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P2P Not Dead, Just Hiding
adavies42 writes "Contrary to media reports, P2P is not dying (PDF); it's just becoming harder to detect. In a paper for CAIDA, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis, researchers present evidence that the supposed decline in P2P traffic is actually due to a decline in easy-to-track protocols as those that change port numbers on a regular basis become more popular."
Tools such as Waste make this very easy to set up.
TCP was designed with the assumption of a symmetric bandwidth path between the involved end points.
To try to put a figure on it, for around 80% to 90% of the Internet's history, the Internet has been run over symmetrical bandwidth links eg. 56Kbps full duplex point to point links, T1/E1s, T3/E3, Frame Relay, ATM, Token ring, the Ethernet variants etc. Asymmetric links such as DSL and cable are the exception.
TCP has performance issues when run over paths which involve asymmetric bandwidth links. They are described in RFC 3449 - TCP Performance Implications of Network Path Asymmetry.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
the likes of programs such as protowall and peerguardian, both of which have huge active communities constantly updating IP block lists, blocking all the p2p evils out there like bayTSP and other monitoring agencies.
A huge amount of p2p clients (most kazaa lite buids, azureus, one of the most popular bit torrent clients) have methods built in to support these block lists, and are turned on by default.
and are moving to decentralised networks like bittorrent
As much as bittorrent is the greatest thing since sliced bread, it is not decentralized. It is 1st gen P2P with a centralized tracker, despite actually being better than 2nd gen networks like KaZaA. And I certainly wouldn't want to compare it with 3rd gen networks like Freenet, MULE etc. which are at present even worse. So there's no shame in calling it 1st gen, far from it.
Of course, bittorrent more or less emulates a decentralized structure as each torrent operates independently of each other, but bittorrent itself is not. That does make it considerably harder to take down torrents than e.g. Napster, though.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
With more and more people discovering the community enhanced joy that is bittorrent, I'm not surprised.
BitComet's default setting is to use a randomly generated port, and you can switch from port to port with the click of the "Random Port" button as often as you'd like.
Or you can choose to not listen on any ports, if you're like that, but you'll take a hit to the download speed.
MySpleen is one of the greatest torrent communities I've found, and if you're interested in MST3k, ATHF, Venture Bros, or the other Adult Swim 'toons, check us out!
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
[Tips for running a successful Freenet node]
3 Most important ingredients:
Permanent connection
Bandwidth
Disk space
Without these you'll be complaining like the rest. Go ahead and set up a node, but optimum performance is a dream without all 3 above elements. Also, count on 2 days of letting it just run before you'll be able to get much done. After you're integrated things run much more smoothly!
If you're behind a firewall you'll need to know how to setup port forwarding. Windows install is the easiest, GNU systems should be trivial and there's a port for FreeBSD. I believe MacOSX can run it as well. If you can run a modern JavaVM, Freenet should be no trouble for you.
(About firewalls - if your $50 router/NAT/switch thingy cannot handle the hundreds of TCP connections Freenet can generate, you might want to either invest in a dedicated box (OpenBSD works well for me and allows me to prioritize traffic behind my interactive_ssh and vonage queues - Linux floppy distros should be fine too) or specify in freenet.conf to limit the number of open connections. Just be aware as connection tables can overload and distrupt the connection for all behind the NAT. Then again your $50 box may have no trouble at all. Port numbers are all random high port numbers making Freenet difficult to detect and firewall. Connections out will be made but the portforward is necessary for other nodes to connect to you. If nodes can't connect to you, performance will most likely be horrendous.)
If you just install Freenet and immediately try and download large files, you will be frusturated and give up. DON'T! Many freesites will not appear at all. NEVER FEAR! Let your node run in the background for a few days and get itself integrated into the mesh. Nodes that are more useful to the network (fast connection, large data store) will end up the most successful when downloading or uploading content. If you can't leave your machine running all the time or want to use freenet over dialup, fine, but your performance will not match those of others that can provide more to the network. Leeching is fine, it allows others to leech off of you - but leave your machine connected and Freenet's performance may end up suprising you.
