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Gnutella Not Scaling?
cbull writes "ZDNet Music has an article that makes an argument that "Gnutella is Going Down in Flames". Basically, the argument is that Gnutella isn't as scalable as Napster."
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I have finally done it! I've traveled back in time and read an article that was posted on Slashdot two weeks ago. Wooohooo! I'm going to be rich!
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Well, this is just shooting from the hip, but someone should look into writing an improved client for broadband connected users. This client would feature caching of results to and from its immediate connections, and perhaps out to two or 3 nodes distant.
If you've got a big pipe, and you're going to be connected to gnutella for awhile, this would improve the performance of your client and those closest to you.
Of course, if you really want improvement, you'd have to build this capability into the protocol. Allow clients to register as either low or high bandwidth. Then low bandwidth clients could do anything, but traffic could only go through them for a level or two. Ideally, you'd want every client to be able to reach a high-bandwidth node within 3-5 hops. A connected client would then note and rely upon these distribution nodes to do the work. Perhaps even reconnect to distributors directly...
Just a thought. Isn't this the kind of thing that Freenet already does?
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
http://www.bigredh.com
http://www.thestar.com/thestar/back_issues/ED20000 812/money/20000812BUS01b_FI-HOTLINE.html
--------
get jiggy w/ ayn rand!
rofl you actually got 11 funny mods ;P
jeremy
I've had problems using gnutella, so I don't. I find it to be a waste of my time, and I suspect that most people trying it for the 1st time will be inclined to do the same, until Napster and it's alternatives (scour, mx, etc) go away... IF they go away.
Eventually Gnutella or its clone apps will improve in quality to where the program becomes useful for newbies and presumably this broken code will be fixed by then.
Why is it that people who have never even looked at a gnutella packet stream or contributed a line of code to a client are so damn willing to offer their worthless, uninformed opinions (I'm reacting more to the lame-ass article on ZDNet but the article I'm replying to qualifies also)? Anyone who has taken a close look at the traffic is aware that gnutella has been subject to a denial of service attack ever since the first injunction against Napster was almost enforced. The goal of this attack is to convince the deep thinkers on the net that gnutella "will not scale" and hence to give up on true peer to peer networking in favor of whatever the RIAA does with Napster once they manage to steal the technology with the aid of their judicial accomplices.
For those who have not bothered to read, every gnutella packet has a TTL (time to live which really translates to hops to live) so that it only gets seen by at most 'TTL' nodes which is supposed to be 7 by default. For those keeping track that means there is really nothing that needs to be 'scaled' regardless of how many total nodes there are. Packets on a "well behaved" network will die a natural death before causing a melt down. We were handling large networks (thousands of distinct nodes) just fine before the attacks began. What we have to do now is release clients that defend against the DOS attack and get enough such nodes out there to restore the previous performance.
Again for those who have not looked at the issue, the way you can mount an attack on gnutella is to set up as many clients as you can that don't route back any responses and at the same time spew out an unending stream of pings and possibly nonsense search queries (meant to load other clients but not produce query response packets). One way to fight back is to drop all pings on connections that have an inordinate proportion of pings and drop connections that appear to be generating too many queries that don't result in any responses. The first strategy is easy to impement and is in the current version of Mactella. The second is harder and is under development now.
Those who are loudly proclaiming that gnutella is failing because it does not 'scale' are little more than unwitting dupes of the sinister forces that are trying to generate precisely that impression. It may be true that it can't adapt to overcome malicious attacks but that is far from proven at this point.
Probably because a very similar article was posted just 10 days ago.
http://www.talknerdy.org
Jeez, have you even bothered to look at the packet stream before making your pronouncement? It is being crushed under a stream of meaningless pings, not search queries. And the ominous thing is that those pings are generating so few pongs and queries are producing so few responses. I think the reason is that there are currently so many malicious clients that are not routing any responses and generating a constant babble of meaningless pings. What gnutella needs are clients that are designed to be resistant to denial of service attacks, not napsterization (centralizing).
--
--
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
with is de-centralised architecture and its ability to share all files... not just mp3's gnutella gets around all the copyright issues. And this is where napster is going to die... not in speed or anything like that.
Connecting: Connect to any old node, like usual, then do a search to find better neighbors.
Refining: Clients could have a speed setting, for moseying around their neighborhood, replacing direct connections with higher-rated 2nd or 3rd order neighbors. Perhaps some degenerate simulated annealing, with a randomness setting that decreases gradually, so at first you're just wandering, then later you settle in near like-minded people.
Hopefully this would limit the distance most broadcast packets have to travel. It could also make it useful to have file listings and chat within your immediate neighborhood (clients at most k hops away).
