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1. It actually *should* be encrypted. If it is not, this might have slipped during the build. I will look into it. We ran tests with both options: using disk encryption from the RDBMS and applying our own encryption algorithm to the content. We also changed our embedded database some time ago, from QED to Derby (Apache project).
2. Traffic over the wire it is encrypted end-to-end using AES-256.
3. Everything is stored locally in the Derby RDBMS. All team members of a workspace store all the content (full redundancy). The only intermediary services are the following: "Rendezvous" is used for presence where every peer announces itself when online; "Relay" used to help route traffic if a direct TCP connection between two peers cannot be established. No content is stored on these servers. See http://www.jxta.org/ for more information on basic P2P libraries that we use.
4. Peers exchange an auto-generated UUID as their basic credentials. On application level we don't offer additional authentication yet. We are currently thinking about how to add the next element here. Maybe a "please you tell me your fingerprint" cross-check approach (like in Groove), but we want to explore other alternatives as well.
5. End of March we will release a new version with a "Conflict Bin" feature. This will "save" your data in situations of conflict.

You can read a bit more about the near-term road-map here: http://blog.collanos.com/index.php/2007/03/01/glim psing-into-the-future-of-collanos/

Your other comments: The invitation process should improve with the Central User Directory - CUD (end of March release). The CUD will add off-line invitations management. And yes, the only context is the workspace at the moment. We will add more features "outside the workspace context", such as a unified contacts list, and much improved IM-behavior outside of workspaces.

How much is what? Price? Well, the basic version is and will stay free with actually little to no limitations. We don't like the concept of selling "Premium Software Licenses" (a Workplace is a Workplace!), but we plan to add premium subscription services, for optional user benefits such as a permanent peer capability for workspace management, backup, Web-access, etc.

Thanks again and we look forward to welcoming you to the Collanosphere soon!

http://www.jxta.org/

Does Radia even know about this? One of few projects Sun funds and hasn't been canned because it actually makes money.

The real threat to the Internet as we know it is government regulations designed to "level the playing field" between VoIP and IPTV vendors and old line PoTS and Cable monopolies. The old time monopolies got their status from the Government by agreeing to a whole raft of "universal service" and other government mandates. These mandates sound great but really just drive up costs and slow innovation. The monopoly companies want to hoist these old rules on Internet providers knowing it will kill their businesses. A good example is trying mandate E911 and WireTap features for VoIP phone companies. Cable companies are getting in to the act to and saying that phone companies shouldn't be able to compete with them by offering IPTV because Telcos don't have the "universal access" rule of having to provide TV to everyone in a franchise area. The monopolies also claim if you get too many providers trying to offer service in an area the streets will be torn up all the time which is also a bogus excuse. Everyone should have access to public rights of way and the cities should just set rules about when and how long streets can be disrupted to cause the least annoyance for people. It's the phone and cable TV monoplies who today wine and dine the cities to let them tear up the streets anywhere and any time they want.

The RIGHT (tm) solution is to drop government regulations and government sponsored monopolies and leave it to the free market to innovate solutions. What right in a free society does the Government have in be involved with any communications business (except as a paying customer)? If cable companies can't compete with IPTV by offering CableTV at a decent rate then let them go bankrupt and a let a company who can do the job buy up their network and make it work. Same goes for phone companies, if no one wants to buy over priced phone and T1 lines from them then get out of the business and let someone else manage all those pretty copper strands. I'm sure there are plenty of smart companies who can use them for phone, Internet, TV, and who know what else.

On a related note, there is one major choke point in the Internet and that's the stupid DNS system. Just FYI, the internet (IP, UDP, TCP, BGP, etc.) will work fine with out it. All it does is take a server name everyone can remember and gives you back the right numeric IP address (66.35.250.150) for that server (ok it does a few more things but that's the basics). Anyone is free to invent a new efficient decentralized network address to network number system to replace DNS. An example of a very cool system that does just that is called JXTA (http://jxta.org) from the good people at Sun Microsystems. It's billed as a P2P protocol and collaboration system but it is also a beautiful re-imagining of the Internet sans DNS.

