Media Category Archive

BitTorrent Monitoring Report

3 Replies Jonny Hankins

On Tuesday the web was overrun with reports that BitTorrent users are being monitored by a host of different (and in some cases unknown) organizations. I would like to take a quick look at the actual document that spawned these headlines.

BitTorrent logoThe news is takes from a paper presented this week at the SecureComm conference in Italy by Tom Chothia and colleagues at the University of Birmingham.

The paper is free to read here.

All alarmism aside the paper looks at both indirect and direct monitoring techniques, the indirect being the type that is typically used to “catch” people who are illegally downloading films, music and other copyrighted materials, and the more expensive but precise direct means that various companies are employing.

In the paper the authors state that their contribution to the argument can be summed up as follows:

We determine that indirect monitoring is still in use against BitTorrent users and devise more effective techniques to detect peers engaging in it;

We find indications that certain entities engage in direct monitoring of BitTorrent users and provide features to detect such peers;

We also notice that direct monitoring, in its current form, falls short of providing conclusive evidence of copyright infringement.

This is a complex and technical paper, but certain things are noteworthy. The direct monitoring consists in creating false peers that connect to your IP address and monitor its use, be that downloading updates for Linux or watching War Horse.

A user is much more likely to be directly monitored if they are partaking in one of the top 100 objects for download, and in 40% of cases monitoring began within 3 hours of connection. The less popular the object for download, the longer it takes to become monitored. This suggests that those doing the monitoring (be they copyright authorities or private data collecting companies) spend more resources on popular downloads.

One thing I can take from this paper is that somebody is collecting an awful lot of data about a lot of people and their downloading habits, and I wonder why? And also what do they intend to do with it? Particularly as many lawyers deem the data collected as not strong enough evidence to use in a court of law.

Fun With Faces

4 Replies Jonny Hankins

If you are looking for a little light entertainment on the web this week I may have a couple of sites for you. Both are related to the way you look, and at how others look at you, and you can participate too.

The first site is called All Look Same. The site contains a type of quiz. You are shown photos of people, places, art etc and you have to decide whether they are from China, Japan of Korea. At the end of the test you are given your result with the appropriate advice regarding learning about other cultures.

The exam room contains 8 different categories, from food to architecture, urban scenery, traditional architecture and modern art, but the really fun one is faces. Can you tell the difference between a Japanese face and that of a person from Korea? Take the test to find out.

Korean, Japanese or Chinese?

Korean, Japanese or Chinese?

There are also a couple of sections of holiday photos that really give a run out to your perception neurons.

The second website is somewhat related as it too deals with faces. The Facity site grew out of a project based in Berlin and Tel Aviv, and now covers a multitude of cities. The idea is simple, a series of photos of faces from an individual city, so why not play a game with your friends, show them a page of faces and try to guess the city.

First you can play with your friends, and then why not participate? There are specifications for the photos but the only rule about joining in is that you must live in the city in question, and there are already 100 cities involved.

The list of cities is interesting because it really shows how communication takes place. The faces tend to be clustered, as I presume groups of friends get together and take the photos and then upload them. Milan has hundreds, as do Berlin and Istanbul, but London only has one, miles behind the mighty city of Robbinsville in New Jersey and Targu Mures in Romania.

Faces of women

Average faces for women around the world

Check out the average face section too, as in the photo above of average women’s faces created through a process of comparing single points in many photos, an interesting project I would say.

So why not add your own? Tell them that Technology Bloggers sent you.

The Future of Paper?

16 Replies Jonny Hankins

Much has been said and written about the future of paper publications with the arrival of downloadable  books, Kindles and a whole world of other hardware, but maybe a company from Cambridge (UK for a change now I am back in Europe) may be about to cause another revolution.

Many people are not drawn to reading books in digital, they like to thumb the pages etc, but a private company is putting what they describe as the ‘future of paper’ into mass production.

The company called Plastic Logic have designed what we could describe as the closest thing to paper that can show video.

An example of Plastic Logic’s invention

As the name suggests we are talking about a plastic paper-thin sheet that has the ability to display video, It can be used as a Wi-Fi fed screen, with the advantages of being flat, thin, flexible and bigger than your standard reader.

This video on the BBC website describes the product in greater detail, including the production process, and states that it should be in full production next year. The CEO of the company also explains the problems that this technology has faced during development as well as explaining why we might need a screen that we can roll up and carry around. He also describes how the computer and receiver part of the structure could be attached in the form of a handle.

All very interesting stuff, but I think the most important part of this application involves telephones. I have a so-called smart phone but I very rarely use it for internet work because the screen is too small. I cannot read an article on a screen that size. But if I had an A4 size screen rolled up in my bag that could show me the screen on a much larger scale (via Bluetooth) I would be happy to use it. And then I could leave my laptop at home.

Others see it as the future for glossy magazines, or the death of them, but the death of newspapers, radio, books, recorded music and commercial TV has been on the cards for a long time, and they are all still alive and kicking.

I look forward to this new product going into full production and appearing in the shops anyway, and the obvious question…. would you have a use for it?