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Former AOLers Bet on Private P2P App
buhatkj writes "Some former AOL staffers have come up with something interesting. Namely, a P2P/instant messaging/groupware tool called
Grouper.
Sounds to me a bit like the GAIM plugin suggested by downhill battle..."
The screenshots and described functionality look tremendously like the original free Groove software.
Wouldn't this be a cleaned up and repackaged version of WASTE?
I posted about Group in response to the GAIM thread the the other day. That said, my only complaint about Grouper is the obvious one--music is only streamable, not downloadable (though I imagine renaming the extension and/or compressing the file would be an easy way around this). If the filesharing is truly private, why bother with such a restriction?
These "enterprise P2P" efforts seem to be attempting to recreate Windows File Sharing or NFS and call it "P2P". It's not clear whether that's a good idea. Those attempts have some things going for them: self-administration by users, no requirements for a central server, and distributed search. On the other hand, it is quite likely that enterprise administrators don't want some of those features. And they have some disadvantages, too: no auditing, no backup, no direct integration with end-user software (although, I suppose, you will see MS Office plugins).
The whole concept sounds a lot like Aimster. I never used Aimster (because i havent used the AIM application since Trillian became available), but as I remember it, it was an application that "piggybacked" on AIM and allowed you to have filesharing circle with anyone on your buddy list. This "Grouper" thing just seems to run with that idea to me. Aimster (a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/09/ 0049220&tid=141">ran into legal trouble and became Madster.
Ah, but sharing through a regular p2p or http server is essentially a republication and a direct copyright violation as copyright laws are written. Sharing files with your friends may not be and should not be any more than sharing a book or tape is. Five or six coppies does not make a republication.
The copyright warriors may claim otherwise, but they are clearly in the wrong and will be seen as the extremists that they are on this one. The current wave of lawsuits are that strip 12 year olds and grandparents out of their life savings are bad, but the asswipes can say, "they made tens of thousands thousands of coppies and cost us lots of money." Imagine how that would sound if it were, "he gave his mom a copy of his favorite song and derived us of income! We demand compensation!" The jerks already have egg on their face for placing huge burdens on people who did not know better, have nothing or did not even know what was going on in their house. This, we can hope, will finally kill them off and let the rest of us do what we want to do, share things we enjoy with our friends and family.
However, to outsiders (RIAA/MPAA) encryption means hiding data that doesn't belong to you. They will counter any argument with that statement.
Fuck them. I already share things with myself and friends via Openssh. What I have password protected on my machines is none of their business. Those things I created and own are shared by a http server on the same machine and anyone, including the RIAA is welcome to it.
I'm sorry but I just don't think this program is going anywhere. Maybe if it was created 5 or 6 years ago.
Ha! My windoze using peers would love to do the things I do with Konqueror. You know, drag and drop encrypted file transfer so that I can get at, use and edit my stuff from anywhere in the world. This is a step in that direction for those too timid to leave winblows. Such thoughts populate the reviews the Grouper people are displaying from such mainstream sources as PCMagazine and the Wall Street Journal. I'd rather these people stepped up to free software, but this kind of program is going to take off big time.
When that happens, it will change the way people think of publication in general. That will spell the end for the copyright warriors.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
When the RIAA started suing P2P users, I predicted that the future of P2P was going to be some encapsulation-type system, where I could share with people *I* trusted.... and they'd share with people *they* trusted, etc. So, you'd get this "six degrees of separation" deal going on.
The principle would end up working kind of like how terrorist cells work, such that the RIAA managing to bust one overly-trusting user wouldn't immediately jeopardize the rest of the users on the network.
It seems like that's kinda where we're headed with a lot of the new P2P apps coming out: Grouper, WASTE, etc. Now, we just need a system where we can actually *get* files from people we don't immediately trust by having the peers that we *do* trust act as relay stations or something. Granted, it increases traffic, but it cuts the risk *way* down.... and I don't really mind having to leave my P2P app running all night provided I can do it with impunity.
I was really excited by this at first. The idea of putting together IM and a non-outlook groupware solution seemed like a cool idea. Mix ical and IM with p2p without the ICQ bloat? Could be cool. Sadly... grouper is not this. It's waste with a pretty interface with a hint of the possibility of big brother watching me. :( Oh well.
It makes perfect sense. You STREAM it, not download it. You can't copy it to your computer and save it there from within the program. You can merely stream the audio, which is not the same as saving it to your hdd.
As far as the "private" performance, it should hold up in that only your invited/allowed "friends" (at this point up to 30) can listen to any given song at any given time. It's not offered to the general public. This would be like me having some friends over and playing music from my personal MP3 library. It's not a public performance because only my friends are listening to it, and they are only there because I invited them to the private gathering.
But the tricksy lawyerses will probably take away the precious anyway they like because they hates the precious and would rather see us dead than have it.
