Yes, but unlike Usenet, Napster, IRC, BBS's, and others, Gnutella isn't centralized. It's peer-to-peer, just like the Internet itself. If you shut down the Napster servers, the Napster clients are useless. But Gnutella uses no such central server -- you'd have to shut down every single person using it in order to get rid of it.:)
I know that it has become a cliche now, but the phrase about the Internet rerouting around problems, including censorship applies to Gnutella as well. And as you stated, it's virtually impossible for college admins to block it.
I think it's time for the colleges to invest in some OC-48's:)
Here's a short summary of why Gnutella rocks and how it compares to Napster.
Napster is client-server. Everyone connects to the main server, drops off their list of files, and the searching is done through the server.
Gnutella is peer-to-peer. All packets are routed around the gnutellaNet. Each client is also a server. Together, it's a "servant". The whole thing works very much like the Internet itself. Each search request has a TTL. Each servant routes the search request to every servant he's connected to, subtracting 1 from the TTL. When TTL reaches 0, the search request is no longer forwarded.
Now, the best part(s). It isn't centralized. You only need to know of one working servant IP to connect to the network. When you connect, the servant sends you a list of all the servants it knows of, so you are immediately supplied with a list of working servant IPs. If you connect at least once a week, you're set.
Also, Gnutella isn't MP3-only. Any file type is supported.
Now, the bad parts.
Regex (regular expression) searches are not supported. I've yet to figure out exactly how the searching works, but it doesn't match any pattern i can think of. I think it searches inside of files as well?
It doesn't seem scale well at all.
There is a crowd of kiddies using a pre-written Perl script to flood the network.
Hopefully, all of these problems (and all the interface glitches I didn't mention since this is still a beta) will be fixed in 1.0. Oh yeah... hopefully, there will be a 1.0.
Gnutella 0.50c is quite stable, and the unofficial official page is hosted by Nerdherdhere (as mentioned by the post). A number of clones are also in the works, and the protocol has been reverse-engineered. All info is on the page.
However, it's recommended that you do all your stuff before 3 PM, because that's when the kiddies come home from school, and the flooding begins. Gnutella currently has absolutely no provision for flood protection, and effects are severe. I guess I've just encouraged them more... heh.
Another good source for stuff is #gnutella on EFNet. There is also #gnutelladev on EFNet. Please don't go to the second channel unless you have some question about the interal workings. All other questions should be directed to #gnutella. Also, #gnutella is a good place to find the available hosts. Here's one, digdug.dyndns.org. Let's see what happens to my dialup.:)
If you haven't visited the article yet, read it here. Perhaps Slashdot should always link the printer-friendly version, so that we don't have to look at all the other crap?
Also, try Brainbench. Right now, they're trying to gain market share, so all the certification tests are free. They even mail you prettypapers for all the tests you passed, again, for free.
I don't understand... by Unix, does the author mean some particular flavor or all the different Unices that exist in the world? Isn't the "network computer" where Unix is the strongest? Arent different Unix flavors and unix derivatives growing like crazy right now?
I really don't understand how this post got on Slashdot... It sounds like something I would read on the Microsoft site, where Unix is defined as the operating system used in the 1960's.
My boss decides that he wants me to add streaming to our site. Our web server runs NT (Hey! Don't look at me! I didn't install it!). Currently, I have two choices. Realmedia, whose server costs (lots?) of money, whose player I hate, who laughs at my privacy. Windows Media, whose server is free, whose player isn't so bad, who also laughs at my privacy.
If anyone can think of another choice, please let me know. I'll be very happy.
When the asteroid hits Mars I was genuinely impressed (and surprised).
I didn't see the movie, but this comment made me curious. When the asteroid hits Mars, is there an out-of-space shot showing it? Is there a loud explosion sound played during that shot?
(I'm sure we've all heard the how-the-heck-does-sound-travel-through-vacuum comments, so I won't reiterate them...)
