Last night I spent some time downloading the beta version of Ubuntu 6.06. As it suggested that you use a Bittorrent client to download the 684 MB file, I dutifully complied in order to strain the Ubuntu servers as little as possible.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t looked properly at how the bittorrent protocol actually works. It is a Peer-2-Peer sharing application where “Peers download missing fragments from each other and upload those that they already have to peers that request them. The protocol is ‘smart’ enough to choose the peer with the best network connections for the fragments that it’s requesting.”
Since I live at a hall of residence which uses the University of Copenhagen internet connection which is very good indeed. That means that instead of downloading just the 684 MB or so I expected, it instead sent information back and forth to a total of 2300 MB.
Ouch.
Since we have such a good connection here, there are rules against abusing it. You’re allowed to download 2 GB a day, 3 GB a week and 6 GB a month. If you break the rule, the sanctions are simple: They cut your connection for a minimum of 4 days.
Which was what happened today. It looks like I’ll have to do without the Internet this weekend. A sort of forced holiday. Might just as well enjoy it…
