Re: [Blocks-development] Life Signs

[Michael S. Jr. <bl...@ms...>]

Sorry I didn't see this discussion -- I rebooted mspencer.net...even
remembered to restart the Blocks server...but I forgot to start fetchmail
again!  :(

If you're actually looking to support users with a filesharing service, I
wouldn't recommend Blocks.  IMHO, Blocks has too much security for the
average user -- and security and convenience are a tradeoff.  Most users
won't be OK with the lack of convenience.  Blocks was never really designed
to be a popular filesharing system.

As for Blocks2, I've been keeping a 'filesharing concepts' page for the past
month or so, and forgot to tell this list about it.  http://mspencer.net/fs
I haven't updated in a few weeks...(note to self...write more in that page
once I send this message).  Basically my intent is to borrow ideas from all
of the other successful filesharing programs, mesh the useful ideas
together...once we mesh the ideas together, figure out what extra ideas are
necessary to 'fill the gaps'...and then finalize the design.

As far as large file transport, eDonkey2k (http://www.edonkey2000.org) is
also great for this.  (I have a 40 GB hard disk I've filled up twice over
with unlicensed anime thanks to eDonkey2000.)  It's a Napster-like also, but
the server executable is freely available.  No source is available for any
of this, sadly.  Some people have a problem with the interface...servers are
sometimes hard to find...and the program certainly takes a long time to MD4
hash all the files in the directories you share.  I tried to raise awareness
of deliberate hash collision attacks, where an attacker could chill the
trading of a certain movie or popular file by creating and sharing file
blocks that match the original file's MD4 hash.  MD4, MD5, and RIPE-MD160
aren't too different in protection against random data corruption, but
against deliberate collision attacks, an attack against MD4 seems to take
about 1 minute;  10 hours for MD5;  10 years for RIPE-MD160.  They aren't
interested in changing to a stronger hash until they start seeing
abuse...but I argue...would you ever really see the abuse?

I've matured that web of trust concept:  I believe in 'communities' now --
since that's most likely what will form from a web of trust if you leave
society on its own.  Communities have standards, members,
non-members...certain standards of behavior or resource contribution can be
required by different communities.  With this, anime traders won't have
their pipes and caches filled up with porn...porn traders won't have their
resources filled up with mp3's...etc.

And I'm fantasizing about this really attractive GUI:  the system will
support multiple 'security levels', where security level will be tied
directly to the experience of the user.  Basic security gives you a very
Napster-like interface...and not much more protection than a Napster network
client already gets.  Intermediate security requires that the user think
about their resources and connections in more detail, and allows them to
manage the flow of information to trusted and untrusted parties a bit
better...and the interface reflects this, and enables some of the network
features that aren't obvious to Napster veterans.  Advanced security allows
a technical user to completely bulletproof their filesharing activity, but
requires careful attention and control -- so the interface emphasis should
be on reducing the apparent complexity with reporting and some task-oriented
interfaces to go along with the concept-oriented interfaces that came with
Intermediate.

That is...Advanced is for the security nuts like us...Basic is for the
Napster refugees...and Intermediate is for the people who are exploring and
using some of the extra network, community, and security features.

A friend and I were playing with 'rediscovering' Blocks the other day.  I
ran two nodes on different (LAN-connected) machines, and he ran one over the
internet.  I shared a file on one machine, connected my second client to the
network...saw the file readvertised from his machine, and downloaded it.
(Yes, the file went out over my internet connection from one machine,
through his, and back in my internet connection to my other machine.)  When
the file was finished, though, to my surprise I found that neither my second
node nor his remote node were advertising the file.  Also, when I told my
desktop machine to restart downloading the same file from the same advert
again, it went back out over the network to download the file instead of
saving it to disk immediately from cache.

Weren't these some of the design behaviors intended for Blocks:  automatic
caching and re-sharing of blocks?  That caching is the only way someone can
realistically say that a completely peer-to-peer file distribution service
is efficient -- if everybody along the route is making a copy of the data,
and everybody along the route is reasonably guaranteed to be 'interested' in
the file.

It's great to hear that the list is still alive.

--Spence
bl...@ms...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Blat Froop" <pet...@ho...>
To: <to...@je...>; <blo...@li...>
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 5:01 PM
Subject: Re: [Blocks-development] Life Signs


> Blocks was discontinued primarily because I ran out
> of freetime. I work on Wall St and things can get
> pretty busy here from time to time, not to mention
> I started playing Counterstrike :-) Also, Blocks
> reached a point where it had demonstrated just about
> everything that I set out to show...
>
> * Encrypted anonymous file transfer is feasible.
> * Packet relay networks are feasible and not too slow.
> * Broadcasting queries to everyone is not always
>   necessary and broadcast adverts (and therefore
>   instant and totally anonymous searches) are feasible.
> * Distribution of large files (>100Mb) is practicable
>   in a P2P network. To my knowledge Blocks is the
>   only P2P network which addresses this.
>
> Competing with Napster/GNUtella/Bearshare/etc was
> not one of the original objectives, and there would
> be little academic interest in continuing with the
> current code base. If Blocks were to be continued I
> would suggest that Blocks2 consist of seperate client
> and server components so that custom clients could
> be built in a GNUtella fashion and perhaps integrate
> some of Michaels ideas about Webs-Of-Trust.
>
> Michael is still flying the Blocks flag at
> http://www.mspencer.net/blocks where you can
> find the binaries and the full source code,
> and I think he's still running a public server
> as well.
>
> If you are mathematically inclined you might like
> to check out SNAKE as well which, at one point,
> I was considering integrating with Blocks as an
> authentication mechanism.
> http://www.mspencer.net/snake
>
> ttfn
>
> PG.
>
>
> >From: "Tod D. Ihde" <to...@je...>
> >To: blo...@li...
> >Subject: Re: [Blocks-development] Life Signs
> >Date: Wed, 9 May 2001 10:45:09 -0500
> >
> >Well, that's not good! :(
> >
> >Is/was the source code GPL'ed? Do you know where I could get my grubby
> >little hands on it?
> >
> >It was an interesting project, and one of the 1st I saw that would work
> >cross-platform (Well, Linux & Windows, but that's better than most).
> >
> >Was there a reason why it was discontinued?
> >
> >  Tod.
> >
> >
> >On Mon, May 07, 2001 at 02:33:49AM +0000, Blat Froop wrote:
> > > Hey Tod,
> > >
> > > alas Blocks is no more. Michael is still running a blocks
> > > node at mspenecer.net but the project is no longer in
> > > development. I think itwas an interesting [rpject tho,
> > > and certainly demonstrated that anonymous P2P file
> > > sharing is a definte possibility for the future.
> > >
> > > ttfn
> > >
> > > PG.
> > >
> >
> >--
> >
> >  * All opinions expressed herein belong to Me. Tod D. Ihde. So there. *
> >   *  HTTP://toon.jesus-crispie.com/   HTTP://www.jesus-crispie.com/  *
> >    *      The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at      *
> >     *      seven-thirty in the morning feeling just terrible.      *
> >      *                              -- Jean Kerr                  *
> >
> >_______________________________________________
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