File Sharing to get a speed boost

[Jimmy 2004]

File sharing could become a lot faster in the near future as a team of researchers has developed a new technology which could see speed increases of up to 500%. Current technologies such as BitTorrent are limited by the number of people sharing a certain file, however the new research will allow software to spot chunks of data from a different download that contain identical or very similar data, therefore allowing more download locations. For example, if a song were being shared from a number of locations, it may have different information in the ID tags for various reasons and therefore conventional sharing methods would not recognise it as being the same data. But Similarity-Enhanced Transfer (SET) would spot these other songs and allow the user to download from these locations as well. The system basically assigns a rank based on how similar files are, and will then allow chunks of the file to be shared based on this.

techPowerUp! does not support the use of file sharing software for illegal purposes. The above is just an example.

Source: BBC News

[Zalmann]

Now that will be a revolution, if they can achieve the gains mentioned.

[kakazza]

"it may have different information in the ID tags for various reasons and therefore conventional sharing methods would not recognise it as being the same data."

Which P2P program exactly searches for ID3 tags rather than files with the same sha1/md5/... hash? >_>

[Jimmy 2004]

Originally Posted by kakazza

"it may have different information in the ID tags for various reasons and therefore conventional sharing methods would not recognise it as being the same data."

Which P2P program exactly searches for ID3 tags rather than files with the same sha1/md5/... hash? >_>

Most file sharing programs wouldn't recognise the music as being the same if it has been named different/ given the wrong information. This software would look at chunks of the file and see if it matches another download - I admit it's not too clear, I was trying to condense it down quite a lot. The source will probably describe it better.

[kureng]

quite interesting huh... but im curious how they implement this, if they are developing on how to increase better search result of specific file OR they are developing a technology that you can download specific file from different source WITH different md5/hash/size/name... how is it going to be if u download a movie from many different sources that have different filesize but has the same/similar movie title???

[Jimmy 2004]

Ok, arcs technica has a good article on how it works. Link here.

[mullered07]

Originally Posted by Jimmy 2004

Ok, arcs technica has a good article on how it works. Link here.

conflicting views here, your link reports a possible increase of 70-90% as opposed to 500%

[Jimmy 2004]

Originally Posted by mullered07

conflicting views here, your link reports a possible increase of 70-90% as opposed to 500%

I think 70-90% is the increase that most people will experience, 500% is the highest you could expect to achieve.

[NamesDontMatter]

I don't see how this can work as most Bit torrent files are slitely different in size, many things are compressed when uploaded and have slitely different sizes. But actually it could work very well if the BT's communities decide on a few set formats and compression rates?