Servent

17Apr07

In general a servent is a peer-to-peer network node, which has the functionalities of both a server and a client. This is a portmanteau derived from the terms server and client, and is a play on the word “servant”. The setup is designed so that each node can upload, download, and usually also route network information, allowing for the creation and maintenance of ad-hoc networks.

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The term originated from the Gnutella lexicon, with Gnutella being the first widespread decentralized peer-to-peer network.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This page was last modified 09:10, 9 April 2007. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

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Comparison of P2P applications

16Apr07

Comparison of P2P applications

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Client-server

15Apr07

Client server is network architecture which separates a client (often an application that uses a graphical user interface) from a server. Each instance of the client software can send requests to a server. Specific types of servers include web servers, application servers, file servers, terminal servers, and mail servers. While their purposes vary somewhat, the basic architecture remains the same.

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Although this idea is applied in a variety of ways, on many different kinds of applications, an easy example to visualize is an internet site. For instance, if you are browsing an online store, your computer and web browser would be considered a client, and the computers, databases, and applications that make up the online store would be considered the server. When your web browser requests a particular page from the online store, the server finds all of the information required to display the article in the database, assembles it into a web page, and sends it back to your web browser for you to look at.

Characteristics of a server:

* Passive (slave)
* Waits for requests
* Upon receipt of requests, processes them and then serves replies

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Characteristics of a client:

* Active (master)
* Sends requests
* Waits for and receives server replies

Servers can be stateless or stateful. A stateless server does not keep any information between requests. A stateful server can remember information between requests. The scope of this information can be global or session-specific. An HTTP server for static HTML pages is an example of a stateless server while Apache Tomcat is an example of a stateful server.

The interaction between client and server is often described using sequence diagrams. Sequence diagrams are standardized in the UML.

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Another type of network architecture is known as a peer-to-peer architecture because each node or instance of the program is both a “client” and a “server” and each has equivalent responsibilities. Both architectures are in wide use.

* 1 Tiered architecture
* 2 Advantages
* 3 Disadvantages
* 4 Addressing
* 5 Examples
* 6 See also

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Tiered architecture

A generic client/server architecture has two types of nodes on the network: clients and servers. As a result, these generic architectures are sometimes referred to as “two-tier” architectures.

Some networks will consist of three different kinds of nodes: client, application servers which process data for the clients, and database servers which store data for the application servers. This configuration is called a three-tier architecture.

The advantage of an n-tier architecture compared with a two-tier architecture (or a three-tier with a two-tier) is that it separates out the processing that occurs to better balance the load on the different servers; it is more scalable. The disadvantages of n-tier architectures are:

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1. It puts more load on the network.
2. It is much more difficult to program and test software than in two-tier architecture because more devices have to communicate to complete a user’s transaction.

Advantages

* All the data are stored at the servers, so it has better security control ability. The server can control access and resource to make sure only let those permitted users access and change data.
* It is more flexible than P2P paradigm for updating the data or other resources.
* There are already many matured technologies designed for C/S paradigm which ensures security, the user-friendliness of the interface, and ease of use.
* Any element of a C/S network can be easily upgraded.

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Disadvantages

* Traffic congestion has always been a problem since the first day of the birth of C/S paradigm. When a large number of clients send requests to the same server at the same time, it might cause a lot of troubles for the server. The more clients there are the more troubles it has. Whereas, P2P network’s bandwidth is made up of every node in the network, the more nodes there are, the better bandwidth it has.
* C/S paradigm does not have as good robustness as P2P network has. When the server is down, clients’ requests cannot be fulfilled. In most of P2P networks, resources are usually located on nodes all over the network. Even if one or a few nodes depart or abandon the downloading; other nodes can still finish the downloading by getting data from the rest of the nodes in the network.
* The software and hardware of a server is usually very strict. A regular personal computer‘s hardware may not be able to serve over a certain amount of clients. Meanwhile, a Windows XP home edition does not even have IIS to work as a server. It needs specific software and hardware to fulfill the job. Of course, it will increase the cost.

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Addressing

Methods of addressing in client server environments can be described as follows

* Machine process addressing; where the address is divided up as follows process@machine. Therefore 56@453 would indicate the process 56 on computer 453
* Name Server; Name servers have an index of all names and addresses of servers in the relevant domain.
* Localization packets; Broadcast messages are sent out to all computers in the distributed system to determine the address of the destination computer
* Trader; A trader is a system that indexes all the services available in a distributed system. A computer requiring a particular service will check with the trading service for the address of a computer providing such a service.

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Examples

Visiting a web site is a good example of Client-Server architecture. The web server serves the webpages to the web browser. Most Internet services are types of servers. Some examples are file servers, DNSs, printer servers, etc.
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* 1 Byzantine failures
* 2 Origin
* 3 Solutions
* 4 See also
* 5 References
* 6 External links

Byzantine failures

A Byzantine failure (or Byzantine fault) is an arbitrary fault that occurs during the execution of an algorithm by a distributed system. It encompasses those faults that are commonly referred to as “crash failures” and “send and omission failures”. When a Byzantine failure has occurred, the system may respond in any unpredictable way, unless it is designed to have Byzantine fault tolerance.

These arbitrary failures may be loosely categorized as follows:

* a failure to take another step in the algorithm, also known as a crash failure;
* a failure to correctly execute a step of the algorithm; and
* arbitrary execution of a step other than the one indicated by the algorithm.

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For example, if the output of one function is the input of another, then small round-off errors in the first function can produce much larger errors in the second. If the second function were fed into a third, the problem could grow even larger, until the values produced are worthless. Another example is in compiling source code. One minor syntactical error early on in the code can produce large numbers of perceived errors later, as the compiler gets out-of-phase with the lexical and syntactic information in the source program.

Steps are taken by processes, the abstractions that execute the algorithms. A faulty process is one that at some point exhibits one of the above failures. A process that is not faulty is correct.

The Byzantine failure assumption models real-world environments in which computers and networks may behave in unexpected ways due to hardware failures, network congestion and disconnection, as well as malicious attacks. Byzantine failure-tolerant algorithms must cope with such failures and still satisfy the specifications of the problems they are designed to solve. Such algorithms are commonly characterized by their resilience t, the number of faulty processes with which an algorithm can cope.