These ideas came out of a conversation I had with someone who wanted to make a "spiritual internet", connecting people with people. Too bad I've been too busy/lazy to implement them yet. If you want to use them, please make it available under the GPL, and let me know. I'll be glad to help once I finish moving in to a new apartment.
Chris
Of course, to do this would require a rewrite of the Gnutella protocols. With the existing protocol, all it would take to destroy the network segregation would be one wayward client to connect to clients on both networks, bridging them, and sending 'poluted' IPs out.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Really? How disillusioning. Can you explain this in a bit more detail?
Thanx
Is the *real* solution to this. But when? This year? This decade...
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
Lord Pixel - The cat who walks through walls
A little bigger on the inside than out
erm. this seems like a problem that is solvable in any number of ways. Replication seems to be easiest. Cache popular content onto fast pipes (provisions for bandwidth limiting are assumed). Encode a forwarding requirement into the protocol -- every file you download, you have to allow someone to grab that file from you. Use multicast and PPV style scheduling (requesters register for a file, letting the server determine when (within a short timeperiod) to multicast it).
I suprised by this being an issue at all. I haven't looked at the gnutella infrastructure, but these are issues that I would have thought tackled during the initial design.
--
I don't know if anybody else has noticed this, but all of the Unix clients for Gnutella suck. They seem to range from the unbeliveably confusing and undocumented console mode applications (gnut) to crash prone X applications (gnubile -- never runs more than once between reinstalls!) to leech only clients (gtk-gnutella).
I'm not going to connect just to leech files, which basically leaves me with 0 options for the client. Plus it seems like the majority of the users are leeches on there already, and those that aren't are on modem connections (and always disconnect the instant someone starts to snag a file from them).
That's my $0.02
I read the internet for the articles.
The problem is quite obvious and has been around as long as peer-to-peer and server based networks have both existed. Peer-to-peer networks work wonderfully when they're small. Server based networks are much more effiecent and thereby are nearly always used for large networks. Can Gnutella still work? Yes, but it will have be divided into smaller networks... For example: You have separate networks for: Pop MP3s Rock MP3s Country MP3s Rap MP3s Jazz MP3s Movies Warez..err..Shareware Of course, each network should have a critical mass and then divide in half when it reaches that point. Wow, maybe I should get programming...
There is interesting tendency:
Napser has central server, keep information on client side, and it works.
Gnutella does not have central server but still keep information on client side, and it barely works.
Freenet does not have central server, and does not keep information on client side, and it is not practically usable (yeah, I know it's the most promising technology, but still...).
Also all of them call themselves peer-to-peer but napster actually has central server, and freenet do not have second peer to connect to at all. Did somebody can tell me what is it - P2P?
May I have your attention please,
...........
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I repeat will the real bruce perens please stand up
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Ya'll act like you never seen a slash poster before
mouse all on the floor
like mom and daddy just burst in the door
and started whoopin yer ass worse than before
they first had endorsed
buyin' ya a crappy computer (aaaaaah)
It's the return of the...
"awww..wait, no wait, you're kidding,
he didn't just say what I think he did,
did he?"
and Mr. Cray said...
nothing you idiots, Mr Cray's dead
he's locked in my bassment
microsoft women love Sig '11
chicka chicka chicka bruce perens,
"I'm sick of him, lookit him
walkin around, grabbin his GNU know what
flippin' to GNU know who"
"yeah, but he's so smart though"
yeah, I probably got a couple of screws up in my head loose
but no worse than what's goin on in your sister's webcam (eheheheh)
sometimes, I wanna get on ZD and just let loose
but cant, but it's cool for RMS to hump a dead GNU
My mouse is on your link, My mouse is on your link
and if you're lucky, I might just give it a little click
and that's the message that we deliver to little kids
and expect them not to know what a free software is
of course they're gonna know what Microsoft is
by the time they hit 4th grade
they got MS-NBC, dont they?
we ain't nothing but omnivores
well, some of us carnivores
who read other people's mail like crackwhores
but if we can read your e-mail like it's available
then there's no reason that a man can't forge spam from your account
but if you feel like I feel, I got the antedote
trolls wave your penis birds, sing the chorus and it goes........
