I've been listening to a lot of podcasts/netcasts lately and a lot of them are now attempting to switch to video. This must ensue an enormous amount of overhead to pay for bandwidth usage. Pier-to-pier (P2P) systems solve this by having lots of people donate a portion of their bandwidth and hard drive space to distribute the load and lower production costs. P2P gets a bad rap because people use the networks to illegally distribute copyrighted material, along with the legal materials.
So my idea is to create a P2P network centered on distributing legally distributable materials like podcasts, video casts or even blogs by forcing all users to purchase SSL certificates from a central certificate authority for some nominal fee, then use that key to encrypt and decrypt all files shared by that user. Create a central ruling body that oversees claims of copyright infringement. If a copyrighted material is found on the network then the finder would contact the network's committee who would then contact the issuer with the complaint and possibly ask that the file be taken down. If the issuer looses the decision, then the key for the file would be disabled, by turning off the central key or possibly disabling all the users keys in extreme cases.
The half baked part of this is the requirement to create possibly millions of keys and create thousands of key issuing systems (one big one and one for each content creator), but I think if the multitudes of keys could be handled then this could create a very reputable P2P network which could be used by to feed content to anyone who is permanently connected to the internet such as cell phone users. And thus create a very inexpensive and industry acceptable content distribution network.-- MisterQED, May 05 2010 Really, three fish bones without even a note...damn, doesn't anyone want to at least question my intelligence? OK, time for a slight re-write...-- MisterQED, May 06 2010 What's it got to do with cell phone users?-- Jinbish, May 06 2010 I like the idea of a "pier-to-pier" system. It could be a coach tour round Victorian seaside resorts, stopping off in each place for a brisk walk along the promenade, and an ice-cream or a nice cup of tea and a bun.-- hippo, May 06 2010 As a general rule the moment that anyone can access the contents of a file distribution they can duplicate the contents of that file and distribute them in an unsecured and untraceable format. In the most literal example this is a bootleg recording taken at a live concert, but in the digital world the implications are much more profound; any content may be copied or reformatted without degrading quality and no content which has been distributed can be secure.-- WcW, May 06 2010 [Jinbush}, cell phones with data plans are "reasonably" constantly connected to the internet, so by having a file type that is only decodable by someone with an internet connection does not devalue the delivery device. As compared to there is a PS3 games that requires the users to be connected to the internet to play and it is a problem.
[bigsleep] you lost me, maybe I'll bungle onto it answering other questions.
[WcW] Yes, I agree, but that isn't important because illegal content will become indecipherable content once found. If someone wanted to distribute copyrighted material, they wouldn't pick a service that required traceability of source content (one of the purposes of purchasing keys) and they would want to just send and forget, knowing that once it was out there it was out there. In this service the original file would be out there and people who originally received it would be able to remove the DRM, but once the original file was banned then no one else could decode the file as the public key would be removed. Then delete notices could go out to all the servers. So an early receiver could get the file and decode it, they would then have to re-encode with a new purchased key it to redistribute it. It isn't a perfect system, but it would be an annoying system for infringers, so I think they would go elsewhere.-- MisterQED, May 06 2010 "Force" and "Purchase" aren't exactly terms that go well with the whole idea of blogging - audio, video, or otherwise. That'd make it a subscription, which is a different kind of service.-- In No Particular Order, May 06 2010 //"Force" and "Purchase" aren't exactly terms that go well with the whole idea of blogging - audio, video, or otherwise. That'd make it a subscription, which is a different kind of service.// Right now the content creators have to pay someone for the use of the bandwidth and I'm sure it is significant. What I am suggesting is instead they pay a single yearly fee such as $100 to enroll in the service as a content creator. Maybe less maybe more. It should be enough that people would not buy them as throw away accounts, but not so much so that it is an undue burden. The fee gives the small assurance that the content creators won't want to infringe copyrights and then have their accounts disabled. The fee could also help support the public key supplier system or maybe send thank you cards to people who donate bandwidth to host content.-- MisterQED, May 07 2010 //Is zero point energy the same as pointless energy?// No I'd say it's closer to nervous energy. The Universe has the jitters and just can't sit still because if it did then you'd know where it was and what it was doing, nothing. So it has to do something.-- MisterQED, May 07 2010 You lost me at "forcing all users to purchase".-- Freefall, May 07 2010 You lost me at the title.
What do zero point energy - which by definition can't power anything, by the way - or quantum uncertainty - which is not the same thing - have to do with any of this? Your use of the terms and your later comments suggest you haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about. The fact that your (edited) description of the idea has absolutely no mention of the two prominent terms in your title and sub-title is interesting, to say the least.
// three fish bones // - one for each word of ZPE. Here, have another. [-]
And what? Do we have an autobunner?-- BunsenHoneydew, May 08 2010 [FreeFall] For the last time, only the broadcasters have to pay the minimal fee which would certainly be less than the bandwidth usage fees of trying to do this on a normal system.-- MisterQED, May 08 2010 [BH] Yes I know, it's a weak joke hinted by my first anno, based off an anno I left on another idea (which may be removed by now) where the author was whining about the less than rosy reception the HB had to his idea. Generally my ideas get no reception at all, so I said I should really just put in some bad science just to get people to post at all. This idea was the first of mine after that and true to form, got no responses to my original title, so I threw in the ZPE stuff just to piss people off and it worked. I would rather people read my ideas so I have a chance to defend them rather them just have them die without response.-- MisterQED, May 08 2010 random, halfbakery