top | item 18111078

Project Atlas

133 points| humbfool2 | 7 years ago |bittorrent.com

99 comments

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[+] anc84|7 years ago|reply
> Project Atlas will connect the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network and the TRON blockchain network via a set of bittorrent protocol extensions, a custom token, and an in-client token economy to address existing limitations and open a new borderless economy for exchanging value for computer resources on a global scale.

I prefer the currencies of goodwill, altruism and data hoarding to provide humanity with access to media.

[+] jypepin|7 years ago|reply
I agree, but isn't this the current system, which flaws (too many leechers not enough seeders) this project is trying to solve?
[+] ekianjo|7 years ago|reply
They are not exclusive to each other.
[+] hakanito|7 years ago|reply
TRON is the greatest scam the world has seen. Justin Sun hyped the price to unreal levels without a product, then sold at the height around new years ’17/18. Bought BitTorrent with the money. I’d stay far away from TRON
[+] sktrdie|7 years ago|reply
"Project Atlas will connect the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network and the TRON blockchain network via a set of bittorrent protocol extensions, a custom token, and an in-client token economy to address existing limitations and open a new borderless economy for exchanging value for computer resources on a global scale."

How did we get to the point where words simply don't mean anything anymore?

[+] msravi|7 years ago|reply
Ok, I'll bite.

...will connect the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network and the TRON blockchain network => BitTorrent will start accepting "coins"

a custom token => a new "coin"

an in-client token economy => the "coin" will only be valid for downloading torrents

to address existing limitations => too many leechers, not enough seeders

and open a new borderless economy => will be valid across nation-state boundaries

for exchanging value for computer resources => bandwidth and storage

Translation:

BitTorrent will start accepting a new type of "coin" that will only be valid within the BitTorrent network to allow leechers to pay seeders to download files.

[+] snaky|7 years ago|reply
You mean proactive award winning innovative solutions leveraging state of the art leading technologies don't engage with industry standard customer expectations on value proposition, or what?
[+] Erlich_Bachman|7 years ago|reply
This specific line is not a good example of meaningless words. It makes intelligible comprehensible sense and describes the project well. What problem do you have with it?

"Project Atlas will connect the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network [the existing network, utilizing the existing BitTorrent protocol] and the TRON blockchain network [TRON blockchain exists, it's a separate project, look it up] via a set of bittorrent protocol extensions, a custom token [not the TRON token itself, but a sub-token used for the purposes of project Atlas specifically], and an in-client [the functionality will be built-in into the BitTorrent client, the users will not have to use any extra software or web platform] token economy [economic system where tokens are used as means of transfer of value] to address existing limitations [rare torrents becoming hard to find seeds for, fakes, etc..] and open a new borderless [global, not contained within a single country or economic region of the world, users from any countries will be able to participate] economy for exchanging value [Atlas tokens, maybe other cryptos through exchanges] for computer resources [storage space and bandwidth used to store and distribute a torrent file] on a global scale."

[+] PurpleRamen|7 years ago|reply
Now you know how the average person feels when reading something nerdy.

Just say they twisted some magic streams and marshmallow-man happend.

[+] scotty79|7 years ago|reply
Wait. Howcome I understood every word of that, got the meaning and even the author's intention?
[+] patrickaljord|7 years ago|reply
With cheap music streaming services such as spotify, apple music and google play as well as video streaming such as netflix and amazon, does anyone need bittorrent anymore? At least in first world countries? Besides, bittorrent works great as is, if people start making money on seeding, they will be way easier targets in court when sued by majors. What's the advantage here?
[+] PostOnce|7 years ago|reply
Let's talk purely about piracy for a second, as a legitimate use for legitimate owners, based on something that happened to me a couple of days ago:

I own two copies of this game, From Dust (which is fantastic, by the creator of Another World), one of them on disc and one of them on Steam, separate keys.

I installed it from Steam because I don't have an optical drive handy and the key is not on the case for some reason. So the game makes me sign up for a UPlay account (in addition to having the Steam stuff), which apparently I did in the past, and not with my primary email. So I can't play because it's already activated... and installing it from Steam doesn't tell UPlay that I own it on Steam.

So then I go and email Ubisoft tech support and say I have this key and haven't played in 5 years how can I swap it over to my new email.

A day later I get a reply that they want me to go screenshot my transaction history and my CD Key (which I already sent them) in the Steam UI.