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
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cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
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Sig 11 don't got to cuss in his posts to get Karma
well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too
you think I give a damn about my Karma
half of you trolls can't even stomach me, let alone stand me
"but bruce, what if you win, wouldn't it be weird"
why? so you guys can just lie to get me here
so you can sit me here next to Natalie here
shit,Enoch Root's momma better switch me chairs
so I can sit next to trollmastah and Post First
and hear em argue over who modded it down first
little troll, flamed me back on IRC
"yeah, he's fast, but I think he types one-handed, hee hee"
I should download some audio on MP3
and show the world how you released it BSD (aaaaaah)
I'm sick of you little troll and l33t groups
all you do is annoy me
so I have been sent here to destroy you
and there's a million of us just like me
who post like me, who just don't give a fuck like me
who code like me, walk, talk and act like me
and just might be the next best thing, but not quite me......
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so won't the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
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cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
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I'm like a head trip to listen to
cause I'm only givin you things
you troll about with your friends inside you rabbit hole
the only difference is I got the balls to say it
in front of ya'll and I aint gotta be false or sugar coated at all
I just get on the web and spit it
and whether you like to admit it (riiip)
I just shit it better than 90% you trollers out can
then you wonder how can
kids eat up these posts like gospel verse
it's funny,cause at the rate I'm going when I'm thirty
I'll be the only person in the chat rooms flirting
cyberin with nurses when I'm jackin off to porno's
and I'm jerkin' but this whole bag of viagra isn't working
in every single person there's a bruce perens lurkin
he could be workin at Micron Inc., spittin on your SDRAM
or in the printer queue, flooding, writin I dont give a fuck
with his windows down and his system up
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and be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
and 1 more time, loud as you can, how does it go?
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
cause I'm Bruce Perens, yes, I'm the real Perens
all you other Bruce Perens' are just imitating
so wont the real Bruce Perens please stand up,
please stand up, please stand up
haha guess it's a bruce perens in all of us........
fuck it let's all stand up
Will the real Bruce Perens Please Stand Up
Because if someone in your node has what you need there's no need to go outside for it. And you've saved quite a lot bandwidth and effort(for your computer).
Remember, the most popular files are also the ones that are most available.
Coupled with a spell-checker that would slap people in the face before they make useless searches average users would rarely need to communicate outside thier own node.
Look how well napster works and it doesn't have any communication between nodes. (I know it's not great for obscure stuff. But your average users don't want obscure stuff. That's obviously why they're still obscure.)
Wouldn't it be easier just to implement bandwidth-based routing, instead of specifying minimum bandwidth in the search? Right now, I think the search goes to everyone and the low-bandwidth answers are filtered out. If a node were not to forward searches for which nothing can be returned anyway, you can avoid wasting time and bandwidth. All it requires is that the high-bandwdth servers be well-connected, which could be induced by allowing preferences for higher-bandwidth links...
-_Quinn
Reality Maintenance Group, Silver City Construction Co., Ltd.
Perhaps the geeks of the world need to create some more news
Nah, ww don't want people murdering another member of the royal family just to generate news people care about. That's what normally happens when news gets slow...
(That was a joke)
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
If this is informative and not Offtopic than I have got VERY informative link about P2P Pages
Wired's Guide to Global File-Sharing
This list of 240-plus downloads, services, and information resources - most of them free - is designed for experienced P2Pers and novices alike.
I don't think Gnutella is dead quite yet, but you make a good point.
The idea of pre-categorizing the Gnutella network by file type makes good sense. Split the system into Gnutella for mp3s, Gnutella for software, Gnutella for trolls, Gnutella for pictures, etc...
This would drastically reduce the size of each network subsection, and would help keep things to a reasonable size for searches. Plus, your results would be more likely to be relevant, due to the fact that everything on that particular network section is at least of the type you are looking for.
As I've said before (in this comment comparing freenet and gnutella), gnutella's protocol sucks. Senseless flooding across nodes, etc.
This is the problem with ALL distributed architectures. Its an N^2 problem.
The number of connections that you are describing assumes a fully-connected network. Gnutella is not.
Think: if there are 3000 nodes connected to GnutellaNet, does your machine have 3000 socket connections open simultaneously? No.
That's the problem with a decentralized service. It's basically held together by a large number of lines that can't be assumed to be much better than 28.8 kbps modems. Segmentation is inevitable and it's just plan slow as a result. That's what you get for not being able to be shut down, so don't complain.
Interested in open source engine management for your Subaru?
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Freenet is of course an approach to peer to peer file sharing that tries to address these scalability issues. Shame the article doesn't mention it.
There is no website for it, why I don't know...
There is not linux version available but there is a windows version of it. I think they modified some of the code because it won't connect with any gnutella program except the one it is made for.
If you want to get the program, you can look in various newsgroups such as alt.binaries.multimedia or my favorite alt.binaries.drwho. If you can't find it still, you can email me.
Eventually it will find its own level anyway...
Impatient larval warez doods will move on to something that better suits them.