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Many classic agreement problems, such as the Byzantine Generals Problem, have no solution unless t Origin

Byzantine refers to the Byzantine Generals’ Problem, an agreement problem in which generals of the Byzantine Empire’s army must decide unanimously whether or not to attack some enemy army. The problem is complicated by the geographic separation of the generals, who must communicate by sending messengers to each other, and by the presence of traitors amongst the generals. These traitors can act arbitrarily in order to achieve the following aims: trick some generals into attacking; force a decision that is not consistent with the generals’ desires, e.g. forcing an attack when no general wished to attack; or confusing some generals to the point that they are unable to make up their minds. If the traitors succeed in any of these goals, any resulting attack is doomed, as only a concerted effort can result in victory.

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Byzantine fault tolerance can be achieved if the loyal (non-faulty) generals have a unanimous agreement on their strategy. Note that if the source general is correct, all loyal generals must agree upon that value. Otherwise, the choice of strategy agreed upon is irrelevant.

Solutions

Several solutions were originally described by Lamport, Shostak, and Pease in 1982. They began by noting that the Generals Problem can be reduced to solving a “Commander and Lieutenants” problem where Loyal Lieutenants must all act in unison and that their action must correspond to what the Commander ordered in the case that the Commander is Loyal. Roughly speaking, the Generals vote by treating each others’ orders as votes.

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* One solution considers scenarios in which messages may be forged, but which will be Byzantine Fault Tolerant as long as the number of traitorous generals does not equal or exceed one third. The impossibility of dealing with one-third or more traitors ultimately reduces to proving that the 1 Commander + 2 Lieutenants problem cannot be solved if the Commander is traitorous. The reason is, if we have three commanders, A, B, and C, and A is the traitor: when A tells B to attack and C to retreat, and B and C sends messages to each other, forwarding A’s message, neither B nor C can figure out who is the traitor, since it isn’t necessarily A - the other commander could have forged the message purportedly from A. It can be shown that if n is the number of generals in total, and t is the number of traitors in that n, then there are solutions to the problem only when n is greater than or equal to 3 times t + 1.

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* A second solution requires unforgeable signatures (in modern computer systems, this may be achieved through public key cryptography), but maintains Byzantine Fault Tolerance in the presence of an arbitrary number of traitorous generals.

* Also presented is a variation on the first two solutions allowing Byzantine Fault Tolerant behavior in some situations where not all generals can communicate directly with each other.

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The P2P community’s interest in anonymous P2P has increased rapidly in recent years for many reasons, including distrust of government (especially in undemocratic regimes), and digital imprimatur. Such a network may also appeal to those wishing to share copyrighted files illegally - organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America have successfully tracked and threatened to sue users on non-anonymous P2P networks.

* 1 Anonymous P2P as a misnomer
* 2 Uses of anonymous P2P
* 3 Views on the desirability of anonymous P2P
* 4 Consequences of P2P anonymity
* 5 Technical drawbacks of current anonymous P2P networks
* 6 Pseudonymous P2P clients
* 7 Private P2P clients
* 8 Friend-to-friend clients
* 9 References
* 10 See also
o 10.1 Hypothetical or defunct networks
* 11 External links

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Anonymous P2P as a misnomer

The term ‘anonymous P2P’ is somewhat of a misnomer. This is because by design, a network node must be pseudonymous since it must have an “address” at which it can be reached by other peer nodes in order to exchange data. However, usually this address, especially on anonymous networks, does not contain any directly identifiable information. Thus a user is highly, but not completely, anonymous. (In friend-to-friend networks, only your friends can know that your address is used to exchange files.)

When receiving data on any network it must come from somewhere and data must have been requested by someone. The anonymity comes from the idea that no one knows who requested the information as it is difficult - if not impossible - to determine if a user requested the data for himself or simply requested the data on behalf of another user. The end result is that everyone on an anonymous network acts as a universal sender and universal receiver to maintain anonymity.

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If people are only universal receivers and do not send, then one would know that the information they were requesting was for themselves only, removing any plausible deniability that they were the recipients (and consumers) of the information. Thus, in order to remain anonymous, one must ferry information for others on the network.

Uses of anonymous P2P

There are many reasons for use of anonymous P2P technology, most of them are generic to all forms of online anonymity.

P2P users who wish anonymity usually do so as they do not wish to be identified as a publisher (sender), or recipient (receiver), of information. Common reasons include:

* The material or distribution is illegal or incriminating;
* material is legal but socially deplored, embarrassing or problematic in the individual’s social world, or their workplace, religion, or other groups;
* fear of retribution (whistleblowers, unofficial leaks, public interest, activists who do not believe in restrictions on information or knowledge);
* censorship (local, organizational, or governmental level);
* personal privacy preferences (prevention of tracking or datamining activities, desire not to be known to have the information); and
* material and its distribution are both legal, but in high demand. Anonymous P2P may be used to distribute the network load to more efficiently download something like a new free software release.

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A particularly open view on legal and illegal content is the Philosophy of Freenet.

Governments are also interested in anonymous P2P technology. The United States Navy used to finance the development of Free Haven’s onion routing Tor network for politically sensitive negotiations and to aid in hiding the identity of government employees for intelligence gathering work.

Views on the desirability of anonymous P2P

Such technology is desirable and in some cases necessary to ensure freedom of speech and the free flow of information. The claim is that true freedom of speech, especially on controversial subjects, is difficult or impossible unless individuals can speak anonymously. If anonymity is not possible, one could be subjected to threats or reprisals for voicing an unpopular view. This is one reason why voting is done by secret ballot in many democracies.

Anonymous P2P also has value in normal daily communication. When communication is anonymous, the decision to reveal the identity of the communicating parties is left up to the parties involved and is not available to a third party. Often there is no need or desire by the communicating party to be forced to reveal their identity. As a matter of personal freedom, many people do not want processes in place by default which supply unnecessary data. Such data, could also be complied into histories of their activities, and which in their opinion, should be inherently controlled by the caller, not the called.

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For example the current phone system transmits caller ID information by default to the other party. If one is calling to make an inquiry about a product or a time of a movie, the person called has a record of the phone number which called and therefore the name, address and the potential for more information about the person. If one were to walk into a store or up to a person on the street and make a similar inquiry all this personal information would not be involved. Anonymous P2P simply allows for a currently existing activity in “meatspace” to now occur over a communications network.

Some friend-to-friend networks allow you to control what kind of files your friends exchange with your node, in order to stop them from exchanging files that you disapprove of.

A common ideal for anonymous peer to peer networks is to make it impossible to hinder the spread of information. This is typically achieved through encryption, making all kinds of information indistinguishable from each other.

