Vapaeso

Its been said that P2P tecnology is here to stay, and apparently nothing could be further from the truth. CNN Live is a recent example of what P2P technology can do.  If you were one of the millions of people glued to CNN Live on inaguartion day (January 20th if you’ve been living under a rock), then you have already experienced P2P even if you didnt realize it and even if you’ve never used P2P software apps in the past.

This technology is called Octoshape Grid Delivery and is managed by Octoshape ApS, a company based in Copenhagen, Denmark.  If it was your first visit to the site, then you were presented a dialog box asking you to install Octoshape.  Apparently using this technology relieves a huge stress on the CNN servers, specially on a day such as inaguartion day.

What this techonology basically does is turn your PC into a server, which means once you start watching CNN Live you are automatically uploading the feed to someone else, something you agreed upon by clicking “YES” to the EULA .  This in turn will enable other users to watch CNN Live without stressing CNN’s servers and thus allowing a smoother user experience.

This P2P technology, however, uses large amounts of bandwidth when uploading the feed to other users.  You will probably not notice the difference when surfing the web.  But try to upload something and you will notice the difference.  This in turn brings other questions to mind in regards to security.

The large majority of users watching CNN Live will, of course, be using Windows.  Putting aside the many vulnerabilities that this OS has it could, theoritcally, be easy enough to crack this P2P technology and exploit any secutiry bugs found.  Octoshape uses Port 8247 and when used is flooded with this P2P traffic.  A Hacker can easily cover his tracks while in this port.

As a side note, and something undisclosed to the user, Octoshape Technolgy isnt required to watch CNN Live.  By clicking “NO” you are able to use Windows Media Player or Adobe’s Flash Player to stream the video feed.  Although you will probably experience more clunkiness this way instead of using P2P.  My recomendation?  Use P2P, after all, its nice to see this technology being used for something other than downloading pirated music.