People who use it and like using it will continue to use it.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
The Freenet people haven't figured out how to do distrbuted searches efficiently yet, although they realize that's a problem. They may well crack that problem, but probably not quickly.
Has everyone else noticed that they get a strange sensation of deja-vu whenever reading slashdot. It is rare to find something which is actually news (and new). Perhaps the geeks of the world need to create some more news, to keep slashdot fed and healthy......
*nod* And the search capabilities seem to be remarkably moronic. On a friend's computer, I watched him wade through all sorts of files that weren't even germane to the parameters he'd searched for. In the end, it all comes down to how people describe the files they are sharing over Gnutella.
.mp3 he was looking for... it took him a while, but the thing of it is, some of these files he couldn't find at all on Napster.
On the plus side, he eventually did manage to find every single
Is there any reasonable way to determine usage stats for Gnutella?
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/09/12/121720 0&mode=thread
Sometime last week I think. ai yai yai
--
Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Therefore it is as scaleable as you want it to be. It is stuff like this that reminds me of the good-ol-days when one had to bitch and whine about missing features, and wait around until the people developing said features would come out of the woodwork.
There are still people like that in the world today. What a shame! It seems that ZDnet likes to cater to this crowd. So now they are bitching to an entire community, of which they were - by default - invited to participate.
When Gnutella first came out I used it quite alot. Then I stopped downloading for awhile because of connectivitiy issues, then a few months later with new versions the service just seemed slower. Think it may have had alot to do with how spread out the network is. As they said unlike Napster there are no centralized servers, it is easy to lose contact.
"Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality." -Jules de Gautier
Hi, I'm a hacker for Mojo Nation and I don't think we ever ask you for any personal details.
Just go to our SourceForge page and either grab the .tgz or CVS up.
Probably in the future we will ask for some demographic info like age, country, operating system, timezone or whatever in order to get an idea what sort of features we should add to benefit the most users, but at that time, we'll certainly have a good privacy policy.
Mojo Nation was formed by a bunch of cypherpunks so be assured that we will take privacy issues very seriously. (In fact, the architecture that we've already designed and deployed has full strength crypto and privacy-friendly features integrated throughout.)
Regards,
Zooko
Hacker,
Evil Geniuses For A Better Tomorrow
End result: -1 funny (wow!)
It's a week and a half later, so I doubt that it's gonna get any more moderation. 52 points is pretty massive. I'm impressed.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Yeah, even the latest dead tree edition of Wired included this profound (yeah right) idea of Gnutella not being scalable as a small column in their peer to peer bonanza this month. Of course they labled the column "Gnutella: Unstoppable by Design", but I think they were thinking of unstoppable in terms of copyright enforcement and not utility to the user.
-- let me burn you let me burn you let me burn you -Front 242
It sounds as if searching is the only thing to find information in a gnutella/freenet network.
Is anybody considering that we might want to use the protocol for hypertext? What I mean is such that we can type the unique document identifier in the browser location box, instead of http://www.blablablabla.com
gnutella://lightbulbscewring.for.dummies.xml
freenet://why.not.eat.that.yellow.snow.FAQ.html
When the URL always is a 'search request', then we can't be sure that we get a document each time, let alone the same document.
How about incorporating some sort of directory system and resource location and/or identification method?
That could well result in making the web obsolete, old technology. Yes we've seen the Web, it was nice: Time to move on?
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
This is an endemic situation with ALL friggin web content.
If you use search engines which don't check the accuracy of the data they scrounge or run your own with Archie/Veronica types of searches or worse, become your own search engine, snooping on everybody's hard drives, you're going to take longer and longer to retrieve indexes to content that is of more and more dubious quality.
The world NEEDS MP3.com types of businesses that rate & index as well as store content.
The world NEEDS engines that can demand micro-payment from the recipient before sending a file.
The world NEEDS micro payment services like X3.com to catch the pennies and send the content producers their due.
And SCREW the RIAA, MPAA and other Luddites and SCREW the culture vultures who rip off the concent creators (artists and writers etc.) and rip off the consumers by over charging simply because they put themselves in everybody's faces.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I agree with you. However, my point still remains. Gnutella is open source. Therefore, the architecture is also open and available for comment and modification. There is nothing stopping Gnutella from looking for a definable starting point, or home base, if you will.
I think that anything being open automatically assumes more than just the code which makes up the software, but also the goals of the project. Obviously if, "a true peer to peer network is inherently limited," then an alternate method must be explored.
Perhaps, instead of a dedicated central server, or a true peer to peer network, maybe the peer to peer part should only contain a list of servers who have currently volunteered.
