Is Tribler an Invincible BitTorrent Client?

It's only Wednesday, but it has already been quite the week of ups and downs for the file-sharing world. On Monday, Runnin' Scared reported on BTjunkie, which voluntarily shut down amid legal action against similar sites MegaUpload and The Pirate Bay. And just yesterday, we blogged about Kim Dotcom's arrest saga -- which bizarrely includes anti-terror cops.

All this, of course, comes on the heels of intense follow-ups on the part of anti-intellectual property hacktivists, who continue to fight against anti-piracy measures. (Remember that Anonymous called to action web users against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which threatens to take the place of SOPA and PIPA.)

Right now, though, scientists at Delft University of Technology keep working to refine a BitTorrent client that might be virtually shutdown-proof. (Note: when Runnin' Scared tried to access the Tribler website just now, we did have some problem connecting. Anyone else have this issue?)

TorrentFreak has a brief story on Delft's Tribler client and new changes to the system. Because there are no centralized servers -- it's entirely peer-to-peer -- it's almost impossible to regulate.

"The only way to take it down is to take the Internet down," the main researcher told TorrentFreak.

Tribler has been around for some 5 years, but crackdowns on centralized server-based file sharing have made its setup increasingly important -- and maybe even the future of file-sharing.

A newish feature of Tribler, TorrentFreak reports, is a wiki-style torrent editing system.

Follow Victoria Bekiempis @vicbekiempis.