As I have posted earlier, this is far from a "distribute a centralized server" approach. It is using a social network to search for resources. It's like when you ask your friend about his hobby in stead of googling it. Possibly more biased, highly likely subjective, but extremely scalable and often very good.
So this is not a new way of distributing a central index, it is a community for resource location. And of course, TSN also provides bookmark sharing, pure P2P instant messaging etc, but that is another story.:-)
One reason to extend rather than rebuild, is that BitTorrent is a very efficient swarming protocol to transfer files. The decentralized tracker is based on distributed hash tables (dht), which is a brilliant method of locating a responsible node (the tracker) if you know the key of the resource. Now, getting the key is a different job altogether. By using a social network to spread torrents (which really is what torrent spread over the www is), you can have some control over the quality of resources. You can also very efficiently run fuzzy keyword based searches. These things are difficult (if possible) to solve efficiently in DHT systems, and has got nothing in common with swarming.:-)
As I see it, using 3 different protocols "in one" is simply a matter of solving a very difficult problem by using the right tools at the right spot.
And the math for node selection is rather fuzzy, with both weighted keyword counting, preference, reputation and connection statisticts. Oh, and nodes meed in local ad-hoc networks as well, so physical contact is valuable in TSN... It was never ment to be easy.:-)
There are two more papers (you can read the abstracts on the site) that have been accepted for publication, but due to copyright issues these will not be published until after the conferences. Sorry about that.
If you use firefox (or the web interface) to search for a resource, you can press "keep looking" - the daemon will then resend your query every hour and only present new replies. In this way, you can get notified by Instant Message if you use the GAIM plugin (although it is not well documented).
This allows you to do "normal" searches, as in "slackware linux iso", but it also allows you to get notified when a new ISO is out!
It totally works, and you'll get notified less than one hour after the file was released. Only the really sad people reload their Linux distribution's page that often...
The idea behind TSN is that you request resources from computers you know and like. This means that if your sysadmin provides the linux kernel, you might think that it is the real one.
If this does not provide enough security, you can of course bypass the system and get the.torrent file or a checksum of the file from some other (trusted) source.
The Socialized.Net does not provide any privacy or encryption. What it does provide is a decentralized way to spread and search for.torrent files. This means that when you search for a resource, your computer ask it's friends for them. This is just like you might do when you want an opinon on a used car. You can call a friend who has a similar car, someone who has had cars of the same brand or someone you know that works in a garage.
It scales wonderfully in the real world, and in theory is now also made available in the digital one.:-)
Dr.
This search system is based on semantic routing. Basically, your computer gets to know other computers, becoming friends with those with similar interests and agendas.
It should provide a highly efficient and scalable system in which quality of search results can be kept high. With most other P2P networks, searches are performed against ALL resources, which makes it very difficult to rate resources. BitTorrent has managed quite well due to torrents being shared by the owners, or specialized sites that can have a certain control of the quality of resouces.
The daemon (which imports bookmarks) also support Internet Explorer out of the box. Also it is likely a matter of minutes to make it work with mozilla. The search plugin is Firefox only, but it only integrates the web interface of the daemon. All browsers can perfectly well use the web interface of the daemon (at http://localhost:8002/LeChuck/).
Dr.
Apart from the ease of creating a company software update ftp (apt-get, yeast, swaret, slapt-get, etc), I really think the license and CD administration to be a pain in the Windows admin's butt.
My Windows co-workers often need a CD either because they need new software, or due to their computer requesting a CD due to some function not already installed. Finding the RIGHT CD (they are like 1000 cd's every month, and they are neatly marked in INVISIBLE, but very fancy, writing) is a total pain. Then, there is the issue of which key is used for this one (oh, you used the english version!) really turns this into a nightmare.
Folks running windows run all kinds of different versions of their software. Why, upgrading costs time and money. On my Slackware machines, swaret has done all upgrades for me, totally automatically! Just upgraded one PC from Slackware 9.0 to 10.1 - swaret --upgrade wait for a while (was a 200mhz...) and reboot when all is done. No keys, no CDs, no cost. Totally brilliant!
