Tribler file-sharing technology cannot be taken down

The efforts of governments around the world in trying to deliver a knock out blow to file-sharing sites might eventually amount to nothing, as there is a new kid in town known as Tribler. The creators of this file-sharing software claim that it cannot be knocked out by governments or anti-piracy organizations, and according to Dr. Pouwelse of Delft University of Technology, “The only way to take it down is to take the internet down.” Now that is a pretty scary thought, don’t you think so?

The Tribler software itself lacks any ‘central point’, so to speak, for one to launch an attack at, and it will continue to function even if all the other file-sharing sites around the world are removed completely. Just what kind of sorcery is this – a constantly regenerating hydra in the digital age? It is actually a variant of BitTorrent, but was specially designed to remain online under all circumstances, no matter what kind of digital firepower thrown at it by governments and anti-piracy organizations. For example, we do know that the US authorities seized the Megaupload domain recently and removed it – such a move will be ineffective against Tribler.

Its Dutch creators are extremely proud that throughout half a dozen years of testing (!), this technology has never experienced any offline time, even for a second – now how about that for reliability? I think the governments around the world would love to have this as the backbone of their network instead.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Computers
Tags: file sharing