I use and really like the idea of WASTE, although i wish it had a nicer UI. This takes it to an extreme and over complicates the matter. Also, as far as secure goes, I have issues with having to register to use it. I'm going to stick to WASTE where I don't have to worry about any third parties.
(This sig intentionally left blank.)
Shoot the Grouper...
Just another thought (as this is similar to an application that I brainstormed with a friend a couple years back):
It would be great to have a "trickle-sync" directory designation, so you could automatically share amongst group members. It would work like this:
One person would drop files into a directory designated as "trickle-sync", and it would be slowly passed-along to everyone else in the group automatically without any prompting (assuming they enabled that feature on their machines). Rather than using full available bandwidth, it might be set to, say, a 5kb/sec maximum or something (or dynamically adjust the bandwidth depending on what else is happening on the network at the time).
The idea being that if you found a new song, program, video file etc. that you think other people in your group might be interested in, you'd just drop it in that folder and eventually everyone else would get it automatically and save them the trouble of having to go look for it and download it.
The trickle-sync folder could have a maximum size limit on it, so if new files arrived and the folder was over-size, it would delete the oldest files first to make room for the new stuff.
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Yeah, we're definitely considering adding more push-like capabilities in the future to preemptively distribute content around the network.
The reason that P2P networks are useful is because the speeds are fast and there is a TON of material out there. I'm sorry but a private network that is invite only just won't cut it.
Hate to break it to you but there's already private networks dealing in the latest files/video/audio that are secure mainly because they are private. You never hear about them but I'm sure they can have all the software they want. All it takes is one guy, let's call him a "courier" for a purely hypothetical example, to tap into different groups and bring it to share with his network of buddies. And nicely pass it on to another group if possible, in an fair trade sort of exchange.
And regarding speed, I would know that the cd sized home movie that I'm downloading from a friend isn't going to be coming off of a dial up user. If a buddy of mine shares a torrent of a song he wrote and we're both on T3 connections, why should I have to suffer accessing packets from a dial up user who has it too?
Most Universities probably don't want ANY filesharing. A lot of them have limited bandwith for P2P applications as it is. Do you think that really want it going on at all? Probably not. Too many problems w/the RIAA and the MPAA.
Actually no, most private universities don't give a rat's ass about sharing files but more concerned about total bandwidth with external connections as well as external transfers that could come back to hurt them as an institution. As long as the actions of a student doesn't come back to harm or get the institution in trouble, they don't really care.
However, to outsiders (RIAA/MPAA) encryption means hiding data that doesn't belong to you. They will counter any argument with that statement.
There wouldn't be an argument to begin with because they have no idea what's going on within that network unless they've gained access illegally. How are they going to request a court order? "Your honor, we believe that there's illegal information swapping going on because they have 1337 usernames and they move a lot of information"
Also, how would they know what the information is if it's encrypted? Maybe I like sending uncompressed home footage of my toddler to my grandparents.
P2P is fine with the free alternatives. I'm sorry but I just don't think this program is going anywhere. Maybe if it was created 5 or 6 years ago.
Free alternatives open you up to people you don't know and software you might not realize is really just spyware. If I had a group of buddies that I know and trust, more information can be passed back and forth in complete safety. And the intent of this program is to allow secure transfer of personal data to friends and back.
The actual greatest benefit from this program IMO is the knowledge of the connections of the circle of people I'm sharing with. Instead of having to suffer a download at 4.5Kb/sec, I am assured I can get it at dsl/cable/t1/t3/oc1/etc speeds.
A lot of you seemed turned off immediately when the acronym "AOL" appeared, but did you even bother to try out the program yet? I've been using it for a week or so now, and I'm really impressed with it's music-streaming capabilities. It's like iTunes' network sharing abilities on crack.
If any of the rest of you are interested in joining my new grouper group, drop me a line (check my profile)
I agree who-heartedly that "in the future" we'll all be contributing and consuming little bits of "the net". Every site we visit, every message we read, every song we hear, every video clip, every program really, will be held in the "ether" as it is being trasmitted from someone who has it to someone who wants it. All you have to do is "tune" to that channel of bits and you'll be simultaniously helping others get access to it AND getting it for yourself. This assumes that "ALL" devices will have some memory and can participate in the grid of flowing bits we now call the Internet.
Perspective is to Science what Interpretation is to Religion. Obama + Paul FTW
It's not what you have, but the knowledge of how to get it - coupled with the technology to access it seamlessly.
Yesterday it was a Ramdisk, now its a hard-drive, tomorrow you'll use a SAN at home, in six years your SAN will be a Wide-Area-SAN.
You'll share the pointers to the files, not the data itself, that makes as much sense as zipping up a website and e-mailing it instead of sending the URL.
As far as music is concerned, the technology is not just there... It's way past the point where your dream is real, very real. But what is holding your dream back is not technology, its the assumption by lobbyist that we're going to eat their pie, we're going to eat it the way they want it, and anyone who doesn't want pie must be a pirate that has to be exterminated.
-Andres.