Gnutella 0.5c Still Going? UPDATED - NO

Tridus writes, "While popping around fileforum looking for new software, I happened to notice a link to Gnutella. I guess Justin and the other guys at Nullsoft aren't quite licked yet. " Update: 03/21 01:40 by E : I've been told by the folks from Winamp that this is the same code as before - sorry all - the letters simply referred a testing legacy.

Comments

Re:What about the server?

[Anonymous Coward]

The protocol is peer to peer, not server-oriented like Napster. You only need to know the address of one connected host to join the network. Here is one: findshit.geekpalace.com:6346

More details can be found here.

If some wants to they will create a clone

[jjr]

If some really wants to they will create a clone of this clone. Remember it is not about the software but the value it brings to us if some though this valuable then they would have created an OSS package.


http://theotherside.com/dvd/

Re:Freenet

[ragnarok]

I was wondering the same thing. From poking about a little here's what I came up with:

Both are peer to peer networks designed for sharing files. Both avoid at all costs a centralized server (hence peer to peer I guess huh?).

The main difference is that Freenet aims to divorce data from its physical location. A chunk of data in Freenet moves throughout the network after it is inserted, moving closer to where it gets more requests from, etc. The data is also duplicated so there can be more than one copy of it throughout the network. Freenet also will expire data if it's not accessed for a while. Freenet server admins theoretically have no way of knowing what is stored on their server. This is basically a whole new paradigm where the data no longer resides on a certain server which you have to be able to find, it is instead an entity unto itself, propagating throughout the network.

Gnutella on the other hand is basically a decentralized Napster. The data still stays on your machine and other 'servants' query you directly (sorta) to see if you have it. If you do you send that data to the machine looking for it. This is really just a nice way to have a bunch of searchable files shared on your machine, so others can download them from you.

Did that make any sense? It's 5:30 am and this is just my take on it...

peas

Re:is this the next "BigThing"?

[pen]

Yes, but unlike Usenet, Napster, IRC, BBS's, and others, Gnutella isn't centralized. It's peer-to-peer, just like the Internet itself. If you shut down the Napster servers, the Napster clients are useless. But Gnutella uses no such central server -- you'd have to shut down every single person using it in order to get rid of it. :)

I know that it has become a cliche now, but the phrase about the Internet rerouting around problems, including censorship applies to Gnutella as well. And as you stated, it's virtually impossible for college admins to block it.

I think it's time for the colleges to invest in some OC-48's :)

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Re:Freenet

[FreeUser]

What about flooding?

From the FAQ:

3.2. Is Freenet vulnerable to flooding attacks?

Short answer: no.

Long answer:

We don't think so. Aside from protecting freedom of speech, Freenet is also designed to be an efficient dynamic caching system. If information is requested a lot from a limited number of nodes, the nodes that the requests pass through will cache the information, lowering the load on the network. If information is inserted on a limited set of nodes and then subsequently requested a lot from a separate set of nodes, with repetition, the sets will close in on one another in the network topology until they are "neighbors" and only the originally targeted nodes are suffering from the attack.

In other words, in order to harm Freenet with a flood you need to consistently change your point of entry into the network and continually insert and request new data, and you will still only increase the workload for the network that is linear to your own. Given an immense will and capacity greater than the total of the entire network, it is possible to cripple any public network (including the Internet itself) with floods, but it is our intention to always keep Freenet as resistant to this as theoretically possible.

Re:OOG SHAKE HEAD IN SHAME!!!

[Nodatadj]

here here.
I think OOG could be this millennium's Meeept!

Not posting anonymously, so to post at +2 :)

Re:is this the next "BigThing"?

[mOdQuArK!]

They'll just have to cap the bandwidth of each user. Then people will miss the freedom they were allowed before :)

it was good while it lasted

[Username]

I think it's great that this avoided complete annihilation(sp?) but the fact that it's getting the publicity on slashdot probably points the cannon right at it again.

just pointless thought.

hey now...no moderation here...

[Hadlock]

he actually brings up a pretty good point...in some cases, grabbing software off of slashdot is almost as easy as grabbing it off of IRC; i've been known to do it once or twice (on IRC), but i don't think it's the main reason people stop by /. each day. slashdot so far has been pretty good about being open-minded about just about everything, including trolls... i'm sure on the scale of nastyness, Gnutella isn't quite so evil compared to trolling. either way, if enough people end up whining about it, the slashdot gods (cmdertaco, ect) will have some sort of workable fix in store for us. In the end, at least looking for shady software wasn't the reason people started coming by here in the first place. I guess you could consider Gnutella a side frill to being one of the slashdot (semi) elite : )

~Hadlock

Re:What about the server?

[TheSimon]

They were providing a link, I think it's here where they wre providing a list of alternate IP's because the main server was down.

Not surprised that it doesn't scale

[tilly]

The first thought that I had when I heard that it was going to be a peer-to-peer network was that there was going to be a *lot* of polling going on transferring information about what was available, and checking what was still up.

Scalability, needless to say, was something that I was curious how they planned to address... :-)

Cheers,
Ben

Free app that does much the same, BUT...

