torrent

Cox is the latest Internet service provider to have been found blocking peer-to-peer traffic on its network.

The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems released a survey Thursday showing that 54 percent of Cox subscribers reported having their connections blocked when they tried to share files over the Internet. Comcast has been castigated for a similar practice, but apparently it wasn't the only company engaging in such action, according to the Associated Press.

The blocked connections occurred when Cox subscribers used BitTorrent to download or upload files, according to the results of the survey. Cox has acknowledged a practice … Read more

Taking a slightly different approach to solving the multimedia lover's dilemma of how best to download torrents is BitComet, which goes to great lengths to integrate familiar features like bookmarking with torrent management and discovery.

Although the program has moved on from the scandals of its past, it's still heavily reliant on advertising. Join me in this First Look at BitComet to help you decide if it's worth the download.

TorrentSpy intends to appeal a court decision that requires the now-defunct search engine to pay $111 million in damages to the six largest film studios, according to the company's attorney.

Ira Rothken has defended TorrentSpy since 2006, when it was accused in a lawsuit filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) of encouraging copyright infringement. In an interview with CNET News.com on Wednesday night, Rothken said the judge's decision was an "abuse of discretion" and suggested that the large dollar amount was an attempt to draw attention to the case.

"What is … Read more

AT&T on Friday denied using forged reset packets to interfere with network connections of Vuze file-sharing platform users, as Comcast has been accused of doing with BitTorrent traffic.

The statement came in response to a report released earlier this week (PDF) by Vuze, which offers a BitTorrent-based client primarily used for distributing video. The start-up has asked the Federal Communications Commission to impose regulations prohibiting broadband operators from blocking or degrading peer-to-peer traffic.

Vuze's report claimed to document the median reset rates experienced by more than 1,200 "autonomous system numbers," which are unique identifiers … Read more

WASHINGTON--Net neutrality has returned to Capitol Hill.

The saga of Comcast's throttling of BitTorrent file-sharing traffic--and intense interest from the Federal Communications Commission, including a hearing at Stanford University last week--has appended the topic onto at least some politicians' to-do list.

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing entitled "The Future of the Internet" on Tuesday, Democratic politicians argued for passage of a law designed to prohibit broadband operators from creating a "fast lane" for certain Internet content and applications. Their stance drew familiar criticism from the cable industry, their Republican counterparts, and FCC Chairman … Read more

This torrent utility is simultaneously one of the easiest to use but also one of the most robust. The uTorrent executable adds a directory and some option information to your PC, but it is still small enough to run off an old USB key. It leaves a minuscule memory footprint, barely touching system resources. What it does hog is your Internet pipeline, but that's easy enough to adjust to your needs with built-in throttling features.

Included are both a torrent search bar that links to MiniNova and a handy RSS feed download function. Subscribe to select feeds, and uTorrent … Read more

First, it was a very public detente with BitTorrent.

Then, on Tuesday, Comcast continued its make-nice-with-P2P campaign by announcing a new collaboration with P2P software maker Pando Networks. Specifically, they're leading the development of a "P2P Bill of Rights and Responsibilities," driven by input from "industry experts, other ISPs and P2P companies, content providers and others."

"By having this framework in place, we will help P2P companies, ISPs and content owners find common ground to support consumers who want to use P2P applications to deliver legal content," Comcast Chief Technology Officer Tony Werner … Read more

The age of video distribution over the Internet has just begun, and open-source and DRM-free Miro for both Mac and Windows is perfectly poised to take advantage of the still-growing, still-unsettled paradigm.

Along with standard multicodec video playback, Miro supports torrents and completed torrent playback, watches to manage both old and new content in user-defined folders, resumable playback, video sharing and hosting, and assistance in creating videos. One of Miro's most compelling features are the channels that organize video feeds by topic--integration with Google, Yahoo, YouTube, and other search engines and video Web sites makes discovering favorites and new … Read more

In this week's EIC Squared podcast, ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I discuss current events--Comcast and BitTorrent teaming up, Oracle's latest earnings, recent moves at Facebook, and Adobe Systems' introduction of Photoshop for the cloud.

For reference, here are links to some of the coverage:

BitTorrent president: Comcast agreement is a 'win'

Comcast and BitTorrent bury the hatchet

Oracle new license revenue triggers IT spending worries

Facebook goes hyper-viral with 'People You May Know'

Facebook ignores OpenSocial, embraces Windows Live Contacts API

Review: Photoshop Express beta