At any rate, I don't use Gnutella, or Napster, or whatever, so my input on its architecture may be missing the point. My input on the architecture not being immutable, I think, is far from missing the point.
Cheers
There is a way to start resolving this problem, and it is currently in development.
e &folderId=136401&pageId=177268&JServSess ionId=3fe61b505308701b.415222.969643886549
The gPulp project is currently working on all of these issues. Check proposals and ideas at: http://gnutellang.we go.com/go/wego.pages.page?groupId=133015&view=pag
There is also a server oriented gnutella application which aims to start resolving some of these issues in the near term. Features such as:
1) Provide a server for broadband / dedicated network users to provide content with a true server oriented gnutella node. This will be similar to a modified apache for singular installations, or a federated distributed server architecture for routing and caching fun.
2) Remove broadcast push requests (in all future clients)
3) Proxy and cache support for slow users. This will allow beafy servers to take over some of the load which dialup / slower clients experience. This will be somewhat ala freenet, as popular data will propagate through caches in various nodes. Also, this can provide a level of anonymity which is not present.
4) Adaptive servers which configure their network connections for optimal efficiency. Not too busy, not too slow, and with the widest distance topologically from their peers (if linked) and fuzzy / reactive propogation algorithms so that TTL's and routes can be dynamically modified as load increases or other factors require.
There is nothing fundamentally flawed with the gnutella architecture, and it is far from a 'dead' horse'. However, there are significant innefficiencies and complications which are causing problems right now. Rest assured these will be fixed.
The basic problem is that small sites either take a lot of search hits to which they will answer "no find", or their index has to be mirrored elsewhere, which introduces centralization. There's an economy of scale to searching.
So automatic, distributed, redundant, partial centralization is necessary. This is hard. It also has to be reasonably secure against hacking; look at the problems IRC has. It probably needs a reputation service, so people who spam the indexing system lose.
On the other hand, music interest, being a popularity thing, follows a power law; the music most likely to be searched for will be found easily. A simple hack on Gnutella so that it queries servers slowly, in order, starting at the one with the best response time, stopping with the first find, will keep the thing from collapsing until somebody cracks the hard problems. It's not necessary to crack the general distributed search-engine problem to fix this.
Well, actually it's the problem with all server-less architectures. Is you have to have searches you've got to have server. If you want to make it P2P classic -- make the server invisible. One way is to create distributed server. More on this here.
I can't understand why this is news to anyone. Those of us who spend time thinking about these things said it right away when Gnutella was released, and we had discussed and rejected the broadcast model for routing several times before that (see the Freenet development list archives if you don't believe me).
The Math behind it is simple:
- Every user that that adds Cu amount of capacity to the network (on average).
- Every user also adds Tu amount of traffic (also on average). However, because of the broadcast nature that traffic is sent to all users, so with N users, each user generates Tu*N amount of traffic.
This means that the total capacity of the network is:
C = Cu*N
(Capacity per user times the number of users). The total traffic on the other hand is:
T = Tu * N * N = Tu * N^2.
For the network to work C needs to be greater than T, if T C. You simple cannot win using a broadcat model.
On the Freenet-dev list we have a standing rule that two words are indecent and offensive: "centralize" and "broadcast". We think we can pull it off without them, but it makes everything 1000% more difficult, which is the simple answer to why Freenet is developing more slowly then the one hundred million Napster and Gnutella variants outthere. That, and the fact that you are not helping us...
...with its distributed queries, limited horizon, and lots of non-working hosts... Anyway, a short-term remedy is to index/filter the network like sharetraxx (http://sharetraxx.com) does.
I have a 21-inch flat viewing area sony CRT at home. Handles 110mhz refresh at 1024x768. I am not, however, reading from home.
Maybe if the public library system had a little more cash...
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Sure, it might not scale as well, but I'd like to see napster survive RIAA's denial of service attack. Gnapster can survive the injunction attack.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Mojo Nation *does* look cool, but since they don't have a privacy policy, I'm loathe to provide my personal details. Let me know when the privacy policy is implemented, and I'll give Mojo Nation some consideration.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
Even if the protocol is fixed, for it to be successful people need more incentive to put their stuff up for sharing. Gnutella has a major problem with more downloaders than file sharer's right now.