Consequences of P2P anonymity

While anonymous P2P systems may support the protection of unpopular speech, they may also protect illegal activities not protected under free speech, such as fraud, libel, the exchange of illegal pornography, the unauthorized copying of music and films, the planning of criminal activities, distribution of untraceable spam, or denial-of-service attacks. Critics of such systems hold that the advantages offered by such systems do not outweigh these disadvantages, and that other communication channels are already sufficient for unpopular speech.

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Pornography trading is one public reason against anonymous P2P networks, and some believe that the networks aid terrorism. There are several responses to these criticisms. The first is that all information is neutral, and that it is the people acting upon the information that can be good or evil. The second is that perceptions of good and evil change (See moral panic): If anonymous peer-to-peer networks had been around in the 1950s or 1960s, they might have been targeted for carrying information about civil rights or anarchism.

Other issues include:

The neutrality of this article is disputed.
Please see the discussion on the talk page.

* Anonymous spam, and DDoS attacks can be performed.
* It is difficult or impossible to uphold laws that can be broken through P2P networks. This could lead to the breakdown of intellectual property (though see digital rights management and copyright social conflict).
* With anonymous money, it becomes possible to arrange anonymous markets where one can buy and sell just about anything anonymously. Assassination markets would be a potential result of this, for instance. Also note that any transfer of physical goods between two parties could compromise anonymity. Anonymous money could be used to avoid tax collection. That could lead to a movement towards anarcho-capitalism. It is highly unlikely that all transactions could be done anonymously, however, and a government could still rely on property taxes.
* It is easy to publish any information you want without the possibility of having your physical identity revealed. This could be used to openly publish information that governments forbid, like warez, software violating software patents, and child pornography. On the other hand, controversial information which a party wants to keep hidden, such as details about corruption issues, can be anonymously published.

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Technical drawbacks of current anonymous P2P networks

There are a variety of drawbacks in the current design of many anonymous P2P applications and networks. One of the major ones is that it is difficult or impossible to hide the fact you are running such an application, meaning that a government could simply outlaw its use to prevent the free flow of information. In countries where strong encryption is forbidden, governments have easy leverage to forbid anonymous P2P.

These drawbacks do not apply to some Friend-to-friend networks, and to anonymous P2P used on a wireless mesh network: unlike fixed internet connections, users don’t need to sign up with an ISP to participate in such a network, and are only identifiable through their hardware. Even if a government were to outlaw the use of wireless P2P software, it would be difficult to enforce such a ban without a considerable infringement of personal freedoms. Alternatively, the government could outlaw the purchase of the wireless hardware itself, or require every wireless device to be registered under the owner’s name. Protocols for wireless mesh networks are OLSR and the follow up protocol B.A.T.M.A.N., which is designed for decentralized auto-ip assignment.

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Pseudonymous P2P clients

* ANts P2P is a P2P file sharing system which anonymizes and encrypts traffic, and supports HTTP publishing
* Azureus, a BitTorrent client with the option of using I2P or Tor (open source, written in Java)
* Entropy - a Freenet alternative
* Freenet - a censorship-resistant distributed file system for anonymous publishing (open source, written in Java)
* GNUnet - an anonymizing file sharing application
* I2P - an anonymizing network layer upon which applications can be built (open source, written in Java)
* i2phex - a Gnutella client which communicates anonymously through I2P
* Marabunta - an anonymous distributed P2P network which uses only UDP
* MUTE - an anonymizing file sharing client. MFC Mute, Kommute and Napshare are alternative clients
* Nodezilla - an anonymizing, closed source network layer upon which applications can be built (written in C++ and Java)
* Rodi - a file sharing client which allows for a low degree of anonymity
* RShare - a file sharing system which anonymizes and encrypts the traffic
* Share - the successor to Winny; the biggest file sharing network in Japan
* Tor - While Tor is not a P2P client itself, it provides a method for other P2P programs to become anonymous. It is also one of the larger research projects for anonymous networks.
* Winny - was very popular in Japan (freeware, written in C++ for Windows)

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Private P2P clients

Private P2P networks are P2P networks that only allow some mutually trusted computers to share files. The functionality is similar to a group of private FTP servers, but the user interface is the same as most of the other P2P programs.

* Allpeers - Search in buddies
* Cspace - encrypted and serverless instant messenger
* GigaTribe - a free P2P file sharing system which anonymizes and encrypts exchanged data; no limit to sizes of folders or files that are exchanged.
* PowerFolder - Private and Secure Filesharing with friends and colleges over the internet or LAN.

Friend-to-friend clients

Main article: Friend-to-friend

A Friend-to-friend network is not just a group of private FTP servers. Your F2F node can automatically forward a file (or a request for a file) anonymously between two of your friends. When forwarding a file or a request between two friends, your node doesn’t tell any of them who is the other and what is the other address. Then these friends’ nodes can in turn forward anonymously this same file (or request) to several of their own friends and so on. Thus F2F networks can grow in size without compromising the users’ anonymity.

* Freenet from 0.7 up
* GNUnet with its “F2F topology” option
* Turtle F2F
* WASTE

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References

1. ^ Watters, P.A., Martin, F. & Stripf, S. (2005). Visual steganalysis of LSB-encoded natural images. 3rd IEEE International Conference on Information Technology and Applications, Sydney, Australia.

Hypothetical or defunct networks

* Crowds - Reiter and Rubin’s system for “blending into a crowd”
* Invisible IRC Project - anonymous IRC.
* Infrastructure for Resilient Internet Systems
* Mnet - a distributed file system.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This page was last modified 09:10, 9 April 2007.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

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Ambient network

13Apr07

Ambient Networks is a network integration solution to the modern-day problems of switching from one network to the other in order to keep in contact with the outside world. This project aims to develop a network software-driven infrastructure that will run on top of all current or future network physical infrastructures to provide a way for devices to connect to each other, and through each other to the outside world.

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The concept of Ambient Networks comes from the IST Ambient Network project, which is a research project sponsored by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6).