I don't know much about JXTA. I just have a friend who once got really excited about it and actually joined the dev team. Then he made one or two contributions and lost his interest. To make a long story short: I don't know the fine details, that's why I posted links.

I don't know much about JXTA. I just have a friend who once got really excited about it and actually joined the dev team. Then he made one or two contributions and lost his interest. To make a long story short: I don't know the fine details, that's why I posted links.

Plus the set of ideas behind the JXTA protocols are beautiful. (Everyone that I know who has absorbed the protocol specification immediately turns into a zombie advocate that can't stop thinking about the cool things that they could do.) This paper is a great place to start.

Plus the set of ideas behind the JXTA protocols are beautiful. (Everyone that I know who has absorbed the protocol specification immediately turns into a zombie advocate that can't stop thinking about the cool things that they could do.) This paper is a great place to start.

Okay...I'm not completely up in the inner workings of GRID computing, but is the premise the same as those used in the past for other distributed environments such as DCE (Distributed Computing Environment ) or CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture)?

My experience with DCE at least was that it was a distributed environment that took a lot of coordination between systems, which unfortunately was not done very well in the environment I'm familiar with. As a result of this it did not prove robust enough for the systems it was used for. It had some possibilities, but if not done properly, can be a major confusing thing to deal with.

With CORBA, as I understand it (I've never directly worked with CORBA), it is suppose to represent similar services in a more Object Oriented way and easier to program with. Not an expert, but I believe this is ingrained into Java world along with other RMI type interfaces or peer to peer intefaces (like JXTA).

With these types of services, both DCE and CORBA offer distributed network services such as directory services, distributed file systems, and security services on hetrogenious environements. The interfaces are defined (see IDL) and compiled in to stubs for client/server services to develope and use on any compatible platform.

How is GRID different from these methods?

Not only that, but what makes SIP better than, say, JXTA?

Daniel

I'm glad somebody mentioned Infrasearch, they were pioneering the field of peer-to-peer search way back in 2000. Gene Kan and co. were some of the first to realize that peer-to-peer networks could be used for something other than evading the authorities.
The brillient aspect of Infrasearch (later JXTASearch) is that unlike most peer-to-peer search implementations, it doesn't just act like a metasearch engine, broadcasting or propagating a query to a bunch of specialized indexing nodes and then aggregating the results. Instead, "provider" nodes (the nodes sharing the content) analyse the metadata of all the content that they are sharing and produce a list of patterns that define which queries the provider node would be likely to have matches for. Then, this data is propagated across a network of search hubs.
If you want to search for something, you'd send a query to the nearest search hub and it would check if your query is matched by any of the patterns in its index. If it is, the query will be routed to the providers which registered the matching patterns. The providers will then query their own content indexes and forward any matches back to you.
There are several advantages to this approach:
1. It relies far less on broadcasting and propagation, which consume large amounts of bandwidth.
2. Provider nodes won't suffer from high loads because they will only recieve queries that are pertinent.
3. Since the search hubs index generalized query patterns and not the actual content metadata, the provider nodes can provide highly dynamic content without having to worry about updating the indexes in the search hubs all the time.

The main downside is that the queries you send would have to be more qualified, i.e. if you are searching for the song by a certain band, you wouldn't be able to find anything unless you included the band name in your query.

Infrasearch was working on this, until Sun paid $8M for the company, them had them work on something else, then Gene Kan committed suicide. Be careful what you work on.

And along the same lines, if one is interested, one should check out the Edutella project. Standards based & P2P.

What you mean like http://www.jxta.org/...

See JXTA.

I agree with you and there already is a Java sub-culture doing just that - the Jini and JavaSpaces community. Highly distributed, self-healing, self-forming federations of services and distributed shared memory realms. Combine it with say Java WebStart for distribution and/or RIO for dynamic provisioning and you have one hell of a powerful distributed computing platform. And, because of the Java sandbox and the new Jini 2.0 security features, on that can be make sharing mobile code relatively safe. Throw in the Jini Surrogate Architecture and perhaps JXTA and you have services that can be accesses by any client in any language....