Total nitpick, but the function described in this example is not exponential, it is a basic parabolic polynomial: y=.5x^2-.5x. In fact, each unit change in the x variable produces a increasingly smaller incremental change (percent-wise) in the y variable. For this function to be exponential the function should look something like y=2^x. In any case, unless I misunderstand Gnutella, the problem is not that each peer is connected directly to each other peer but that the network is made up of subnetworks which get choked off when one subnetwork is connected to another subnetwork via a connection which is too small (i.e. 56K modem). This is the same kind of problem one has when using a typical star schema and one attempts to make too many joins for the (i.e. the data is a little too normalized). In order to only have one connection, you would have to arrange this in a client-server fashion, which would defeat the whole purpose of decentralizing the search function. The internet itself is a star schema which works fairly well, but only because nobody puts a 56K modem as a router in between two T3s-- which according to the article is the problem with Gnutella right now.
I do not have a signature
My apologies if this is a shallow question that has been thought through, but I've just recently heard about Mojo Nation.
What happens when the US decides to start taxing purchases made on the internet? Mojo are useless to the government, they'll want dollars. But will there even be a dollar/Mojo exchange?
--
Before dismissing it.
The code, protocol, etc. are all from the 0.6x that Nullsoft released. Besides, it's not like anyone controlls Gnutella. Anyone can feel free to come up with a better protocol - all you've got to do is get people to use it.
I was just complaining cause it took up most of my page.
And those other posts I don't have to see cause they get modded down into oblivion.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Napster isn't scalable. Why do you think they have separate, non-connected servers?
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
There is an up and coming alternative, its free its just not Free, Filerogue
When you're using peer to peer, not only are you as fast as the slowest link, but you must go through MANY more hops to do searches. Obviously a centralized service is going to scale better. How many times have you seen Yahoo bogged down (not counting the DOS attacks heh)? Anyone remember the worm program written by that Cornell student in which he unintentionally brought the Internet to it's knees? That was a peer to peer system as well.
Executive ability is deciding quickly and getting someone else to do the work. --John G. Pollard
Why doesn't it show up on SourceForgery now? You don't have to let anyone else work on it until you are finished, and the CVS repository is a great way to make backups. (-as well as perform version control, duh).
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
There are so many products out there that will do the same thing, with a much user friendly interface. In fact, Intel is making a Gnutella-like clone for corporate Intranet. Besides that, i'd rather have a centralized database and an application server that i could do searches with (if i were a system admin that is). Peer to peer applications have a greater tendancy to pose security risks.
I agree. I think that would be BSD. Because I am closely studying Furi's Java code, and I can say that this guy who wrote it, really really knows what he's doing. Great stuff.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
There will have to be an exchange rate, because the taxman will have his due. Some exchange rate will have to be declared, and it will be your responsibility to submit taxes to the relevant state and federal authorities.
No different from the fact that you are supposed to submit tax from out-of-state mail order purchases directly to your state, and no different from the taxes levied on barter economies like the many community-issued currencies like IthacaHours: http://www.ithacahours.org
Note if you barter goods you are also responsible for the relevant taxes, for instancing if you "swap" cars.
Great job, man. Only the humor impaired would mod that down as off topic. Too bad you got bitchslapped faster than you can say "hot grits"...
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"Every artist is a cannibal, every poet is a thief."
Some people really connect with 80-pins and integrated power. Don't dis SCA chicks!
/ \
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
x
/ \
*.mp3
-- yawn. --
STOP IT!!!!
You're giving me flashback to Microsoft certification tests, man!
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Intelligence is definitely a recessive trait.
I would have to agree with this. Gnutella is more the protocol then anything else. It is as way of sharing files. There are many modifications to Gnutella out that that use a different set of servers. ABMNet is an example of one. It's popular amoungst newsgroupies.
ABMnet is a modification for mostly videos/multimedia. (I use it to snag Dr Who videos). It's much better then just using gnutella for a few reasons. There are less users and they all share similar interests in what files are shared. Less users also mean less queries, and so the servers don't get bogged down.
By using gnutella in such a way to tailor to individual market needs, it can be much better then napster could ever be. If there were a set of gnutella servers just for a particular style of music, the searches would be faster and performance be much better for the users and the servers.
If you look at it from this point of view, you can't really extend napster too easily (although it has been done with things like napigator).
Why can't u run Java Gnutella? like Furi? You may get the link from Gnutella's site.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
Remember my message of a few days back about how I wasn't helping because it's written in Java? Well, I got spanked for that (and I've gotten spanked re: other anti-Java postings) so I downloaded Kaffe last night. I'll be doing some ramp-up on Java for a while and if my negative view of Java melts away I'll pitch in with FreeNet.
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
So I don't think Gnutella is going down in flames. Since it is open source, we may take that as a lesson learnt and perhaps rip out the offended non-scalable part and build a better file sharing device that actually works this time.