...meanwhile, I was able to download ("pirate") and install the game in 5 minutes, and it doesn't require either the Steam or the Uplay account to work. AND it'll keep on working 50 years after Steam and Ubisoft are both bankrupt (or keep working on your OS/vm/whatever when Steam and Ubisoft discontinue support for it).

So yeah, there's a use for bittorrent & piracy, since DRM ruins your ability to archive any-damn-thing now. Without bittorrent, playing that game would be a terrible ordeal, if it is even possible at all. Paying for it (twice) only made it worse.

[+] Cthulhu_|7 years ago|reply
You're falsely assuming bittorrent is only good for piracy. It's ideal for distributing larger - legitimate - files, such as games and game updates, which can easily be 50 - 100 GB. While those could be served by e.g. a cloud edge provider, the publisher would still have to pay per GB. Offloading that load to multiple host locations and clients will save a lot of money and network capacity. Imagine a game on launch day that has been bought a million times - not a stretch of the imagination. That's a hundred petabytes of data that has to be distributed across the world on launch day for a 100 GB game.
[+] IMTDb|7 years ago|reply
In 2016 Netflix only offered 31 of the top 250 IMDb movies. Don't know where we are now, but in my country I am surprised when a movie I want to watch is available on Netflix. People do not make money on seeding, they gain internet points, aka coins.

The advantage here is that the protocol itself will incentivise people to seed instead of doing a hit & run, and will thus increase the value of the network.

Not sure it will work, but the experiment is interesting.

[+] sashimy|7 years ago|reply
> With cheap music streaming services such as spotify, apple music and google play as well as video streaming such as netflix and amazon, does anyone need bittorrent anymore?

Yes people need bittorrent, first of all "cheap" is subjective, not everybody can afford to pay each month to watch movies/series and listen to music. Then there is a limit to what can offer Netflix or Amazon for example: I love movies and I watch a lot of them at the theater and at home but I can't find any Cronenberg's or Lynch's (yes I like Davids) movies on Netflix/Amazon. Even finding them on DVD/Bluray is difficult sometimes even with classics.

And there I am talking only about big directors movies, I am french and watch a lot of french movies but when I try to find old ones or just some with low budget it is nearly impossible besides torrents.

So yes we need bittorent/stremio but I wish we don't and that culture will be available to everyone someday.

[+] nodja|7 years ago|reply
Yes, not only for people that want things for free, but also people that want control over their media. If artist X decides to blacklist spotify/google play because they don't like it or whatever, or they make some deal with a competitor, etc. You can no longer listen to it on spotify.

This scenario already exists with netflix, you now have to have netflix, amazon prime, hulu, youtube premium and whatever disney's new streaming service will be called. Because each contains their own exclusives, and with some cases they won't contain the same products forever.

So now you have to juggle between different apps to get whatever media you're trying to access. As for bittorrent, if you're tech literate, you can setup an automatic downloading/streaming setup in 1-2 afternoons and have all the stuff you want, in one place, forever, at the low cost of $25 per terabyte.

[+] kissickas|7 years ago|reply
What.cd had over one million unique releases (albums), whereas Google Music, Spotify and Apple Music usually claim to have around 30-50 million songs. The most common complaint about Netflix I hear is that their selection is quite pathetic as well. The advantage I see is the user-friendliness, organization, and community that comes out of having a huge library that isn't restricted to just mainstream material predominantly from a few countries.
[+] qwerty456127|7 years ago|reply
> With cheap music streaming services such as spotify, apple music and google play as well as video streaming such as netflix and amazon, does anyone need bittorrent anymore?

When it's about music/video, although I still listen/watch Spotify/Netflix, I actually prefer to have the tunes I love stored in bare audio files, DRM-free, and play them without using an Internet connection, I also prefer to watch movies on my non-smart internet-detached TV by just putting them on a USB flash drive. But I hardly ever download music or videos from BitTorrent actually (although I have indeed downloaded rips of some albums I have legitimately bought on CDs in the past), BitTorrent is not only about pirating this kind of content. I also doubt there would be much progress in ease of access and affordability in the recording industry without competition with the file-sharing world.

[+] TeMPOraL|7 years ago|reply
> With cheap music streaming services such as spotify, apple music and google play as well as video streaming such as netflix and amazon, does anyone need bittorrent anymore?