Sounds intriguing, no?

As for you speed issues, try using the j2sdk 1.4.x (currently 1.4.2_03). Not only to do get peppy speed, but the latest version allows for full screen mode, so yes, you can make screen savers....

Check out the main website
and this review of JXTA 2 by DeveloperWorks

Cheers, Joel

Try these protocls/apps and run a P2P network in-house

JXTA
BitTorrent

Or, you can create your own Gnutella client, using some an open-source Gnutella package, like JTella

Guess you never heard of JXTA, huh?

PureFiction writes "Peer networks are gaining some attention these days given advances in much more decentralized search architectures and swarming distribution networks. Research has indicated that these decentralized networks are resistant to legal and technological attacks. The continued proliferation of broadband and wireless networking will ensure pervasive deployment of distributed peer networking infrastructure that will drive significant innovations in personal and community digital communications services."

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU IN A HURRY... A- R- T- I- C- L-
E-. -- S-
U- M- M-
A- R-
Y-

www.jxta.org does this now, p2p search, and much more.

Why not make it a link??? www.jxta.org

I've been working with the JXTA project for a bit now, and they seem to be taking a very nice approach to designing a p2p network that is implementation independant (can be implemented on different platforms, devices, etc.). Besides gnutella (and g2), and JXTA, are there other open P2P networks out there? And if there are, what's the best project?

But this project seems to have a lot in common with JXTA (www.jxta.org).

JXTA, the P2P open source framework sponsored by Sun, is based on Beep. JXTA community is getting bigger and there are some very interesting projects going on (all programmed with Java, but Perl and C bindings for JXTA are in development).

Story I submitted that got rejected follows. That slashdot refuses to carry this story tells me that the people who run it are whores. My karma here is worthless.

The New York Times tells us (after we register for free) that Gnutella developer Gene Kan has committed suicide. Let's see, he was young (25) and just over a year ago saw the company he started bought by Sun Microsystems. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions here. It would also be wrong to not start asking questions. Update: 07/11 23:45 GMT by corebreech: Missed this before, but news of his death was withheld until after the body was cremated.

Additional links:

CNN story
San Jose Mercury News stories: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
Kan's web log
JXTA
Free Republic discussion on Gene Kan
Google search

Story I submitted that got rejected follows. That slashdot refuses to carry this story tells me that the people who run it have sold their souls. My karma here is worthless.

The New York Times tells us (after we register for free) that Gnutella developer Gene Kan has committed suicide. Let's see, he was young (25) and just over a year ago saw the company he started bought by Sun Microsystems. It would be wrong to jump to conclusions here. It would also be wrong to not start asking questions. Update: 07/11 23:45 GMT by corebreech: Missed this before, but news of his death was withheld until after the body was cremated.

Additional links:

CNN story
San Jose Mercury News stories: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday
Kan's web log
JXTA
Free Republic discussion on Gene Kan
Google search

But surely you don't mean to say that this isn't news for nerds. That this isn't stuff that matters.

All stories have mean and nasty comments associated with them. Why do we not cringe at the sight of a new story. OK, maybe we do, but does that mean we shouldn't be posting new stories?

Peer-to-peer is seen by many to be a threat to their very way of life. Gene was working on JXTA (why is this site down?) which could easily have threatened to become an unstoppable peer-to-peer toolkit that would've let anyone easily write P2P software that would run atop of anything.

The powers that be may shut off access to this port or this service, but with JXTA, you could easily piggyback over whatever existing channels they leave open via some kind of tunnelling protocol thing. JXTA was about figuring out how to deal with the Network Address Translation and firewall issues that prevented P2P from being ubiquitous.

I can't imagine a technology more hated by the status quo than what Gene was working on.

We have every right to ask questions about his death. I'm sorry, but his privacy has to take a backseat here to what it might mean for our future should this turn out to be foul play.