[LucVdB]

It's called FileFury, and also works peer-to-peer. Now, if it had as much hype as Gnutella perhaps someone would use it and the network would have some value.

FileFury allows you to share files of any type, and search over other computers with FileFury, all over the Internet, instantly. With FileFury, you can find and obtain files easily; allow your friends access to your files; and surf through any computer with FileFury installed, copying whatever you want

According to the FAQ they plan to introduce some kind of central server (if I interpret well) that would allow you to find some random 'friends' (avoiding the 'problem' that Gnutella has with finding a first connection to the network).

For a lot of people, this is not a desireable feature; you should not have to coordinate with your friends to start searches. For this reason, Tenebril has elected to introduce a new feature in the next release of FileFury. In addition to starting searches on all your online friends, FileFury will also start searches on some number (say 5) of random online computers. No matter where you are, or when you run your search, you'll get results, instantly. And, at each hop, the search will be forwarded not only to friends but to five more random computers. So, for any search, you're likely to hit at least (5^6 = 15,625) over 15,000 computers. Instantly.

Actually, I much prefer the grass-roots Gnutella. Tenebril, the company producing FileFury, has released the source code to much of the program - but not the critical peer-to-peer network library. They claim to have Open-Sourced the app, while actually it looks more like they've released some code to advertise their networking library. Still very nice of them if you're into MFC, mind you, but calling it Open Source won't go down well on this forum, will it?

is this the next "BigThing"?

[jon_c]

my roommate talked has been talking to 'Tag' from nullsoft recently. the current attitude is that this piece of software is really going to shake things up. not that I've looked into it that much, after all the site is down. but here's what I've heard second hand.

practically un-stoppable. ITG and edu's can't just block ports to stop this baby.
not just mp3's but basically anything. I just downloaded the alpha and noticed the following default extensions.mp3;mp2;mp1;mpg;vqf;avi;mpeg;wav;mod;vo c;it;xm;s3m;stm;wma;mov;asf;zip;rar.

wow..

so it's basically like napster except it will have some type of web of servers connected so it won't have the centralized problem that napster does. someone clear this point up for me.

what will also be interesting to see if this really fly's., I mean this really isn't anything new. back in the days I used to download a bunch of funny stuff off BBS's. now you can get lucky with USEnet, IRC and hotline. but the really success comes from the number of people using it. none of the mentioned have really worked due to popularity. the main reason napster does so well is that there are so many people, so more people get on, like eBay, or shoutcast. it feeds on itself.

-Jon

Another post by me... (karma whore?)

[pen]

Here's a short summary of why Gnutella rocks and how it compares to Napster.

Napster is client-server. Everyone connects to the main server, drops off their list of files, and the searching is done through the server.

Gnutella is peer-to-peer. All packets are routed around the gnutellaNet. Each client is also a server. Together, it's a "servant". The whole thing works very much like the Internet itself. Each search request has a TTL. Each servant routes the search request to every servant he's connected to, subtracting 1 from the TTL. When TTL reaches 0, the search request is no longer forwarded.

Now, the best part(s). It isn't centralized. You only need to know of one working servant IP to connect to the network. When you connect, the servant sends you a list of all the servants it knows of, so you are immediately supplied with a list of working servant IPs. If you connect at least once a week, you're set.

Also, Gnutella isn't MP3-only. Any file type is supported.

Now, the bad parts.

• Regex (regular expression) searches are not supported. I've yet to figure out exactly how the searching works, but it doesn't match any pattern i can think of. I think it searches inside of files as well?
• It doesn't seem scale well at all.
• There is a crowd of kiddies using a pre-written Perl script to flood the network.

Hopefully, all of these problems (and all the interface glitches I didn't mention since this is still a beta) will be fixed in 1.0. Oh yeah... hopefully, there will be a 1.0.

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Freenet

[Sanity]

Thanks for your outline of how Gnutella locates information. I have spent over 18 months working on a system called Freenet which seems to have similar aims to Gnutella (peer-to-peer, no centralised server) but is much more sophisticated. It does scale well (in fact, the bigger the network, the faster it is!), and it incorporates intelligent caching and mirroring. It is also designed to make it difficult to find out who is doing what on the system. Feel free to take a look at our homepage.

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Actually...

[pen]

Gnutella 0.50c is quite stable, and the unofficial official page is hosted by Nerdherd here (as mentioned by the post). A number of clones are also in the works, and the protocol has been reverse-engineered. All info is on the page.

However, it's recommended that you do all your stuff before 3 PM, because that's when the kiddies come home from school, and the flooding begins. Gnutella currently has absolutely no provision for flood protection, and effects are severe. I guess I've just encouraged them more... heh.

Another good source for stuff is #gnutella on EFNet. There is also #gnutelladev on EFNet. Please don't go to the second channel unless you have some question about the interal workings. All other questions should be directed to #gnutella. Also, #gnutella is a good place to find the available hosts. Here's one, digdug.dyndns.org. Let's see what happens to my dialup. :)

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