Re: [Blocks-development] Life Signs

[Tod D. I. <to...@je...>]

Well, my users are, umm.. Mostly 2600 subscriber-types. Most of them are
somewhat technically inclined, if not crypto-inclined/aware. They're alreay
suing the freenet server, which is nice, and I wanted to give at least one
other alternative (and Gnutella just sucks bandwidth - there's no way I'll
run a server)

Security is a good thing, convenience is something I can live without. (I've
already received a letter from my upstream's legal department about a user
distributing DeCSS, so anonymity/security is nice - I don't like getting
letters like that).

I'm loading the fs page now, I'll attempt to digest it tonight.

I'll also check eDonkey, as well. Hope they support Linux! :)

I like the "communities" idea, but that creates new problesms - how do you
find new "communities"? Are all communities available from the central
server(s), and you just choose the one(s) you want?

I hate seeing good code (well, functional, which, in my book, means good - I
haven't lokoed at the code, as I said) die.
  Tod.



On Sat, May 12, 2001 at 08:58:25AM -0500, Michael Spencer Jr. wrote:
> 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...

-- 

 * All opinions expressed herein belong to Me. Tod D. Ihde. So there. *   
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