Proposal for Upgrading from SHA1 to BLAKE3 in the Torrent Ecosystem

[taylor-p-mason]

Suggestion

The BitTorrent protocol has been around for over +15 years, and while it has seen minor changes, the core design still revolves around using SHA1.

As the world transitions to increasingly faster internet speeds, higher-performance hardware, and more energy-efficient computing technologies, the limitations of the current SHA1 hashing algorithm used in the BitTorrent protocol have become evident. SHA1, while effective in the past, is now inefficient, slower, and more energy-consuming—particularly in light of modern multi-core processors, high-speed internet (e.g., 10Gbps, 100Gbps, 1Tbps), and high-performance storage solutions like PCIe Gen 4/5 NVMe SSDs.

This proposal makes the case for upgrading the BitTorrent ecosystem to use BLAKE3, a faster, more secure, and energy-efficient hashing algorithm. By leveraging parallelization, security improvements, and better performance, BLAKE3 would benefit torrent users, developers, and the global internet traffic ecosystem. qBittorrent, as an open-source, widely used torrent client, could play a pivotal role in leading this transition through a hybrid approach, allowing both SHA1 and BLAKE3 torrents to coexist while ensuring backward compatibility.

Why SHA1 is No Longer Enough

1. Inefficiency with Modern Hardware:

• Modern processors, especially multi-core systems (e.g., 24-core CPUs), are optimized for parallel workloads. SHA1 is not parallelizable, meaning it can’t take full advantage of the computing power of modern systems. As a result, SHA1 hash calculations are slower, leading to delays in torrent verification, especially for large files or torrents with many pieces.

• PCIe Gen 4/5 NVMe SSDs (up to 7GB/s and 16GB/s, respectively) are capable of transferring data far faster than SHA1 can verify it, making SHA1 a bottleneck when downloading torrents on high-speed networks.

2. Energy Inefficiency:

• With the increasing demands of modern internet speeds (100Gbps, 1Tbps) and high-performance storage systems, SHA1’s inefficiency leads to higher energy consumption. This impacts battery life in laptops and mobile devices, which are critical for users who wish to torrent on-the-go.

• Using BLAKE3, which is optimized for parallelization, would significantly reduce CPU load, heat generation, and power consumption, making it more suitable for modern devices and improving battery life for laptops, smartphones, and tablets.

3. Security Risks:

• SHA1 has known collision vulnerabilities, which pose a risk for data integrity. As the internet continues to grow and more data is shared, the security of torrents becomes more critical. BLAKE3 offers better security by being resistant to collision attacks while also providing faster hash calculations.

Benefits of BLAKE3 Over SHA1

1. Speed:

• BLAKE3 is highly optimized and can process data in parallel, making it significantly faster than SHA1—especially for larger torrents or files. This will result in faster verification times, improving the overall performance of torrent downloads.

2. Security:

• BLAKE3 provides a stronger security foundation compared to SHA1, addressing vulnerabilities that could lead to data corruption or malicious attacks on torrent files.

3. Energy Efficiency:

• BLAKE3 is designed to minimize power usage, especially on mobile devices and low-power systems. With the growing use of laptops, tablets, and mobile devices, this would improve battery life while still delivering maximum torrent performance.

4. Scalability:

• BLAKE3 is built to scale efficiently with multi-core processors and can easily adapt to new hardware architectures as technology advances, ensuring the torrent ecosystem remains future-proof for years to come.

qBittorrent’s Potential Leadership Role

qBittorrent is one of the most popular open-source torrent clients, with an active and thriving development community. Given its open-source nature, qBittorrent is in a unique position to take the lead in transitioning the BitTorrent ecosystem to BLAKE3. The client can implement a hybrid approach, ensuring backward compatibility with legacy torrents (using SHA1) while simultaneously supporting new torrents that use BLAKE3 for hashing. This would allow the global torrent community to gradually transition without disrupting the existing user base.

