Punch me in the face and call me a plagiarist. It seems I wasn't the only one with the bright idea of using a distributed architecture to manage RSS bandwidth. As linked to by thecrew,
this article on BitTorrent and RSS Create Disruptive Revolution pretty much tells the same tale (more than 9 months before I conceived the idea). The article explains it pretty simple,
Map this to RSS feeds: the more popular the feed, the more nodes on the network serving pieces of the feed. That would allow rapid downloads by many users by distributing the data across multiple sites. It's a digital Robin Hood, redistributing the wealth from the server to a network of peers. BitTorrent does cryptographic hashing of all data, so feed owners can be confident the file reaches its target unchanged.
I think thecrew kind of misses what the vision of BitTorrent represents. The author is not alone in this case. I've read much about BT on other blogs in the class and I feel that many people are getting the wrong impression. BT is not a file sharing network in the same way that kazaa is known to be. It is meerly a program designed to distribute bandwidth amongst peers, not to allow users to search through immense file collections and download files of their choice. The BT program is entirely seperate from the websites that pile torrents and trackers together and enable people to access illegal content. With all of that said, I am quite happy merging an RSS feed from a site that hosts torrents of the latest TV shows with my BT client to provide me with virtual TV on demand.
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