I'm not knowledgeable enough (nor do I run it often enough, yet) to install it. Can someone who uses RealPlayer under both Windows and Linux please post a comment and compare the two versions? If this thing is anything like the Windows version, I don't see why anyone is celebrating.
The installer (and later on, RealPlayer) seems to want to bind itself to every file extension the developers could think of at the moment of release. Then, it loads a memory-hogging piece of itself to load every time you start the OS, which newbies don't know how to get rid of (or probably don't even notice). It attempts to bombard you with ads. To download the free version on the Realmedia site, you have to go through a maze of pages asking you to pay for the player. Not to mention all the privacy issues. After Realmedia claimed to have fixed the "bugs" in the last version, I have seen a comment that RealPlayer quietly installs the dreaded Comet Cursor with it.
If the Linux version is anything like the Windows version, I don't see why everyone is so happy about this...
What deeply worries him is that these technologies collectively create the ability to unleash self-replicating, mutating, mechanical or biological plagues. These would be "a replication attack in the physical world" comparable to the replication attack in the virtual world that recently caused the shutdowns of major commercial Web sites.
Does anyone know what the author of the article is talking about? Am I missing something? What major commercial web sites were shut down by replication attacks?
Sorry to turn this into an ASP vs. Java thing, but it is sort of on topic, right?
Sites that run on NT and ASP can't do this simply because ASP's built-in session management requires that cookies be enabled. If they aren't, it will just stick you inside of a redirecting loop. The redirecting loop is easily fixed with a "please enable cookies" message. Anything beyond that... well...
Naturally, there are ways around this, but they require elaborate hacks, generating every link on your page yourself, and so on. In other words, rewriting the session management on your own. You cannot manually retrieve or switch sessions.
Java, on the other hand, allows you to create a session object by just knowing the session ID. It also has automatic URL rewriting, that can be always, never, or no-cookies-only enabled. And you also have full control over this, so you can tweak it as needed.
I definitely agree with you about the cookie-only sites. I understand that there are many good uses for cookies, but I like to choose whether I want the site to store cookies on my computer, not the other way around. I just run a proxy that blocks all cookies on all sites except for the ones I specify. If a site requires cookies to browse, I usually leave and don't come back.
This seems to bring up another interesting point. Although we should be upset that a patent is being filed for this obvious yet stupid idea, we shouldn't make such a big deal out of this particular thing because the idea itself is stupid! C'mon now, how many serious sites out there would actually use such a thing? And how many non-serious sites out there actually have their own DNS server?
If this or this is what you're talking about, then they are different things. However, PCWeasel 2000 was mentioned in the comments for one of the posts. Also, the second link is a good place to look before you decide to buy this thing.
I always viewed B&N as a nice bookstore with coffee, who just happened to hire some horrible web designers (just look at their page with anything besides IE5 or NN4). It's a good thing this article happened to come around and change my mind.
Another thing that struck me while thinking about this whole thing. Remember what Ford did? He patented ideas so that others couldn't patent them and abuse the patents. He then allowed everyone to use his ideas for free. Perhaps that's what Jeff is doing here. I have no proof, but I'm hoping it's that way.
Slashdot Mirror
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I know that it has become a cliche now, but the phrase about the Internet rerouting around problems, including censorship applies to Gnutella as well. And as you stated, it's virtually impossible for college admins to block it.
I think it's time for the colleges to invest in some OC-48's :)
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Napster is client-server. Everyone connects to the main server, drops off their list of files, and the searching is done through the server.
Gnutella is peer-to-peer. All packets are routed around the gnutellaNet. Each client is also a server. Together, it's a "servant". The whole thing works very much like the Internet itself. Each search request has a TTL. Each servant routes the search request to every servant he's connected to, subtracting 1 from the TTL. When TTL reaches 0, the search request is no longer forwarded.
Now, the best part(s). It isn't centralized. You only need to know of one working servant IP to connect to the network. When you connect, the servant sends you a list of all the servants it knows of, so you are immediately supplied with a list of working servant IPs. If you connect at least once a week, you're set.