1. Hybrid Approach:

• Implementing both SHA1 and BLAKE3 support in qBittorrent would allow users to continue downloading existing torrents that still rely on SHA1 while encouraging adoption of the new BLAKE3-based torrents.

• Over time, as BLAKE3 gains widespread adoption, legacy SHA1 torrents would naturally phase out, allowing the ecosystem to fully embrace the faster and more secure BLAKE3.

2. Seamless User Experience:

• By integrating BLAKE3 alongside SHA1, qBittorrent could offer a seamless experience for users without requiring drastic changes to the current workflow.

• Users could continue downloading torrents without disruption, while benefiting from faster verification times and better performance with BLAKE3-compatible torrents.

3. Global Impact:

• qBittorrent’s decision to support BLAKE3 would not only benefit its own user base but could serve as a catalyst for other torrent clients to follow suit, creating a snowball effect that accelerates the global adoption of BLAKE3.

• As torrenting accounts for a large percentage of global internet traffic, adopting BLAKE3 could lead to massive energy savings, faster downloads, reduced network congestion, reduced heat, lower power draw and enhanced security for billions of users worldwide.

Because with SHA1, every torrent client around the world is using more CPU resources to verify data integrity. Switching to BLAKE3 would significantly enhance the torrent ecosystem’s performance by reducing the time spent hashing and improving overall download speeds.

The Global Energy Savings per Year

Note: 1.75 TWh (Terawatt-hours) is a massive amount of energy consumed annually globally for SHA1 data integrity. The 875 GWh savings would be equivalent to powering approximately 87.5 million homes for a year in regions like the U.S. or Europe. Imagine the global energy impact if 1 billion devices switch to BLAKE3. The adoption of BLAKE3 across the torrent ecosystem could lead to tangible improvements in global energy savings, performance, and battery life. By leading this change, qBittorrent can help usher in a future where torrents are faster, more secure, more energy-efficient, and provide a better experience for users worldwide.

BLAKE3: it’s not just a performance upgrade, but also a global energy-saving initiative.

Conclusion: A Call for Action

The rise of faster internet speeds, multi-core processors, and high-performance storage systems has exposed the inefficiencies of the current SHA1 hashing algorithm. As BLAKE3 offers significant improvements in speed, security, and energy efficiency, it stands as the natural successor to SHA1 in the BitTorrent ecosystem.

By implementing a hybrid approach in qBittorrent, the torrent ecosystem can transition smoothly while maintaining backward compatibility with legacy torrents. This would allow qBittorrent to lead the way in modernizing the protocol, benefiting not only the software but also the broader torrent community.

I am encouraging the qBittorrent development team and the wider torrent ecosystem to consider BLAKE3 as the next-generation hashing algorithm for torrents. By doing so, we can ensure that the torrenting community is not only faster and more secure but also more energy-efficient, ultimately improving the experience for billions of users globally.

Use case

No response

Extra info/examples/attachments

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[glassez]

This is not the right place for such proposals. We are only developing a client application (one of them), moreover, based on a third-party backend (libtorrent). You can find out how to make such suggestions there.

The BitTorrent protocol has been around for over +15 years, and while it has seen minor changes, the core design still revolves around using SHA1.

Have you really not heard anything about BitTorrent v2 with SHA256? However, it is still a Draft, although it is being implemented by some client applications for several years now.

The client can implement a hybrid approach, ensuring backward compatibility with legacy torrents (using SHA1) while simultaneously supporting new torrents that use BLAKE3 for hashing.

This is good if it's just about clients supporting multiple versions of the protocol. But it sucks, IMO, when it comes to hybrid torrents like in BitTorrent v2.

[xCloudK]

This sounds like AI. If it is, then at least make the AI spit out something condensed so someone else doesn't have to go through and read all the wordy bits

[PseudoResonance]

This sounds like AI. If it is, then at least make the AI spit out something condensed so someone else doesn't have to go through and read all the wordy bits

There's a good chance it's related to this Outlier AI training thing.

[xavier2k6]

Not sure if AI or not but user did report #21255 previously & has commented/opened other tickets.