It shouldn't take too long before people implement their own on other p2p platforms, such as PeerMetrics or JXTA. Relying on shoutcast is definitely a weak element in the solution. Sharing of connected peers shouldn't be transparent, too, as it leads to discovery of the stream source (the unreferenced node).

<rant>Speaking of which, do people know of other good p2p platforms out there for implementing stuff like this? This idea and other good ones would have come sooner if only there were more good, generic p2p vectors. As is, everyone home-rolls their p2p apps, still, thus requiring different channels of distribution, different standards, yada yada. We need a platform that's like apache with mods.</rant>

Well, lessee... How about Open office? or (looking back) their contributions of NIS/NFS? (originally called YP or Yellow Pages by Sun and distributed today with most distros)

Oh, and don't forget JXTA , which provides very .NET-like P2P connectivity between any two devices.

Is Sun out to help Open Source? Not really, they, like ANYBODY TRYING TO MAKE A LIVING, are out to promote themselves, but at the very least, they don't seem to have any problem co-existing with OSS initiatives, having founded quite a few.

Oh, and openoffice.org, which consumes massive bandwidth (Open Office is 50+ MB per download) is primarily funded by Sun...

Love 'em or hate 'em, but don't spread FUD...

I'm deeply sorry for that.

JXTA is an open networking protocol whose development is being supported by Sun Microsystems. It is designed to bring peer-to-peer and web service functionality to anything from a handheld to a server. There are several reference implementations, including one for J2SE that can run on any handheld that supports a J2SE VM (iPaq, Yopy), and there is one for J2ME, which works on a number of Java-enabled cell phones and light PDA's. A Java 1.1.8 port also allows JXTA to be used on some of the Palm PDA's. A C reference implementation that uses the Apache portable socket library is also in the works.

JXTA is an open networking protocol whose development is being supported by Sun Microsystems. It is designed to bring peer-to-peer and web service functionality to anything from a handheld to a server. There are several reference implementations, including one for J2SE that can run on any handheld that supports a J2SE VM (iPaq, Yopy), and there is one for J2ME, which works on a number of Java-enabled cell phones and light PDA's. A Java 1.1.8 port also allows JXTA to be used on some of the Palm PDA's. A C reference implementation that uses the Apache portable socket library is also in the works.

JXTA is an open networking protocol whose development is being supported by Sun Microsystems. It is designed to bring peer-to-peer and web service functionality to anything from a handheld to a server. There are several reference implementations, including one for J2SE that can run on any handheld that supports a J2SE VM (iPaq, Yopy), and there is one for J2ME, which works on a number of Java-enabled cell phones and light PDA's. A Java 1.1.8 port also allows JXTA to be used on some of the Palm PDA's. A C reference implementation that uses the Apache portable socket library is also in the works.

/.-ed twice? Yet more proof that p2p is a hype technology.

I still remember talking to a Mojo developer at a con about what really happens with distributing file slicing:

Me: "So what if all the peers with my file are down?"

Developer: "They won't be. You'll still be able to get your file."

Me: "How?"

Developer: "You'll still be able to get your file."

?!?!?

Rather telling, actually; it's been 2+ years since gnutella. The number of novel p2p applications out there is slim. The number of platforms is even slimmer, which is really disappointing. P2p was supposed to revolutionize everything, not just vaporware.

There is a promising platform for running p2p services at PeerMetrics. Another one is JXTA. Both come with source. I was looking forward to World OS, but it appears to be dead. Most p2p endeavors are still unreleased, like Ocean Store.

I hope more people get to put in some dev cycles on p2p platforms. Applications like The Circle are cool, but as a standalone app the code isn't really leverageable. We need more shared effort. The economy aside, I believe it's taking forever because p2p is harder to write for than expected.

Hopefully this isn't true, and in the next year we'll finally see some real progress. Either way more p2p hype storms are a sure bet.

Just check out jxta.org to see exactly this sort of protcol. It lets you find peers, establish peer groups, share data in flexible ways, etc... It's also open source (Apache license), by the way.

a good overview of different p2p architectures is over here at openp2p.com.

