A BitTorrent client that allows free riding without any payment or contribution.
BitThief aims to study selfish behavior in distributed systems, with a particular focus on peer-to-peer filesharing systems. The project's research demonstrates how the absence of incentives to contribute resources can potentially result in a total collapse of a peer-to-peer system. Ensuring fair sharing of resources is essential for a completely decentralized system.
It is important to note that BitThief is a scientific project that requires measurements of the performance of its exploits. To facilitate this, the client transmits data to the project's webserver occasionally. This transmitted data only contains information about the time required to download files of different sizes, and a hash of the info hash. This means that it is not possible to determine what has actually been downloaded. However, users are advised not to download any copyrighted material.
Overall, BitThief offers a unique perspective on BitTorrent systems, which raises concerns about fair resource sharing. However, it is essential to keep in mind its scientific nature and the warnings regarding copyrighted material.
Version 0.3.0: N/A