* 1 The Ambient Networks Project
* 2 Interfaces and their use
* 3 ACS Functional Entities
* 4 Example Situation
* 5 External links

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The Ambient Networks Project

Ambient Networks is a large-scale collaborative project within the European Union’s Sixth Framework Program that investigates future communications systems beyond today’s fixed and 3rd generation mobile networks. It is part of the Wireless World Initiative. The project works at a new concept called Ambient Networking, to provide suitable mobile networking technology for the future mobile and wireless communications environment. Ambient Networks aims to provide a unified networking concept that can adapt to the very heterogeneous environment of different radio technologies and service and network environments. Special focus is put on facilitating both competition and cooperation of various market players by defining interfaces, which allow the instant negotiation of agreements. This approach goes clearly beyond interworking of well-defined protocols and is expected to have a long-term effect on the business landscape in the Wireless World. Central to the project is the concept of composition of networks, which is an approach to address the dynamic nature of the target environment. The approach is based on an open framework for network control functionality, which can be extended with new capabilities as well as operating over existing connectivity infrastructure.

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* Phase 1 of the project (2004-2005) has laid the conceptual foundations. The Deliverable D1-5 “Ambient Networks Framework Architecture” summarizes the work from phase 1 and provides links to other relevant material. (dead link)
* Ambient Networks Phase 2 (2006-2007) focuses on validation aspects. One key result of phase 2 is an integrated prototype that will be used to study the feasibility of the Ambient Networks concept for a number of typical network scenarios. The ACS prototype will be used to iteratively test the components developed by the project in a real implementation. In parallel, the top-down work is being continued which will lead to a refined System Specification. Furthermore, standardization of the composition concept is addressed in 3GPP.

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Interfaces and their use

The ACS (Ambient Control Space) is the internal of an Ambient Network. It has the functions that can be accessed and it is in full control of the resources of the network. The Ambient Networks infrasturcture does not deal with nodes, instead it deals with networks, though at the beginning, all the “networks” might only consist of just one node: these “networks” need to merge in order to form a network in the original sense of the word. A composition establishment consists of the negotiation and then the realization of a Composition Agreement. This merging can happen be fully automatic. The decision to merge or not is decided using pre-configured policies.

There are three interfaces present to communicate with an ACS. These are:

* ANI: Ambient Network Interface. If a network wants to join in, it has to do so through this interface.
* ASI: Ambient Service Interface. If a function needs to be accessed inside the ACS, this Interface is used.
* ARI: Ambient Resource Interface. If a resource inside a network needs to be accessed (e.g. the volume of the traffic), this interface is used.

Interfaces are used in order to hide the internal structures of the underlying network.

If two networks meet, and decide to merge, a new ACS will be formed of the two (though the two networks will have their own ACS along with the interfaces inside this global, new ACS). The newly composed ACS will of course have its own ANI, ASI and ARI, and will use these interfaces in order to merge with other Ambient Networks. Other options for composition are to not merge the two Ambient Networks (Network Interworking) or to establish a new virtual ACS that exercises joint control over a given set of shared resources (Control Sharing).

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ACS Functional Entities

Functions are divided into Functional Entities (FEs). The ACS provides a flexible and extensible framework to run these FEs as a distributed system. Examples are

* Composition Functional Entity: Controlling composition of ANs
* Bearer Management FEs
* Overlay Management FEs

More information on FEs is contained in the Ambient Networks Framework Architecture.

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Example Situation

Alice has a PAN, a Personal Area Network on her body: she has a Bluetooth enabled PDA, mobile phone and laptop that she is carrying, and are all currently turned on, and forming a network. Her laptop also has the ability to connect using an available WLAN, and her mobile phone has the ability to connect through GPRS, though GPRS is slower and much more costly for Alice to use. She is now on the move, and her laptop is downloading her emails using the GPRS connection on the mobile:

Laptop -> (Bluetooth) -> Mobile -> (GPRS) -> Mobile phone network

While walking, she passes into an area covered by a free WLAN hotspot: Her PAN now immediately starts to initiate a connection with the hotspot. This is called “merging” of the networks (that of the hotspot and that of her PAN). Once this merging is complete, the downloading of her email continues totally unaffected, but instead of using the expensive and slow GPRS connection, it is now using the newly established WLAN connection. If she now wants to browse the web with her PDA, the PDA will also use the WLAN connection of the laptop:

PDA-> (bluetooth) -> Laptop-> (WLAN) -> Hotspot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This page was last modified 09:10, 9 April 2007.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

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Ad hoc

12Apr07

Ad hoc is a Latin phrase which means “for this [purpose]“. It generally signifies a solution that has been custom designed for a specific problem, is non-generalizable and cannot be adapted to other purposes. Examples include a tailor-made suit, a handcrafted network protocol or a purpose-specific equation. Ad hoc can also have connotations of a makeshift solution, inadequate planning or improvised events.

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* 1 Ad hoc committee
* 2 Ad hoc hypothesis
* 3 Ad hoc pronunciation
* 4 See also
* 5 External Links

Ad hoc committee

Ad hoc is also used to describe a particular type of committee; one which is formed to deal with a particular issue, and disbanded after the issue is resolved. These committees provide stop gap or temporary measures to solve problems that are not resolved by ordinary processes of the organization to which the committee belongs. The GATT, for example, was controlled by an ad-hoc committee before the WTO was established.

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Ad hoc hypothesis

In philosophy and science, ad hoc often means the addition of corollary hypotheses or adjustment to a philosophical or scientific theory to save the theory from being falsified by compensating for anomalies not anticipated by the theory in its unmodified form. Philosophers and scientists are often suspicious or skeptical of theories that rely on continual, inelegant ad hoc adjustments, and ad hoc hypotheses are often a characteristic of pseudoscientific subjects. See Skeptic’s Dictionary: Ad hoc hypothesis. Much of scientific understanding relies on the modification of existing hypotheses or theories, but these are distinguished from ad hoc hypotheses in that the anomalies being explained propose a new means of being falsified.

An interesting example of an ad hoc hypothesis is Albert Einstein’s addition of the cosmological constant to relativity in order to allow a steady-state universe. Although he later referred to it as his greatest mistake, it has been found to correspond quite well to the theories of dark energy.

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Ad hoc pronunciation

Many reference works employ ad hoc pronunciation schemas as a way of indicating how words are pronounced. These are especially popular in U.S. published works, such as the Merriam-Webster dictionary. An example of an ad hoc pronunciation would be “DIK-shuh-nair-ee”, where the capitalization shows which syllable is stressed. This is in contrast to systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet, which attempt to put pronunciation schemas on a scientific footing.

Critics of ad hoc schemes point out that such schemas are inherently self-referential, since they rely on the ability of the reader to already know how a large number of words are commonly pronounced. In addition, such schemas often assume a certain language, dialect or accent on the part of the reader, and due to its popularity in the US, this is very often a US accent.