One system the author fails to mention is Circle, which uses a decentralized hashtable system., more about it at his system is in a pdf slideshow he'll be giving at linux.conf.au

My favorite quote from his page: "FastTrack (aka Kazza/Morpheus) is kind of like trying to optimize a bublesort", which leads me to believe he has a regular quicksort at hand. (actually he does claim O(n log n) seachs, so its about right)

Also to note are Chord and GISP which seem to use simular schemes, where Chord is pure acadamia (someones masters thesis). GISP is an implementation of something from JXTA, suns p2p framework.

What I find most interesting are the kinds of projects that have sprung up in Gnutella's wake. Many of these started out as attempts to improve Gnutella, and have since moved on (the Gnutella Next Generation working group never really materialized into anything)

We had napster and one extreme, gnutella at the other, and in the middle a re a number of partially centralized systems with super peers like Fast Track, such as:
Open FT
JXTA Search
GNet
NEShare

and many others...

Then there are the alternative projects that use an entirely different mechanism. For example, social discovery as implemented in:
NeuroGrid
ALPINE

Or distributed keyword hash indexes like:
Chord
Circle
GISP
JXTA Distributed Indexing

And many others as well.

The coming year(s) will see a lot of maturity in these areas, and searching large peer networks will become ever more efficient over time. Gnutella showed us the possibilities of a fully decentralized model, and refinements of its underlying architecture can produce vastly better solutions.

2002 will be an interesting year for peer networking applications...

What I find most interesting are the kinds of projects that have sprung up in Gnutella's wake. Many of these started out as attempts to improve Gnutella, and have since moved on (the Gnutella Next Generation working group never really materialized into anything)

We had napster and one extreme, gnutella at the other, and in the middle a re a number of partially centralized systems with super peers like Fast Track, such as:
Open FT
JXTA Search
GNet
NEShare

and many others...

Then there are the alternative projects that use an entirely different mechanism. For example, social discovery as implemented in:
NeuroGrid
ALPINE

Or distributed keyword hash indexes like:
Chord
Circle
GISP
JXTA Distributed Indexing

And many others as well.

The coming year(s) will see a lot of maturity in these areas, and searching large peer networks will become ever more efficient over time. Gnutella showed us the possibilities of a fully decentralized model, and refinements of its underlying architecture can produce vastly better solutions.

2002 will be an interesting year for peer networking applications...

What I find most interesting are the kinds of projects that have sprung up in Gnutella's wake. Many of these started out as attempts to improve Gnutella, and have since moved on (the Gnutella Next Generation working group never really materialized into anything)

We had napster and one extreme, gnutella at the other, and in the middle a re a number of partially centralized systems with super peers like Fast Track, such as:
Open FT
JXTA Search
GNet
NEShare

and many others...

Then there are the alternative projects that use an entirely different mechanism. For example, social discovery as implemented in:
NeuroGrid
ALPINE

Or distributed keyword hash indexes like:
Chord
Circle
GISP
JXTA Distributed Indexing

And many others as well.

The coming year(s) will see a lot of maturity in these areas, and searching large peer networks will become ever more efficient over time. Gnutella showed us the possibilities of a fully decentralized model, and refinements of its underlying architecture can produce vastly better solutions.

2002 will be an interesting year for peer networking applications...

I think that this friend/foe system was really meant to filter out dumb posts, not ones that we disagree with (there is a difference). For that reason, they should really call them scholar/idiot lists so that /.r's don't get the idea that they should use this system to shield their ears from dissent.

