

ISPs should embrace and cache bittorrent packets, not throttle it - scumola
http://badcheese.com/?q=node/59

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aminuit
The article suggests that HTTP caching is "a fairly common practice nowadays."
The claim is totally unsupported by any data and is likely incorrect. Most of
HN probably have access to a web server on the Internet. Try throwing up some
static content and refresh the page a few times. Notice any missing hits in
the access logs? I doubt it.

There would be no need for CDNs if it were cheaper for ISPs to build a
_massive_ caching proxy infrastructure than it is to just buy more bandwidth
and routers. I don't see how that statement is any less true for bittorrent
than it is for HTTP.

~~~
wmf
Keep in mind that P2P consumes upstream bandwidth which is precious in many
ISPs. If caches can reduce that, the economics may change.

------
wmf
See related discussion in IETF ALTO WG: [http://www.ietf.org/mail-
archive/web/alto/current/maillist.h...](http://www.ietf.org/mail-
archive/web/alto/current/maillist.html)

~~~
scumola
I'm not able to follow that discussion very closely (lots of technical ISP
jargon in there that I don't understand), but I guess the concern is the ISP
caching copyrighted content, right? Isn't the caching of copyrighted images in
an http proxy just the same issue though?

~~~
wmf
_Isn't the caching of copyrighted images in an http proxy just the same issue
though?_

That's the point that I made, and Weaver's response is (1) there's a
difference between what's legal and what will get you sued and (2) HTTP
caching is in some sense grandfathered in, while there is still time to define
rules for P2P caching.

------
anamax
It would have been nice to see an informed discussion of the likely hit rate
for such a cache as a function of its size, taking into account both keys and
data.