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As its name suggests, there is no “standard” ad hoc schema, and so examples will vary considerably according to the publication’s whim. In contrast, the IPA seeks to base pronunciation solely on vocal tract configurations and on the phonemes produced, though very often neo-common simple words are used to illustrate how the IPA applies in a specific language.

Proponents of ad hoc claim that it is much easier to use than IPA, though will often concur that this is usually only because the pronunciation is already known.

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eMule

11Apr07

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In computing, eMule is a peer to peer file sharing application that works with the EDonkey network and has more features than clients on this network. eMule is open source software released under the GNU General Public License. It runs on the Microsoft Windows operating systems and supports 25 languages.

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We’ll put Linux on all…

10Apr07

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Twas the night before deadline when all of us groused,
Not a server was stirring, not even the mouse;
‘Cause Windows was hung with a bright blue screen glare,
In need of a service pack that wasn’t there.

vision was blurring, my face turning red,
While visions of sledgehammers danced in my head.
I put down the manual, gave it a slap.
I just can’t believe that we paid for this crap.

Then out of my trance I arose with a clatter,
I sprang from my chair to be done with the matter.
Away to the garbage I ran like a flash,
And dropped Windows disks in the festering trash.

The goon who created this product did show
That his knowledge of software had come from below.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But an OS that’s free and it’s free as in beer.

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With its modular drivers so stable and quick,
I knew in a moment that Linux was slick.
More vapid than DOS was the manager’s claim!
But I whistled and shouted and called and exclaimed;

“No Crashes! No Errors! No Fussin’ and Fixin’!
No problems as stupid as DLL mixin’!”
So I bounced off the porch and I bounced off the wall.
No crash today, crash today, crash today! Haw!!

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Thanks to Samba the OS could run on the sly
Then the manager called me and said to stop by.
So up to the manager’s office I flew,
With a fist full of disks and a manual, too.

Just when I was thinking I’d give him my proof,
He gave me some news in a manner aloof.
As I drew back the disks and was turning around,
My hope for the future came tumbling down.

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He was dressed in all gray, from his head to his foot,
And the points in his hair o’er his ears stood a foot;
A budget immense he had put on a stack,
And he looked like a glutton done eating a snack.

His eyes, how they squinted! His pimples, how scary!
His breath was like Marlboros, his sneer made me wary.
His droll little brain was strung tight like a bow,
But he’d gotten the numbers he’d wanted, you know.

Getting funds for the year was just like pulling teeth,
And the company rarely so much did bequeath.
When you grow a department and don’t want to end it,
You beg money for Windows in order to spend it.

torrentbg.org

So I knew he’d put Linux plans up on the shelf,
And I’d have to run Windows in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but he showed me his work,
And he told me this year would be chock-full of perks.
And bringing this informal meeting to close,
He said no one’s hurt if there’s no one who knows.
Buy Cheap Things…
He tossed me a disk with the speed of a missile,
With a wink of an eye, and beginning to whistle.
And I heard him exclaim, as he put fears to rest,
“We’ll put Linux on all and we’ll pocket the rest.”

Filed under: Lyrics, Music | Closed

File sharing

10Apr07

File sharing is the practice of making files available for other users to download over the Internet and smaller networks. Usually file sharing follows the peer-to-peer (P2P) model, where the files are stored on and served by personal computers of the users. Most people who engage in file sharing are also downloading files that other users share. Sometimes these two activities are linked together. P2P file sharing is distinct from file trading in that downloading files from a P2P network does not require uploading, although some networks either provide incentives for uploading such as credits or force the sharing of files being currently downloaded.

Proceed for Torrents…

* 1 The first P2P-Generation: Server-Client
o 1.1 Web Based Sharing
o 1.2 Server-client-protocols
* 2 The second P2P-Generation: Decentralization
o 2.1 Multi-Network-Clients
o 2.2 eDonkey2000 - Network
o 2.3 Gnutella - Network
o 2.4 BitTorrent - Network
o 2.5 FastTrack - Network
o 2.6 Further networks or clients
* 3 The third P2P-Generation: non-direct and encrypted
o 3.1 Waste network
o 3.2 Ants network
o 3.3 Mute network
o 3.4 I2P network
o 3.5 Turtle-Network (F2F Instant Messenger)
o 3.6 other networks or clients
* 4 The fourth P2P-Generation: Streams over P2P
o 4.1 General
o 4.2 Tree structure
o 4.3 Swarm structure such as Bittorrent
* 5 Copyright issues
* 6 Legal controversy
o 6.1 Important Cases
* 7 Attacks on peer-to-peer networks
* 8 Risks
* 9 See also
* 10 References
* 11 Further reading
* 12 External links

Torrents at Torentu

The first P2P-Generation: Server-Client

The first generation of peer-to-peer file sharing networks had a centralized file list. Ultimately, Napster was held liable even if it used the most advanced technology available to identify works copyright holders had asked it to block, because no technology that can identify works with 100% certainty exists or can exist. Napster still exists today, but as a subsidiary of Roxio after they bought the name during the original Napster’s bankruptcy phase, continues to operate today, and is now legally distributing music under a subscription-based model.

In the centralized peer-to-peer model, a user would send a search to the centralized server of what they were looking for, that is, a song, video, or movie. The server then sends back a list of which peers have the data and facilitates the connection and download.

The first file sharing programs marked themselves by inquiries to a server, either the data to the Download held ready or in appropriate different Peers and so-called Nodes further-obtained, so that one could download there. Best example was Napster (today a Payment offerer) or eDonkey2000 in the server version (today likewise with Overnet and KAD - network decentralized).

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Web Based Sharing

Webhosting for file sharing is also used. Since it is here very possible to exchange privately and in the very small communities also unpopular files can be distributed very quickly and efficiently. Web hosters are independent from each other, therefore contents are not distributed further. Other terms for this are one-click hosting and web based sharing.

Server-client-protocols

* Audiogalaxy - Service ended in the middle of 2002.
* Direct Connect
* Napster - Closed in its original form in July 2001. Now it’s a paid for service.
* Scour Exchange - The second exchange network after Napster. No longer exists.
* Soulseek - Still popular today despite being relatively old, with more than 120,000 users online at any time.
* TinyP2P - 15 lines Python - SOURCE code
* WinMX - The original servers were switched off in September 2005, but servers from other companies have taken over. Version 3.54 beta 4 is available from http://www.winmxgroup.com/

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The second P2P-Generation: Decentralization

After Napster encountered legal troubles, Justin Frankel of Nullsoft set out to create a network without a central index server, and Gnutella was the result. Unfortunately, the Gnutella model of all nodes being equal quickly died from bottlenecks as the network grew from incoming Napster refugees. FastTrack solved this problem by having some nodes be ‘more equal than others’.

