P2P Meets Push

meonkeys writes "What if you could securely subscribe to a trusted P2P file broadcaster? Check out konspire! An interesting concept; implemented in C++ and controllable via a cool Web interface ala Mutella."

Comments

I liked it better...

[Spazholio]

...when it was called IRC. Seriously, this sounds like a traditional IRC channel with XDCC bots. Decentralized (many servers on the same net comprising a single channel) and varied (you can have many varied channels). I mean, it sounds like a cool idea, and a neat proof-of-concept, but is it really needed or useful?

"potential for anonymity"

[moonbender]

The background page notes on the topic of anonymity:

anonymity of channel owners is possible even at a technical level, since it is difficult for a receiver in the network to tell which node originated a broadcast. Nodes cannot easily tell the difference between a node that originates a broadcast and a node that is simply passing on the broadcast originated by another node.

So to any given node it is unknown whether the node it's receiving a transmission is the original distributor. But still, the node it is receiving from is a distributor - that's just as illegal, at least in the context of copyright protected works.
Especially since in this network, whoever distributes a given file also requested it (at least that's what I am reading out of the documentation), in contrast to other networks, eg. freenet where the fact that you have data on your HD and distribute it to other people does not imply that you requested that data to be there yourself.

(Note: I still think this is a pretty neat concept, though!)

Re:Screw multimedia; how about software?

[micromoog]

...imagine having your Gentoo packages already pre-fetched for you, whenever there's an update? Emerge and it just starts compiling w/out the download step.

Hmmm, sounds exactly like Windows Update.

Re:C++?

[Mr_Silver]

First off, let me state that I am a rather devout C++ developer with about 8 years experience developing in the language.

But for server apps, I think it's the wrong choice.

Maybe, but my personal opinion is that in the end it's better to write an application in a language you know really well (but might not be the best thing) than write some hacky fudge job (which will no doubt be really flakey and possibly even more insecure) in a language you don't know just because it's the best one to use.