eDonkey Sees Surge in P2P Traffic

By Ed Oswald | Published August 29, 2005, 11:35 AM

Data released on Monday shows that while BitTorrent networks have seen a decrease in traffic, file sharers have simply moved to another network technology called eDonkey.

The study from British-based CacheLogic shows that traffic for the two networks is about the same in several countries, and eDonkey has surpassed BitTorrent in Italy, Spain, Germany and South Korea. eMule, a variant of the eDonkey client, is especially popular in western Europe.

Hollywood over the past year has cracked down hard on BitTorrent sites, with several large nodes successfully shut down. However, it appears that file sharers are not being deterred by the threat of legal action and are simply finding new ways to trade files.

The CacheLogic study claims that 60 percent of the traffic on the Internet is due to P2P file sharing, and that at one point last year BitTorrent alone accounted for a third of bandwidth used.

The study also showed that use of Gnutella, one of the early P2P technologies, was on the rise once again. The service was one of the first to be persued by the music industry in an attempt to curb illicit file sharing. Software such as LimeWire and BearShare utilize Gnutella.

Recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court against P2P seem to have had no effect on usage. CacheLogic said that the ruling did not cause a rapid drop in illicit file sharing over P2P networks as some in the industry had hoped.

Comments

What is it with humans these days? Can't they get enough - either of money or of viewing and hearing stuff? All this is sick from whatever side you look at it. It reminds of those "hunters" who don't have any need for meat and do it just for the "fun" of it. That way they nearly wiped out the buffalo. There are people who have thousands of self-burnt CDs/DVDs at home - what for? And it's a shame wasting bandwidth with this kind of addiction.

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I'm sure there is some truth to what you're saying, but again, filesharing, mosty BitTorrent is used for legal things too.

The technology can be quite handy for you too. A gaming friend of mine said that a couple of his games use P2P to spread the updates. P2P updating is built into the game, requiring you to do nothing. I don't remember what the names of the games were, but this is not that hard to imagine now is it?

P2P can greatly reduce the need for a fast server for something popular, like microsoft updates, along with other businesses and organizations. Reducing costs for companies this way can help reduce costs for yourself, it certainly won't hurt.

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Please, file sharing is not only used for illegal things. The assumption of this needs to stop because it can't possibly help. This is like assuming the Internet in general is used for only illegal things. Instead of getting rid of filesharing, let's just get rid of the internet - yeah right.

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The reason for this? BitTorrent sucks. It's hit or miss with torrent speeds, if you find sources at all, and then there are those mysterious torrents that get to 90% or more and never finish.

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File sharing is like a virus or perhaps bacteria. It adapts to it's threats. We are seeing extensive filters now being used on these networks that now actively look for RIAA and other organizations activities, including honeypots and false filesharing solely for the opportunity to gather data on them.

As for emule, (far better client, and there are mods that make emule a far better option in almost all regards from the original emule mod,) it's the extensive ability of people able to view the code, and mod it that will continue to spur this type of technology.

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The MPAA/RIAA just won't learn. I guess they will continue to sue their own customers till kingdom come. Those lawsuits are a drop in a very big bucket and aren't doing any good. In fact, many believe it's doing the exact opposite of curbing illicit file sharing.

I remember for many months they would show some stuntman before every single movie at the theater. This guy would go on whining about losing his livelihood due to illegal sharing of movies over the internet. One day there were a bunch of kids sitting behind me, and I heard one of them say to his friends "Hey, we can get movies from the internet?" Funniest thing ever.

In closing, I would like to thank the RIAA/MPAA for their diligent effort. Although their efforts will never stop file sharing, it's doing something else very important. It is causing a forced evolution of P2P protocols. Newer and more sophisticated network protocols are being developed at an alarming rate. Even now, a completely anonymous network (or "darknet") is being developed. Basically, the RIAA/MPAA are diggin their own graves and soon will be powerless to do anything against filesharers.

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I agree. The only reason P2P has decreased is because now for the first time people are finally being able to buy a CD for what it's worth. Wanting $15.00+ dollars for a disk that has only a couple of songs worth listening to is ridiculous and if the RIAA wants to quite loosing money then I have a great suggestion.

Stop wasting money on artists that suck! I can't believe the amount of so-called artists that the RIAA throw money at to hype up only to discover how crappy they really are. My grandmother could sing better than some of these people.

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got that right. it is insane that we buy some CD's at $20.00 Canadain that only have 9 songs on them. and i admit i probly done it before myself. I also remember before mp3's came out that i would buy those cd singles with only 3 songs on them for like $15.00 canadian. now I wonder what the heck was wrong with me. oh well im done :)

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