Slashdot Mirror
As I have posted earlier, this is far from a "distribute a centralized server" approach. It is using a social network to search for resources. It's like when you ask your friend about his hobby in stead of googling it. Possibly more biased, highly likely subjective, but extremely scalable and often very good.
:-)
So this is not a new way of distributing a central index, it is a community for resource location. And of course, TSN also provides bookmark sharing, pure P2P instant messaging etc, but that is another story.
Dr.
One reason to extend rather than rebuild, is that BitTorrent is a very efficient swarming protocol to transfer files. The decentralized tracker is based on distributed hash tables (dht), which is a brilliant method of locating a responsible node (the tracker) if you know the key of the resource. Now, getting the key is a different job altogether. By using a social network to spread torrents (which really is what torrent spread over the www is), you can have some control over the quality of resources. You can also very efficiently run fuzzy keyword based searches. These things are difficult (if possible) to solve efficiently in DHT systems, and has got nothing in common with swarming. :-)
:-)
As I see it, using 3 different protocols "in one" is simply a matter of solving a very difficult problem by using the right tools at the right spot.
And the math for node selection is rather fuzzy, with both weighted keyword counting, preference, reputation and connection statisticts. Oh, and nodes meed in local ad-hoc networks as well, so physical contact is valuable in TSN... It was never ment to be easy.
There are two more papers (you can read the abstracts on the site) that have been accepted for publication, but due to copyright issues these will not be published until after the conferences. Sorry about that.
Dr.
If you use firefox (or the web interface) to search for a resource, you can press "keep looking" - the daemon will then resend your query every hour and only present new replies. In this way, you can get notified by Instant Message if you use the GAIM plugin (although it is not well documented).
This allows you to do "normal" searches, as in "slackware linux iso", but it also allows you to get notified when a new ISO is out!
It totally works, and you'll get notified less than one hour after the file was released. Only the really sad people reload their Linux distribution's page that often...
Dr.
The idea behind TSN is that you request resources from computers you know and like. This means that if your sysadmin provides the linux kernel, you might think that it is the real one.
.torrent file or a checksum of the file from some other (trusted) source.
If this does not provide enough security, you can of course bypass the system and get the
Dr.
The Socialized.Net does not provide any privacy or encryption. What it does provide is a decentralized way to spread and search for .torrent files. This means that when you search for a resource, your computer ask it's friends for them. This is just like you might do when you want an opinon on a used car. You can call a friend who has a similar car, someone who has had cars of the same brand or someone you know that works in a garage.
:-)
Dr.
It scales wonderfully in the real world, and in theory is now also made available in the digital one.
This search system is based on semantic routing. Basically, your computer gets to know other computers, becoming friends with those with similar interests and agendas.
It should provide a highly efficient and scalable system in which quality of search results can be kept high. With most other P2P networks, searches are performed against ALL resources, which makes it very difficult to rate resources. BitTorrent has managed quite well due to torrents being shared by the owners, or specialized sites that can have a certain control of the quality of resouces.
Dr.
The daemon (which imports bookmarks) also support Internet Explorer out of the box. Also it is likely a matter of minutes to make it work with mozilla. The search plugin is Firefox only, but it only integrates the web interface of the daemon. All browsers can perfectly well use the web interface of the daemon (at http://localhost:8002/LeChuck/). Dr.
Apart from the ease of creating a company software update ftp (apt-get, yeast, swaret, slapt-get, etc), I really think the license and CD administration to be a pain in the Windows admin's butt.
My Windows co-workers often need a CD either because they need new software, or due to their computer requesting a CD due to some function not already installed. Finding the RIGHT CD (they are like 1000 cd's every month, and they are neatly marked in INVISIBLE, but very fancy, writing) is a total pain. Then, there is the issue of which key is used for this one (oh, you used the english version!) really turns this into a nightmare.
Folks running windows run all kinds of different versions of their software. Why, upgrading costs time and money. On my Slackware machines, swaret has done all upgrades for me, totally automatically! Just upgraded one PC from Slackware 9.0 to 10.1 - swaret --upgrade wait for a while (was a 200mhz...) and reboot when all is done. No keys, no CDs, no cost. Totally brilliant!