Also, Gnutella isn't MP3-only. Any file type is supported.
Now, the bad parts.
- Regex (regular expression) searches are not supported. I've yet to figure out exactly how the searching works, but it doesn't match any pattern i can think of. I think it searches inside of files as well?
- It doesn't seem scale well at all.
- There is a crowd of kiddies using a pre-written Perl script to flood the network.
Hopefully, all of these problems (and all the interface glitches I didn't mention since this is still a beta) will be fixed in 1.0. Oh yeah... hopefully, there will be a 1.0.--
However, it's recommended that you do all your stuff before 3 PM, because that's when the kiddies come home from school, and the flooding begins. Gnutella currently has absolutely no provision for flood protection, and effects are severe. I guess I've just encouraged them more... heh.
Another good source for stuff is #gnutella on EFNet. There is also #gnutelladev on EFNet. Please don't go to the second channel unless you have some question about the interal workings. All other questions should be directed to #gnutella. Also, #gnutella is a good place to find the available hosts. Here's one, digdug.dyndns.org. Let's see what happens to my dialup. :)
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I really don't understand how this post got on Slashdot... It sounds like something I would read on the Microsoft site, where Unix is defined as the operating system used in the 1960's.
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My boss decides that he wants me to add streaming to our site. Our web server runs NT (Hey! Don't look at me! I didn't install it!). Currently, I have two choices. Realmedia, whose server costs (lots?) of money, whose player I hate, who laughs at my privacy. Windows Media, whose server is free, whose player isn't so bad, who also laughs at my privacy.
If anyone can think of another choice, please let me know. I'll be very happy.
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(I'm sure we've all heard the how-the-heck-does-sound-travel-through-vacuum comments, so I won't reiterate them...)
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The installer (and later on, RealPlayer) seems to want to bind itself to every file extension the developers could think of at the moment of release. Then, it loads a memory-hogging piece of itself to load every time you start the OS, which newbies don't know how to get rid of (or probably don't even notice). It attempts to bombard you with ads. To download the free version on the Realmedia site, you have to go through a maze of pages asking you to pay for the player. Not to mention all the privacy issues. After Realmedia claimed to have fixed the "bugs" in the last version, I have seen a comment that RealPlayer quietly installs the dreaded Comet Cursor with it.
If the Linux version is anything like the Windows version, I don't see why everyone is so happy about this...
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Sites that run on NT and ASP can't do this simply because ASP's built-in session management requires that cookies be enabled. If they aren't, it will just stick you inside of a redirecting loop. The redirecting loop is easily fixed with a "please enable cookies" message. Anything beyond that... well...
Naturally, there are ways around this, but they require elaborate hacks, generating every link on your page yourself, and so on. In other words, rewriting the session management on your own. You cannot manually retrieve or switch sessions.
Java, on the other hand, allows you to create a session object by just knowing the session ID. It also has automatic URL rewriting, that can be always, never, or no-cookies-only enabled. And you also have full control over this, so you can tweak it as needed.
I definitely agree with you about the cookie-only sites. I understand that there are many good uses for cookies, but I like to choose whether I want the site to store cookies on my computer, not the other way around. I just run a proxy that blocks all cookies on all sites except for the ones I specify. If a site requires cookies to browse, I usually leave and don't come back.
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- Amazon.co m, Barnes & Noble settle lawsuit
- Barnes & Noble Fights for Best-Seller' List
- Advertising Battle Of The On-line Bookstores (Adlaw)
- Tons of related links on C|Net
I always viewed B&N as a nice bookstore with coffee, who just happened to hire some horrible web designers (just look at their page with anything besides IE5 or NN4). It's a good thing this article happened to come around and change my mind.Another thing that struck me while thinking about this whole thing. Remember what Ford did? He patented ideas so that others couldn't patent them and abuse the patents. He then allowed everyone to use his ideas for free. Perhaps that's what Jeff is doing here. I have no proof, but I'm hoping it's that way.
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