Bitblinder was an open source software program that allows users to share bandwidth and IP addresses in order to anonymously download torrents and browse the internet. It was first released in June 2009. under an MIT open-source license.
It was developed by Josh Albrecht and Matthew Kaniaris of Innominet.
The software is based on the principles that
Tor
Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to:
Places
* Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain
* Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city
* Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano
* Tor Bay, Devon, England
* Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia
Sc ...
uses to create anonymity but was designed to be faster and encourage file sharing in addition to anonymous browsing. It currently comes bundled with an anonymous browser based on
Mozilla Firefox and an anonymous BitTorrent client based on BitTornado. The software was planned to provide anonymity for
instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...
and
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...
.
[
Usage of the software in beta testing was offered initially by invitation only. Features included a 4-step slider which allowed adjusting communication speed, traded off against anonymity. Users were allowed to transfer 3 ]gigabytes
The gigabyte () is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix '' giga'' means 109 in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one gigabyte is one billion bytes. The unit symbol for the gigabyte is GB.
This definit ...
of data on the network initially; additional traffic could be earned by setting up one's computer as a relay server,[ or could be paid for.][ The 2010 review on DownloadSquad pointed out, "BitBlinder won't work without community participation: if there's no one online to help proxify torrent traffic."]
See also
* Anonymous P2P
An anonymous P2P communication system is a peer-to-peer distributed application in which the nodes, which are used to share resources, or participants are anonymous or pseudonymous. Anonymity of participants is usually achieved by special routi ...
* I2P
The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer (implemented as a mix network) that allows for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by encrypting the user's traffic (by using ...
* Tor (anonymity network)
Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to co ...
References
External links
*
Anonymity networks
Anonymous file sharing networks
Internet privacy software
Crypto-anarchism
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