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Peer-to-Peer Overview

Posted by michael on from the state-of-the-art dept.

An anonymous submitter sent in: "New Scientist has an interesting feature on peer to peer systems, taking a less copyright orientated approach, and going into some technical detail about how the various P2P systems work and compare to each other."

2 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Too simplistic by Sanity · · Score: 4
    You seem to fall into the common trap of thinking that the different P2P architectures are just different approaches to doing the same thing. This isn't the case, there is actually very little in common between the various architectures as they generally have very different goals. For example, Napster and Gnutella are both designed to let people share their mp3s with other people, Freenet is designed to provide a secure forum for free speech, Seti@home is designed to combine people's spare cycles to find aliens etc. These systems are as different as chalk and cheese, just because many journalists think they fall under the P2P buzzword, doesn't mean that they have any more in common than any other software, nor that there is any more room for interoperability than there is with any other software that communicates via the Internet.

    The claim that P2P would be great if only the systems would interoperate really doesn't bear much scrutiny, TCP/IP is often the full extent of what these systems have in common. This isn't a flaw, it is a simple fact.

    --

  2. How to better Napster... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5
    Seeing as absolutely nobody here has read the article (it seems to have experienced some sort of preemptive Slashdotting--must be a new IIS "feature"), I can only guess as to whether I'm on-topic here...

    How to make the successor to Napster

    Most people don't realize that what made Napster successful was not its network protocol or its technical sophistication. Ease of use made Napster, and ease of use will make or break every P2P system. For a P2P system to work and be useful, it has to be simple, easy to find, easy to install, easy to use, and easy to upgrade. Why upgrade? Because upgrades will be necessary to combat "blocking" technologies instituted by ISPs.

    The way to accomplish this is not to write yet another Gnutella or OpenNap or Freenet or Blocks client. There are enough of these today. The solution is not necessarily to create new protocols--too many protocols, and your average Joe won't know what to use or why. Furthermore, you open yourself to liability if you do so, as described in this excellent white paper from the EFF.

    The solution is to write a generic P2P interface. Make it extensible via protocol plugins. Users should be able to type in one search query, and have it search OpenNap, Gnutella, and Freenet simultaneously, and display all the results in one window. Plugins should concern themselves only with the P2P protocol, and with comforming to some standard interface.

    Do not write both the plugins and the interface yourself. Obviously, a GUI that does nothing by itself is not an infringing device. Better to compartmentalize things and make it harder for people to be hit with absurd lawsuits. Furthermore, the programmers who tend to be good at network protocols are generally not so hot at GUI design, and vice versa.

    Try to keep the plugin architecture very cross-platform. Ideally, plugins would be totally portable code requiring only a recompile (even when going from Windows to MacOS, for instance), or--better yet--would just be a bunch of specs in XML format.

    Set up a mechanism that allows updates to be distributed via the P2P network. Obviously, some sort of signing/verification will be required to reduce the risk of trojans. Still, the goal should be to make it almost transparent for novice users to add support for new protocols. If it becomes easy to implement, distribute, and adopt a new protocol every month, it will be impossible to stop P2P. Updating the GUI is less important--it's the protocols that have to change.

    Conclusion: What this will do is create a highly adaptable, fault-tolerant, lawsuit-resistant network that is easy to use. Why have I placed so much emphasis on ease of use? Without a large userbase, you're nothing. A P2P network is only as good as the libraries of its users. Why is this network so adaptable? Suppose one or two protocols get shut down or blocked or whatever. Someone creates a new protocol, writes a plugin, distributes it by one of the remaining channels, and we're back in business. Finally, the system also encourages modularity and code reuse, which is A Good Thing.

    By the way, if you can't figure out why I'm anonymous, you haven't been paying attention.

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