The JuxtaProse Project, a self-organizing peer-to-peer discussion forum

Wrong title, but good technology
One of the things it's got going for it are the basics, if you read the material on it, you will see it has taken the spirit of UNIX pipes and shells and extended it to P2P. This is a very powerfull Philosophy being applied to a modern concept, and I think it hols a little water. Having spent a lot of time disseminating various P2P technologies, I think this and jabber have a good basic ideas, a fusion of both would be even better

They provide considerably more details, to wit:

The Project JXTA platform initially defines the following protocols:

• NetPeerGroup Protocol
• Peer Discovery Protocol
• PeerGroup Discovery Protocol
• Peer Information and Management Protocol
• PeerGroup Membership Protocol
• PeerGroup Resolver Protocol
• PeerGroup Sharing Protocol

This kind of corresponds to some of the traditional Unix services like Bind, and such, or with CORBA services like Naming, Trading, and such, albeit with the explicit intent that the respective "registries" of hosts and host information be Rather Dynamic.

This seems a lot more likely to "go somewhere" than Jini, seeing as how it's a lot more "platform-independent." See the Protocol Specs

They provide considerably more details, to wit:

The Project JXTA platform initially defines the following protocols:

• NetPeerGroup Protocol
• Peer Discovery Protocol
• PeerGroup Discovery Protocol
• Peer Information and Management Protocol
• PeerGroup Membership Protocol
• PeerGroup Resolver Protocol
• PeerGroup Sharing Protocol

This kind of corresponds to some of the traditional Unix services like Bind, and such, or with CORBA services like Naming, Trading, and such, albeit with the explicit intent that the respective "registries" of hosts and host information be Rather Dynamic.

This seems a lot more likely to "go somewhere" than Jini, seeing as how it's a lot more "platform-independent." See the Protocol Specs

I've been participating in JXTA since the beginning and have been impressed that Sun has truly made JXTA open source. With all the good and bad that entails.

So so tired of the battle between jabber and aim.

Pretty soon we will be able to do User Location Queries over jxta that spread out just like gnutella file searches do. Centralized instant messsaging servers will be a way of the past, just like how gnutella eclipsed napster.

I've been thinking about breaking open a java gnutella client and hacking it to do simple chat rather then a file transfer, replacing file searches and replies with identity search and replies. All that would really need to be added is certificates to verify people are who they say they are.

Maybe a decentralized user location plugin for GAIM would do the trick ... hrmmm.

There is a chat client I found that already does direct peer-to-peer instant messaging, with full encryption. Identities are OpenPGP certificates. Only the decentralized user location is not there- (okay, kinda a big thing) - oh, and its not for linux either. Raxius Express(windows app)

Feedback on the whole decentralized user lookup is appreciated.

Out of all the people criticising jini/jxta/p2p in general (i.e. most people above), how many of you have actually looked at jxta or read about it?

Did you know that jxta is actually a "protocol" specfication based on xml. Maybe if they called it "pxta" or something without a damn J it wouldnt confuse you.

Java is a nice language to implement jxta (of course) but jxta != java.

jxta is *language independant". Implement it in perl if it turns you on.

Taken straight from jxta.org

Project JXTA addresses the need for an open, generalized protocol that interoperates with any peer on the network including PCs, servers and other connected devices.

Jxta might be a step forward and basing it on xml is a good idea IMHO. Im developing an xml messaging application (using SOAP) so yes Im interested in what jxta has to offer.

It might be a total flop, who knows but don't write off something you haven't even looked at ...

BTW, if any reading this is in the know. Does jxta hope to complement/support SOAP or replace it altogether???

My company is involved in the JXTA innitiative, and while JXTA is not much to holler about yet, it is on its way. To have a set of protocols that allow not only groups of peers on a network to communicate, but other networks outside that group to interact, is a HUGE step for not only Peer-to-Peer technology, but for networking as a whole. While the jury is still out on the success of JXTA, it is projects like this that will shape the future of networking as a whole.

Personally, I like it. But it will be up to the JXTA community to make it a reality. So far, their is progress, but still a ton of work to do.

JXTA is not a Java package, it is a language independant protocol spec. Most of the work done so far is on the lowest Core layer, which involves services such as peer discovery and grouping. They have written an early IMPLEMENTATION of this in Java.. and why not? Java was built for platform independance and networking.

But anyone can write an implementation in any language they want. It uses XML for communication.

My company has recently become involved in JXTA as we are developing a pure Java P2P file sharing app called File Rogue. (I am lead coder)