we got in touch with the uTorrent engineering team to find out how these comments and ratings are handled by the client.

Right away we were assured that none of the data is stored on a central server, and that the data can never be traced back to its source. Instead, the comments you see appearing in your client are sent as an extra piece of data, similar to how other files are shared with peers.

“µTorrent 3.0 adds an extension message for distributing comments within the swarm. All clients that support this extension message store all comments they have seen, per torrent,” the uTorrent engineering team informed us.

“When peer A joins a swarm, it will send a request for comments to peers that support this message, say peer B. If peer A already has some comments, it passes along a bloom-filter representing the set of all those comments. When peer B responds, it will not send comments that are already present in the bloom filter. This prevents duplicate comments.”

 

uTorrent Comments

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So basically, all comments and ratings associated with a particular file are shared among members of that swarm. If another peer has a comment that you don’t have already, it will send it to you, and vice versa. The messages are sent through the tracker and don’t rely on DHT, this means that they work on private torrent files as well.

The requests for comments are sent every 20 minutes by uTorrent, and this is how they are shared among peers. In the beginning when there is a relatively low percentage of users supporting the extension the comments and ratings will propagate slowly, but when uTorrent 3.0 becomes the stable release these issues will be gone.

The uTorrent engineer team further explained that comments are stored in the resume file for a torrent, which helps keeping comments alive across sessions. But other than on the computers of uTorrent users, the comments are never shared outside the swarm on a central server.

Although it’s good to know that uTorrent’s commenting and rating system is fully decentralized, it also introduces a new feature that may be less welcome. When comments and ratings become a new standard to check the quality of files in the future, there is no doubt that these features will be exploited by spammers to make fake torrents appear more legitimate.

Time will tell whether the ‘costs’ will outfit the benefits, and whether the unmoderated system will be able to handle the potential influx of trolls and spammers. In the meantime it’s a simple affair to paste a hash value into Google – or append it to the URL on sites like Torrentz – in order to double check.

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Paramount Pictures Partner With BitTorrent Release Movie

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In a little over two months time, the long-awaited horror movie The Tunnel will receive its world premiere. Rather than a traditional theatrical release, the movie – which is set in abandoned real-life tunnels under Sydney, Australia – will make its debut online for free with BitTorrent. Simultaneously it will be released on physical DVD, to be distributed by Hollywood giant Paramount Pictures.

Image is Loading....Distracted Media’s Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey first hit the BitTorrent conciousness in mid 2010 when trying to raise funding for their latest project by selling frames of their upcoming horror movie.

The Tunnel is a story based in the real-life networks of tunnels under Sydney, Australia. Created many decades ago, the tunnels were originally intended to house a rail network but construction was discontinued and they later became U.S. General Macarthur’s headquarters during the Second World War.

Although the tunnels were later abandoned, a film crew decided to go down there, and so the story begins. From the trailers available, it looks pretty eerie.

In a little over 2 months, The Tunnel will be released worldwide and, true to the plan from the beginning, that premiere won’t take place in bricks-and-mortar, admission-charging theaters but on BitTorrent – for free.

Simultaneously, The Tunnel will also be released on DVD which will include two hours of exclusive footage including an alternate ending and a behind the scenes documentary. Distracted Media have just secured a physical distribution deal for that product but considering the movie’s key BitTorrent model, one of the companies now partnering them will certainly raise an eyebrow or two.

Transmission Films and Paramount Home Entertainment Australia, who work together on film acquisitions, have just confirmed they will be backing what they describe as “the film that captured the imaginations of internet users globally.”

We caught up with producer and editor Enzo Tedeschi and asked about this interesting partnership, particularly since Paramount – like most Hollywood studios – have shown much hostility to BitTorrent over the years, particularly in the recent and ongoing AFACT v iiNet case in Australia.

“Our experience with Transmission Films and Paramount has been positive, and we’re impressed with how forward-thinking they’ve been on considering our specific project,” Enzo explained.