By electing some higher capacity nodes to be indexing nodes, with lower capacity nodes branching off from them, FastTrack allowed for a network that could scale to a much larger size. Gnutella quickly adopted this model, and most current peer-to-peer networks implement this design, as it allows for large and efficient networks without central servers.

Also included in the second generation are distributed hash tables (DHTs), which help solve the scalability problem by electing various nodes to index certain hashes (which are used to identify files), allowing for fast and efficient searching for any instances of a file on the network. This is not without drawbacks; perhaps most significantly, DHTs do not directly support keyword searching (as opposed to exact-match searching).

The best examples are Gnutella, Kazaa or eMule with Kademlia, whereby Kazaa has still a central server for logging in. eDonkey2000/Overnet, Gnutella, FastTrack and Ares Galaxy have summed up approx. 10.3 million users (as of April 2006, according to slyck.com). This number not necessarily corresponds to the actual number of persons who use these networks; it must be assumed that some use multiple clients for different networks. The number of BitTorrent users cannot be measured directly, however, there should be more users than of eDonkey2000 and that’s why providers try to restrict the BitTorrent traffic first. One must also understand that number of users indicated by software applies only to users which are active at this moment.

Trackerless Downloads

Multi-Network-Clients

* giFT
* Hydranode
* MLDonkey
* Morpheus
* Shareaza
* Lphant

Gnutella - Network

* Acquisition - Mac OS X, closed source (Shareware)
* BearShare - Microsoft Windows, closed source, development stopped in 2005,
* Cabos - Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, based on LimeWire and Acquisition
* FileScope - .NET, open source (GPL), C#, also supports other networks
* FrostWire - open source (GPL), Java, based on LimeWire
* Gnotella - development stopped in 2001
* Gnucleus - Microsoft Windows, open source (GPL), C++, supports also Gnutella2
* Gtk-gnutella - Unix, open source (GPL), C
* I2Phex
* LimeWire - open source (GPL), Java
* MLDonkey - open source (GPL), Objective Caml, also supports other networks
* Morpheus - Microsoft Windows, closed source, also supports other networks
* Mutella - open source
* Phex - open source (GPL), Java
* Qtella - open source (GPL), development stopped in May 2004
* Shareaza - Microsoft Windows, open source, also supports other networks
* Symella - Symbian S60 v3, open source implementation for mobile platforms
* Swapper.NET - .NET, closed source, C#, development stopped in July 2004
* XoloX - contains adware/spyware

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BitTorrent - Network

* Azureus - Multi-Platform Popular Client, pioneering the Zudeo service.
* BitComet - Windows, closed source, C++
* Shareaza - Windows, open source (GPL), C++, also supports Gnutella2, Gnutella1, eDonkey2000/eMule
* µTorrent - Windows, closed source, C++, light-weight client
* ABC - Windows, open source (GPL), Python
* Deluge (gTorrent) - GTK+, open source, Python
* eXeem - Stopped development in August 2005, contains adware
* KTorrent - KDE, open source (GPL)
* MLDonkey - platform-independent, open source (GPL), Objective Caml, also supports eDonkey2000/eMule, Overnet, Emule Kademlia, FTP, Gnutella1, Gnutella2
* Opera starting from version 9.0
* Rufus - Windows, open source, Python
* Tomato Torrent - Mac OS X, open source, BSD license
* Xtorrent - Mac OS X
* Transmission - GTK+, platform-independent, open source (MIT License)
* Star Torrent - .NET, C#
* SymTorrent - open source implementation for mobile platforms
* Tribler - platform-independent, open source (LGPL), Python
* BitRocket - Mac OS X (native), open source (BSD license
* BitZip - Windows, closed source, works with torrent & .bt files.

See also: Comparison of BitTorrent software

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FastTrack - Network

* Apollon - KDE, open source (GPL), based on Poisoned, also supports other networks
* Grokster - development stopped in June 2005
* Kazaa - official client, contains adware/spyware
* Kazaa Lite - derivative of Kazaa, contain no or less adware/spyware
* Mammoth - open source, development stopped in January 2004
* MLDonkey

Further networks or clients

* aimini
* Applejuice
* Ares Galaxy - nearly TRACKs - similar network
* Coral Content Distribution Network
* Darknet
* DC++ - Direct Connect client
* Dijjer
* Direct Connect
* Drumbeat - Mac OS X, OpenNAP client
* iMesh - since October of 2005 Payment offerers
* Jubster - client, supported networks: EDonkey2000, Gnutella, nearly TRACKs and further, contains adware
* JXTA
* Lopster - OpenNAP client
* Nicotine - Soulseek client
* OpenNap - Napster clone
* Peanuts - client, supported networks: Ares Galaxy, nearly TRACKs, Gnutella and further
* PowerFolder - An easy, secure and private file sharing program
* Piolet - client, successor of Blubster, network: MANOLITO P2P network (MP2PN)
* RevConnect - Enhanced DC++
* SlavaNap - Napster clone
* TekNap - OpenNAP client
* XDCC

torrentbg.org

The third P2P-Generation: non-direct and encrypted

The third generation of peer-to-peer networks are those that have anonymity features built in. Examples of anonymous networks are ANts P2P, RShare, Freenet, I2P, GNUnet and Entropy.

A degree of anonymity is realized by routing traffic through other users clients, which have the function of network nodes.This makes it harder for someone to identify who is downloading or who is offering files. Most of these programs also have strong encryption to resist traffic sniffing.

Friend-to-friend networks only allow already known users (also known as “friends”) to connect to your computer, then each node can forward requests and files anonymously between its own “friends” nodes.

Third generation networks have not reached mass usage for file sharing because most current implementations incur too much overhead in their anonymity features, making them slow or hard to use.

torentu.com

An example might be: Petra gives a file to Oliver, then Oliver gives the file to Anna. Petra and Anna thus never become acquainted and thus are protected. Virtual IP addresses are also often used, further obfuscating the user’s network location. Additionally all transfers are encrypted, so that even the network administrators cannot see what was sent to whom. Example software includes WASTE, JetiANts, Tor and I2P. These clients differ greatly in their goals and implementation. WASTE is designed only for small groups and may therefore be considered Darknet, ANts and I2P are public Peer to Peer systems, with anonymization provided exclusively by routing reach.