Covering just the "evil, bad" piracy angle: very much yes. If you're not in the US, you can usually stream some small subset of movies and TV shows, often months after their release (which means you've missed out on participating in global comentary, which happens immediately after release). Then, streaming services like to remove titles at random, without notice. So the movie you streamed legally last year and want to show to your SO today might no longer be available (happens to me frequently with Netflix).

[+] hrktb|7 years ago|reply
> well as video streaming such as netflix and amazon

And about a few hundreds of other services worldwide with each their silos. Even for Netflix or Amazon Prime, it’s not the same catalog in the different regions they’re supported.

It’s of course made worse by the fact that any new entrant needs exclusives to lure people in, so every new service comes with its new silo.

It’s still a huge mess with no simple way to watch something legally from a simple search, even with a credit card in hand.

Music has become better (still super messy, spotify/apple music/Google cover a huge base, but it’s still only a fraction of what’s commercially sold in my experience)

[+] Nursie|7 years ago|reply
I think the services still have some way to go. I subscribe to Netflix, Now Tv and Amazon Prime in the UK. There are still things I can't find, quite a few things that disappear from Netflix or NowTv when we're not done watching, only to reappear as paid content on Prime. There are a lot of movies just not available on either.

I don't know how this can be solved, but at present whilst there is definitely more than enough good tv content to keep me happy, there are definitely still holes and edge cases.

That said, this all sounds like a way to monetise piracy using cryptocurrency, not something I'd want to encourage.

(Spotify basically took over all music listening years ago, I no longer bother adding to my own collection, bar very infrequent CD purchases for some of my very favourite bands)

[+] gpestana|7 years ago|reply
> Besides, bittorrent works great as is, if people start making money on seeding, they will be way easier targets in court when sued by majors. h

Only until we have implementations of anonymous private and metadata resistant DHTshttps://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=18111479

[+] tomp|7 years ago|reply
I love bittorrent. I control the quality, the availability, the (lack of) DRM and the price of any media (books, music, movies, series). The only thing that comes close is bandcamp.com but that's only for music AFAIK.
[+] qwerty456127|7 years ago|reply
I've waited for about half a minute and the page still doesn't display anything but just loads my CPU (I have retried a number of times with no luck).
[+] uptown|7 years ago|reply
Congratulations. You’ve just joined the new borderless economy for exchanging value for computer resources on a global scale.
[+] mabbo|7 years ago|reply
I can load it on mobile, but it won't let me scroll down to read more than the first half sentence.
[+] chippy|7 years ago|reply
There's some delay and/or timeout related to the huge amount of tracking scripts they include.
[+] self|7 years ago|reply
Back in the day, Mojo Nation (one of Bittorrent's ancestors -- sort of) incentivized people for sharing their disk space and network bandwidth. You'd earn "mojo" for doing that, and could trade it for faster downloads.

An interview: https://www.salon.com/2000/10/09/mojo_nation/

[+] NPChar|7 years ago|reply
The entire page must be an advertisement... it is rendered as blank white page (uBlock Origin).
[+] vijay_nair|7 years ago|reply
Looks similar to http://joystream.co which has been paying users with BCH for the past few months.
[+] dylkil|7 years ago|reply
would much rather use bitcoin cash over a tron backed token.

Tron is nothing more than a pump and dump with a pagiarised whitepaper.

[+] capdotnet2|7 years ago|reply
It avoids saying pay for files, I feel like the music/media industry’s lawyers would have a fieldday with anyone using this to “share” music files
[+] ndnxhs|7 years ago|reply
Is it just me or is scrolling broken on mobile?
[+] fazilakhtar|7 years ago|reply
Works fine in the in-app browser of “Hacker News” on iOS
[+] holstvoogd|7 years ago|reply
Great website, doesn't load with an ad blocker enabled. Fucking late stage ad tech..
[+] ObsoleteNerd|7 years ago|reply
Loads but can't scroll at all on Firefox Android, making it completely useless.

Not exactly confidence inspiring.

[+] bjoli|7 years ago|reply
I have same problem. FF mobile and uBlock origin.

Seeing the fluff the page contains in the top comment made me think I didnt miss much.

[+] Svenskunganka|7 years ago|reply
It loads, it just has a display: none; on the body that you need to remove with the browser inspector.
[+] chippy|7 years ago|reply
It loads but it takes the same amount of time to start that Gmail does.
[+] fifnir|7 years ago|reply
Loaded just fine for me on Firefox with uBlock origin
[+] algorithm_dk|7 years ago|reply
cannot scroll on chrome (android) either