port blocking, throttling, and scrambling

[JackSpratts]

Originally posted by alphabeater

which is easier: knowing a few domains (told to you by friends) and being able to work out their ips and ports from there as a gateway into the network, or having to get both from some kind of host cache (the weak point of gnutella in particular)?

that's right. easier, but not better. host caches (and host catchers) are the weak point of gnutella. introduced just over 2 years ago to make the system more workable for newbies and the less technically inclined, they showed their disadvantage almost immediately when napster got slammed by the court in july 2000. with everyone suddenly checking out gnutella and using the caches with the same hosts as the only way on they knew how, they started clumping nodes in ever-tighter circles. before host caching, users got their addresses from friends, web pages and ircs in an ever-evolving matrix of different hosts that all but guaranteed ideal dispersal. as a result each host was connected to an average 10,000 nodes in a fairly smooth system wide configuration that resembled a land dotted by small cities and townships interconnected by only a few roads. after host caching some cells dropped down to just a few dozen in size. adding to the problem were host catchers, where a list of known hosts is deposited for reference. this created as gene kan said, “permanent instability in the network as nodes log on and connect to hosts they remember, irrespective of the fact that those hosts are often poor choices in terms of capacity and topology”. it gets worse with a robust client that refuses to release them and it's something that needs to be avoided in a next generation p2p.

as for providing true anonymity, with untraceable downloads from untraceable hosts well, that’s like the holy grail in peer-to-peer applications.

actually, it is the holy grail.

it's one of those things you devote your life to finding but never do.

still, a floating ip is as good a place as any to start. we probably have to protect filesharing just long enough for the riaa to give up or congress to heed the will of the people which might be a while (a long while). but i don’t really think it will be forever even if it’s going to feel like it.

- js.