Waste network

* WASTE
* kDrive similar to WASTE, development stopped at present

Ants network

* ANts P2P
* JetiANts
* Hornet

tracktorrents.com

Mute network

* MUTE
* NapShare
* Kommute - KDE
* MFC MUTE

I2P network

* I2P
* I2Phex - Gnutella over I2P
* Azureus - has I2P plugin

Turtle-Network (F2F Instant Messenger)

* Retroshare_Instant_Messenger
* Turtle F2F - Turtle for privacy of filesharing
* giFT - File-Sharing Application for Turtle
* Apollon - giFT-Frontend

other networks or clients

* Freenet
* GigaTribe - successor of TribalWeb software - [1]
* GNUnet
* Nodezilla
* OFF System - so-called Brightnet [2]
* PowerFolder - An easy, secure and private file sharing program
* Proxyshare - ISP cache/proxyserver
* RShare
* Share - successor of WinNY
* Tor
* WinNY - development stopped in November 2003
* Zultrax - Client, supported networks: ZEPP and Gnutella

tracktorrent.com

The fourth P2P-Generation: Streams over P2P

Apart from the traditional file sharing there are services that send streams instead of files over a P2P network. Thus one can hear radio and watch television without any server involved — the streaming media is distributed over a P2P network. It is important that instead of a treelike network structure, a swarming technology known from BitTorrent is used. Best examples are Peercast, Cybersky and demo TV.

General

* Broadcatching
* Podcasting

Tree structure

* Peercast
* CoolStreaming

Swarm structure such as Bittorrent

* TVUPlayer
* Joost
* PPLive
* Icecast
* PeerCast
* PPStream
* SopCast
* MediaBlog
* Zudeo

trackerless.com

Copyright issues

File sharing (such as with the Gnutella and Napster networks) grew in popularity with the proliferation of high speed Internet connections, relatively small file size and high-quality MP3 audio format. Although file sharing is a legal technology with legal uses, many users use it to download and upload copyrighted materials without permission, which can be copyright infringement if done without authorization for improper purposes. This has led to attacks against file sharing in general from many copyright owners.

There has been great discussion over perceived and actual legal issues surrounding file sharing. In circumstances where trading partners are in different countries with different legal codes, there are significant problems to contend with. What if a person in Canada wishes to share a piece of source code which, if compiled, has encryption capabilities? In some countries, a citizen may not request or receive such information without special permission.

Throughout the early 2000s, the entire file-sharing community has been in a state of flux. In the year 2000, there was speculation over how seriously record companies and the Recording Industry Association of America would strike the file-sharing community because of its limits compared to more traditional forms of media [3]. However, the communities suffered strain as record companies and the RIAA tried to shut down as much of it as possible. Even though they have forced Napster and Grokster into cooperating against copyright violations, they are fighting an uphill battle since the community has flourished and produced many different clients based on several different underlying protocols.

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The third generation of P2P protocols, such as Freenet, are not as dependent as Napster is on a central server; and as they encrypt the shared data, it is much harder to shut down these systems through court actions. Another attempt (used by the maintainers of KaZaA) is to change the company’s organization or country of origin so that it is impossible or useless to attack it legally. To date, file sharing in Canada is sometimes legal (unauthorized downloading of music is permitted, for example) , though not completely so[4]. The uphill battle also extends to the legal actions taken by the RIAA and motion picture counterpart MPAA against individuals using file-sharing programs to distribute material protected by copyright. Ambiguity in the interpretation of copyright law has been a major factor contributing the lack of successful enforcement by the Intellectual Property owners. In Electra v. Perez for example, the Court ruled that the act of making such files available for distribution equated to infringement of the works involved. In the more recent UMG v. Lindor, Judge David G. Trager ruled that the RIAA would be required to prove that actual distribution (sharing) occurred. Should this case go to trial in 2007, it will likely set a precedent for further RIAA and MPAA actions.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a donor-supported group which seeks to protect and expand digital rights. Its activities include litigation, political lobbying, and public awareness campaigns. The EFF has vocally opposed the RIAA in its pursuit of lawsuits against users of file sharing applications and supported defendants in these cases. The foundation promotes the legalization of peer-to-peer sharing of copyrighted materials and alternative methods to provide compensation to copyright holders.[1]

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Legal controversy

Further information: EU Copyright Directive

Under US law “the Betamax decision” (Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.), case holds that copying “technologies” are not inherently illegal, if substantial non-infringing use can be made of them. This decision, predating the widespread use of the Internet applies to most data networks, including peer-to-peer networks, since distribution of correctly licensed files can be performed. These non-infringing uses include sending open source software, public domain files and out of copyright works. Other jurisdictions tend to view the situation in somewhat similar ways.

In practice, many of the files shared on peer-to-peer networks are copies of copyrighted popular music and movies. Sharing of these copies among strangers is illegal in most jurisdictions. This has led many observers, including most media companies and some peer-to-peer critics, to conclude that the networks themselves pose grave threats to the established distribution model. The research that attempts to measure actual monetary loss has been somewhat equivocal. Whilst on paper the existence of these networks results in large losses, the actual income does not seem to have changed much since these networks started up. Whether the threat is real or not, both the RIAA and the MPAA now spend large amounts of money attempting to lobby lawmakers for the creation of new laws, and some copyright owners pay companies to help legally challenge users engaging in illegal sharing of their material.

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In spite of the Betamax decision, peer-to-peer networks themselves have been targeted by the representatives of those artists and organizations who license their creative works, including industry trade organizations such as the RIAA and MPAA as a potential threat. The Napster service was shut down by an RIAA lawsuit.

In A&M Records v. Napster, 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001), the court found that Napster was both vicariously and contributorily liable for the copyright infringement its users were engaged in. Vicarious liability in these types of cases extends to a provider who financially benefits from the infringement committed by its users while having the ability to police that infringement but has failed to do so. The court found ample evidence that Napster’s future revenue is directly dependent upon “increases in userbase.” It also found that Napster could have done more than it claimed with regards to restricting users from sharing copyrighted material. Later on in the opinion, the famous peer-to-peer provider was also found contributorily liable. It knew of the infringing use that Napster could and did have, in a medium where the software provided essential access. The RIAA could have sued individual users at the time for violating federal law, but thought it more prudent to shut down the means by which those users shared music.

Free Torrent Downloads

Napster’s use of a central server distinguishes it, on its facts, from the next generation peer-to-peer technology, in which the communication of files is truly “peer to peer.” Therefore, additional litigation was needed to determine the legality of their uses.