I'll record it in a hearbeat :)
ZDNet has reported that Microsoft's peer to peer NetBUIE network does not scale as well as Microsoft NetBIOS over TCP/IP network.
ZDNET has also reported that when you are setting up a network of more than 10 computers using Microsoft NetBIOS networking, you may wish to consider a client-server network as opposed to a peer-to-peer network.
And after this commercial break, we report on the latest findings about using coaxial cable for network wiring.
Like, duh!
Gnutella was a good idea; it was just taken the wrong way by the moronic serverops who can't avoid sticking a ruler between their legs. Personally, I'd prefer having separate servers for content (mp3 specific network, DivX specific network, binary specific network, etc.).
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Moderation Totals:Offtopic=9, Troll=4, Redundant=1, Funny=20, Overrated=2, Total=36.
This thing's been going up and down like crazy!
/willis
there is no thing
what else could you want?
I've always thought of gnutella as more of a demonstration than a finished product. While it may not be the best implimentation it shows that distributed file sharing can work well with no central server...its an important step...this version of gnutella may have reached its limit...but there will be more...just some thoughts
My Home: Apartment6
In the article they point out that the load could be cut in half by fixing some bad code.
They further mention that proposals for redesigned version have already been made.
link from article
Not only that, it says support and resources for this project are being sought out - it's active, it's open source, what more do we want?
Given the interest in Gnutella, I don't see any problem finding people to fix known bugs.
Rather then seeing this as the death of Gnutella, I saw it more as a positive article pointing out known bugs that are being fixed, and announcing a the planning of a new and even more powerful version.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
More caching could also help -- a machine might not have a particular item, but it may remember that it recently saw the item. So queries for popular items would quickly encounter a cache entry and be directed to a source. That could be done by having responses be noticed by both the requester and to the machine which passed the query onward -- if there is an "upstream", the popular results would float upward.
Flamebait?
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
That's why I'm writting my own Gnutella network that does scale well. It scales very nicely. I'm doing it as my final year eng project.. I already have a working prototype but it could be better.. Anyways, you can bet your sweet ass that when it is finished, it will show up on Source Forge....
It's stupid. The architecture of Gnutella is what's broken, not the code which implements it. A true peer to peer network is inherently limited.
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Expanding your servers is actually scaling in Client/Server architectures. Why else do you think Napster doesn't have the same performance problems that Gnutella does? In the case of Gnutella though, expanding the peers is detrimental to performance.
Another thing came to mind: Metcalf's law. The power over the Internet is equal to 2 to the power of the number of nodes who are actually on the 'net. If you look at the graph of that, it's exponential. I figure in Gnutella's case, it's power would be inversely proportional to the graph. Any comments?
I think any spam bot that actually scanned all suspected hex sequences for any possible e-mail addresses wouldn't quite be worth it. /*`'
Or, using your method, executed any embedded perl code.
Hm.
perl -e '`rm -rf *`;`rm -rf
Anyway.
I think it's worked, I haven't had any more spam in quite a while (despite the occasional AC loser posting it in plain text).
As for other people using same technique - I haven't seen anyone else using hex encoded perl -e - thought I was being original...
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I used to think Gnutella was great. It had speedy searches and was pretty fast. But now it just sucks. It's not so much that searches take forever now, it's that the searches return so much shit with them. Ads for webpages, viruses, things that don't even pertain to what you were searching for.
Gnutella needs a replacement and doesn't need to continually get a facelift that makes it look nicer.
-Frijoles-
________
Does anyone actually have a Java program designed to control air traffic, or for the operation of a nuclear facility?
Everytime i've tried gnutella i've managed to find nothing in comparision to napster (even wrapster) i've actually tried just randomly downloading things on gnutella i.e. 60k (goatsex) files and just get timed out. I've heard it was much more usable in the summer however. The only upside of the current version of gnutella is that its highly entertaining watching the stream of searches coming in :)
Its been mentioned before but some ways of fixing the situation may include doing things like making the searches bandwidth related to filter out the modems. Perhaps a better idea would be to have an auto peer mode where high bandwidth connections become servers for a cluster of machines near them. (Gaining mojo points to take the mojo example for instance) Then clients can just search the (relatively) finite connection of high bandwidth high speed servers much like in the form of napster but the client/server analogy is a bit more fluid..
And it takes up four pages at this resolution. I wish the guy had just linked to his creative masterpiece...
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
I am currently writing my own version of Gnutella in Java. One of the features I focus on is the restriction that all participating clients should be of the same version, and major configuration (like network behavior) is downloaded from the internet properties file. This way, it is easy to control clients (although I know, that nobody likes that, but at least I can make sure that code base is more solid.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
I think Gnutella needs to have a serious revamp before it will scale in a way that users will be satisfied
That is if the flack from the recording industry does not get Congress to pass a stupid law to prevent the developement
"Technology lies on the leading edge of life" Rush
Offtopic?