Towards the beginning you may just want to start a number of downloads and count on many of them not completing - JUST WALK AWAY or do something else. Don't waste your time. By grabbing whatever bits you can, you'll increase the data in your own datastore and your connections within the network. If others find those bits from your node, your status will increase, more will connect to you and they will then be potential sources for more desired bits of your own. The better connectivity you've got, the more you will find. Leaving your node up at all times and keeping your datastore intact are the best ways to increase Freenet's performance (not just for you but for all).
THOSE PARANOID: I've been running my Freenet node wide open (no throttle) on my Earthlink cable connection in the heart of Raleigh, NC for some time. No threatening letters or trouble, my Vonage works fine (I do use pf's ALTQ) and those in my house have no trouble with connections, download or upload speeds)
For those that are already on Freenet and trying to download large files, one tool is critical. FUQUD (Freenet Utility for Queued Uploads and Downloads). Find it. Use it. Fred (the built in web interface) isn't going to cut it.
Regarding disk space. Unless you've got around say 2Gigs to dedicate to a node, your node may not perform as well as it could (200M is practical minimum). Consider the value you choose to be relatively permanant. You can't trade it with other uses - you build a datastore and that's the size, unusable for your MP3's or ogg's for example. They don't grow or shrink. You s
A good, and working, anonymous P2P alternative to Freent is I2P. The creator of I2P has been around for a while and cross talks with Freenet developers on occasion as both the Freenet and I2P community channels are on the anonymous irc network IIP, and irc.freenode.net.
A lot of I2P is put into the public domain, with parts of it being GPL. Try www.i2p.net for more information.
Napster was the first real standalone p2p app, but the precursor to that was IRC channels dedicated to sharing. Much of the jargon that's used in modern p2p comes from that, for example, and the choice of encoding formats, e.g. mp3. Its almost certain that anyone who is at all serious about open source, hacking, gaming and any of a multitude of underground internet scenes has spent a good deal of time on an IRC channel at one time or another, and the scene is as much a social medium as it is a file trading medium.
Hell, if you want to go back even further, you could credit Doom and John Carmack with p2p. I haven't thought a whole lot about this, but it could be argued that the relatively open nature of Doom gave rise to networked group of file traders who would swap Doom mods and addons on BBS's, which were essentially prototypical networked IM and P2P applications (and occasional gaming platforms). The key to BBS's were that they were largely owner-operated -- you could chat with the owners, you knew them, they were part of the community. The notable thing about Doom filesharing was that creating Doom mods was a creative endeavor that benefitted from the free exchange of ideas. The runaway success of the scene spawned the idea that free and open trading of intellectural property was a moral good. Open source may have developed concurrently along the same lines, but I'm not sure there was very much cross-over. OS people were real coders and focused on that, and warez and mp3 people were more social and into gaming and things like that, almost like a collectors club. The intersection of these two groups in recent times greatly expanded on the ideas of the past, and with the addition of real coding ability came modern p2p, where coders no long limited themselves to the simple scripting environment of IRC clients, and went so far as to invent their own protocols and fully-fledged GUI environments designed to address the needs of specific internet sub-cultures. The user-friendly interfaces propelled them into the mainstream, e.g. Napster.
P2P enthusiasts are dead-serious about the importance of open intellectual property, and if its not seen as fundamental as Ghandi's struggle, it is seen as an important rights issue, which is what the parent was probably getting at more than suggesting that the P2P movement exactly follows the Ignore-Laugh-Fight-Accept model. Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA and the DMCA stifle human expression and creativity for profit and this causes immeasurable harm to society. The exact details of this harm are probably best left to another post, I may write a blog entry about it in the near future, but suffice it to say the lack of creativity and contribution in a person's life has a profoundly negative effect.
Ok, I should really go to bed...
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