“From day one we’ve maintained that The Tunnel is not supporting or condoning piracy, but instead trying to incorporate a legitimate use of peer-to-peer in our distribution strategy internationally.”

While some might be suspicious of Paramount given their track record, the Internet community in particular constantly calls for change and for the studios to embrace – not fight – new ideas and distribution models. Being associated with The Tunnel project certainly seems like a step in the right direction.

“So much of the debate at the moment is caught up around what has been happening in the past, but that’s not what The Tunnel is about,” co-producer Julian Harvey told us. “We’re trying to look ahead. We have a film and we’re trying to find an audience.”

The Tunnel will do just that, May 19th on a BitTorrent tracker near you.

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BitTorrent Inc. Releases Dummy Proof Download Client

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To make BitTorrent appeal to an even wider audience, uTorrent parent company BitTorrent Inc. has released a brand new BitTorrent client today. Codenamed Chrysalis, the new piece of software is aimed at novice BitTorrent users who are generally overwhelmed by the traditional interface of uTorrent and the mainline client. In the months to come Chrysalis will replace BitTorrent’s mainline client.

Image is Loading....Over the years BitTorrent Inc. has acquired a dominant position with their two BitTorrent applications, uTorrent and the Mainline client. The two clients have over 100 million active users a month and this number continues to increase.

There is no doubt that BitTorrent’s user base is impressive, but there is still a lot of untapped potential. Both uTorrent and BitTorrent’s mainline client have a relatively large bounce rate. That is, a large number of new users try the software a few times, but don’t become regular users.

“During 2010 less than a third of new client downloads resulted in a new monthly active user,” BitTorrent’s Simon Morris told us. “Plenty of people download and install the client, but can’t figure out how to use it, and then uninstall it very quickly,” he added.

To change this, BitTorrent Inc. have been working on a new project with the aim of keeping those users on board. Today marks the release of the first Alpha version of this new client – codenamed project Chrysalis.

“The best products out there don’t have any significant educational hurdles – it is just obvious how they work. This is what we’re ultimately aiming for with this new project, although it will take time to get there. The client we’re releasing today is just a starting point,” Morris told us.

Chrysalis Interface

 

Image is Loading....Today’s release is a very early Alpha, but it should give a good indication of where BitTorrent Inc. is going with their new client. By default it is filled with several prominently placed ‘apps’, such as those from TED and VODO, which provide access to downloads. This means that users will see content right away when they start the client

One of the main reasons why some users don’t come back to the client is a perceived lack of content. New users sometimes don’t know where to find content so the current version of Chrysalis should address this issue to some degree. In addition, the simplified user interface should be more welcoming to people who are new to BitTorrent.

Overall the Chrysalis client behaves quite intuitively. Downloads are added by a single click and show only basic information. Once a download is finished media files can be launched in a media player directly from the app. Starting, stopping and removing files can be done with a single click as well.

The client is built on the uTorrent v3.0 codebase but in the future new and unique features will be added as well.

“The first project Chrysalis beta is aiming at cleaning up the overall user experience and transforming a technical and data-rich experience into a cleaner more media-rich experience. This in itself will not be sufficient to solve the attrition problem, but we hope it will establish a new platform on which to build,” Morris said.

Chrysalis Download Interface

 

Image is Loading....Another subtle change compared to the BitTorrent Mainline client is the more prominent placement of the search box. Users can type in search terms here and are, interestingly enough, redirected to a Google search for torrents. A surprising move, since Google just banned the words ‘uTorrent’ and ‘BitTorrent’ from some of its services.

Chrysalis is not intended for the more experienced BitTorrent user, but BitTorrent hopes it will appeal to a wider audience than their other clients do now. If all goes well, the dummy-proof client will completely replace the current Mainline client, which currently is a clone of uTorrent.

Time will tell whether this approach will be effective. Luckily, uTorrent users don’t have to panic as we are assured that their favorite client will always be available and developed separately. The Alpha release of Chrysalis is available for download starting today, currently limited to Windows operating systems.

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