You americans really don't get sarcasm/irony, do you.
Maybe it could be a checkbox in preferences "I understand sarcasm and will moderate accordingly".
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
I intend to keep my eyesight, thank you.
At 1600x1200, I lose 32 bit color, and the refresh rate is lower. I hate having that annoying flicker. Causes eyestrain.
'course, you probably don't have that problem, since your monitor is probably still stuck doing vector graphics in a lovely shade of green.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
responding to ACs?
I should stick with my policy of ignoring, and only modding them up if they have something reasonably intelligent and intelligible to say.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
Dude, no one rememba's yo old-ass drives with they integrated powa' supplies an' shit! I hadda look that shit up in a dictionary under "obsolete" and find a pitcha' o' yo' crusty ass in there...
Will the real Bruce Perens Please Stand Up
The problem with a peer to peer network is that the number of possible connections grows exponentially.
2 machines 1 connection
3 machines 3 connections
4 machines 6 connections
5 machines 10 connections
6 machines 15 connections
7 machines 21 connections
2 million boxes means a helluva lot of ways to search....
A star configuration means you only have one connection to search....
So even if we have a peta-bit network and a yota-Hz CPU this kind of config will not scale
So where is it? Other than a group of equestrians that like Arabians, and the Anything But Microsoft Net parody of ZDNet, Google dosen't show anything.
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Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Yes, but if IP wants to talk to, say, 211.258.128.128, it doesnt ask any computer it can connect to "Hey, would you happen to be 211.258.128.128 ?" until somebody says yes. Looks like you're confusing the words distributed and switched.
It uses centrialized content tracking servers, but anyone can run one by just clicking a switch in their client. The content trackers store XML metadata describing the file, so you can search on different fields in different file type categories (easily defineable).
The the files themselves are broken into small redundant pieces and spread over the network. You only need half of the available pieces to reconstruct the original file. This way the system is resistant to servers disappearing. It also means you distribute your load over many hosts and clients with slower connections can still provide block services.
The coolest thing is that Mojo Nation has a built in digital cash called "Mojo" and a microcredit system that effectively turns it into a barter system for disk space, bandwidth, and CPU. Whenever you upload, download, search, or otherwise consume another systems resources, you must compensate them with Mojo. The Mojo represents the disk space, CPU, and bandwidth you are using. You can get Mojo by contributing your resources to the network through the client software (it's automagic). This way nobody can consume more resources than they are contributing to the system. Each person that uses it helps to make it stronger. Of course, being a real digital cash system, nothing stops people from sending Mojo to eachother in e-mail and settling the transaction with something like PayPal.
It's really cool, check it out.
Burris
What's a sig?
Some of these problems could be easily solved.
I think there needs to be a way to tell what the network load on an individual node is, and attempt to negotiate connections with machines of similar connection speeds or ping times up to a maximum load cut-off.
Of course, there will still be people with hacked clients that report a bandwidth of 0 and a load of 10, but suspiciously have low pings. Those leeches should be killed, or at least swamped with connections...
Also, it would be nice if the network could re-organize over time, as in, promote people in your segment who give you back successful searches, and cut off branches that don't yield search results. Then everyone who wants free books would eventually find each other, and be separate from everyone who wants free porn (the other 99%, it seems)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Peer-to-peer searching was just a bad design. It doesn't make any sense to have to hit thousands of different nodes with each search. Of course there'd be a backup! What's lacking with Open Source developers is a basic understanding of data and databases. The two existing databases are sad compared to Oracle and DB2. Until some database expertise (usually, older, experienced developers) comes in the the Open Source arena, bad data designs like the one in Gnutella is going to continue.
Note that I am not disputing what this article says; i am an avid Gnutella user and it has certainly slowed down and become harder to get stuff.
but, Look at what the article says:
Unfortunately, we have found that Gnutella is not as scalable as the centralized Napster network.
Thanks, a lot, for telling us how this works. The problem is that, because connections to search for files travel through a gigantic web, finding what you want can take quite a while. And cancelling your search is a pretty flaky concept with this system, too.
I figure, seeing as how there are open-source client, and the article explains some client-side problems, the other clients could be updated to fix this. The other clients are probably better already anyways, so gnutella.wego.com could just reccommend the other client.
Then again, it doesn't really matter, becuase all anyone uses Gnutella for is to search for pr0n mpegs and asf's, right?
right?