PEER-to-peer networks, touted as the future of video distribution on the internet, face a critical problem: many users download lots of data but refuse to repay the compliment by uploading more content for others to see. The overall effect of this one-way traffic, or “leeching”, is to slow down everybody’s internet access.
Now researchers at Harvard University and at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have created a program, called Tribler, that turns net bandwidth into a commodity akin to a currency. The idea? You can only spend it if you earn it.
In Tribler, users have to “earn”…