In MGM v. Grokster, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which had granted a summary judgment of dismissal, and held that there were factual issues concerning whether the defendant p2p software providers had, or had not, encouraged their users to infringe copyrights. If they had done so, they could be held liable for secondary copyright infringement.

Many Torrent Links

The main point of the Grokster holding was about “inducement.” “The classic case of direct evidence of unlawful purpose occurs when one induces commission of infringement by another, or “entic[es] or persuad[es] another” to infringe, Black’s Law Dictionary 790 (8th ed. 2004), as by advertising. Thus at common law a copyright or patent defendant who “not only expected but invoked [infringing use] by advertisement” was liable for infringement …” The court noted that simply providing the material was not enough. While the decision did not find liability, it simply laid out the groundwork for how the law should be interpreted.

A little over a year later, the RIAA initiated the first major post-Grokster case, Arista v. Limewire, in Manhattan federal court. Lime Wire has counterclaimed in that suit, charging the major record companies with antitrust violations and other misconduct.”Lime Wire Sues RIAA for Antitrust Violations”

Shortly thereafter, the lower court judge in Grokster found one of the defendants, Streamcast, the maker of Morpheus, to be liable under the standards enunciated by the Supreme Court. “Streamcast Held Liable for Copyright Infringement in MGM v. Grokster, Round 2″ (”Recording Industry vs. The People”)

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The foregoing cases dealt with ’secondary liability’ under the Copyright Act, i.e. whether and when the p2p network software providers can be held liable for ‘primary’ infringement by their customers. Meanwhile, the underlying question of what uses those customers can make of p2p software without committing a primary infringement is a matter just beginning to be explored, most notably in litigations brought by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) against p2p customers.

In Elektra v. Barker[2], an RIAA case against Tenise Barker, a Bronx nursing student, Ms. Barker moved to dismiss the complaint, contending, among other things, that the RIAA’s allegation of “making available” did not state any known claim under the Copyright Act.[3][4]. The RIAA countered with the argument that “making available” is a copyright infringement, even though the language does not appear in the Act.[5]. Thereafter, several amicus curiae were permitted to file briefs in the case, including the MPAA, which agreed[6] with the RIAA’s argument, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the U.S. Internet Industry Association (USIIA), and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which agreed with Ms. Barker.[7][8] The US Department of Justice submitted a brief refuting one of the arguments made by EFF,[9] but did not take any position on the RIAA’s “making available” argument[10]. The Elektra v. Barker case was argued before Judge Kenneth M. Karas in Manhattan federal court on January 26, 2007, and as of this writing is awaiting decision.

A Really Useful Torrent Site

Anonymous peer-to-peer networks allow for distribution of material - legal or not - with little or no legal accountability across a wide variety of jurisdictions. Many profess that this will lead to greater or easier trading of illegal material and even (as some suggest) facilitate terrorism, and call for its regulation on those grounds [11]. Others counter that the presumption of innocence must apply, and that non peer-to-peer technologies like e-mail (for which there are also anonymizing services), have similar capabilities. Further, the potential for illegal uses should not prevent the technology from being used for legal purposes.

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In the European Union (EU), the 2001 EU Copyright directive, which implemented the 1996 WIPO treaty (”World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty”), prohibits peer-to-peer, claiming it is a violation of the directive. However, not all European member states have implemented the directive in national legislation. Notably, on December 22, 2005, after discussing the EU directive, the French parliament passed two amendments legalizing the exchange of copies on the internet for private use. In a later proceeding, the French government withdrew the article in question and made illegal any p2p client obviously aimed at sharing copyrighted material. The term “obviously” was not defined. The project of law (called DADVSI) has still to be discussed by the French senate and, if the decision differs too much from the Parliament’s, it will be debated on second lecture back at the Parliament (Assemblée Nationale).

Interestingly, Canada stands out by authorizing, at least until the projected copyright reform, downloads on peer-to-peer networks under the “private copying” exception.

Important Cases

* US law
o Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios (The Betamax decision)
o MGM v. Grokster

Attacks on peer-to-peer networks

Many peer-to-peer networks are under constant attack by people with a variety of motives.

Examples include:

* poisoning attacks (e.g. providing files whose contents are different from the description)
* polluting attacks (e.g. inserting “bad” chunks/packets into an otherwise valid file on the network)
* defection attacks (users or software that make use of the network without contributing resources to it)
* insertion of viruses to carried data (e.g. downloaded or carried files may be infected with viruses or other malware)
* malware in the peer-to-peer network software itself (e.g. distributed software may contain spyware)
* denial of service attacks (attacks that may make the network run very slowly or break completely)
* filtering (network operators may attempt to prevent peer-to-peer network data from being carried)
* identity attacks (e.g. tracking down the users of the network and harassing or legally attacking them)
* spamming (e.g. sending unsolicited information across the network- not necessarily as a denial of service attack)

Risks

Some file sharing software comes bundled with malware such as spyware or adware. Sometimes this malware remains installed on the system even if the original file sharing software is removed, and can be very difficult to eliminate. In many cases such malware can interfere with the correct operation of web browsers, anti-virus software, anti-spyware and software firewalls, and can cause degraded performance on affected systems. Such malware is typically bundled with proprietary software, and not those in open source. In most cases it is possible to easily remove adware and spyware by running spyware removal programs. Such programs can often remove malware without influencing the functionality of the file sharing software.

Some are also concerned about the use of file sharing systems to distribute child pornography, inflammatory literature, and illegal or unpopular material. Novice users may find it difficult to obtain information on which networks are “safe” for them to use. However, experienced users know that there is only one way to get in contact with such material: You have to actively search for it.[12] Therefore they recommend not to search for illegal material.

References

1. ^ Electronic Frontier Foundation. Making P2P Pay Artists. Retrieved on April 25, 2006.
2. ^ Elektra v. Barker
3. ^ Elektra v. Barker, Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Dismiss Complaint
4. ^ Reply Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Dismiss Complaint
5. ^ Elektra v. Barker, Plaintiffs’ Memorandum of Law in Opposition to Dismissal Motion
6. ^ Amicus Curiae brief of MPAA
7. ^ Amicus Curiae brief of EFF
8. ^ Amicus Curiae brief of USIIA and CCIA
9. ^ Statement of Interest of U.S. Department of Justice
10. ^ Statement of Interest, page 5, footnote 3
11. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/4758636.stm
12. ^ Morris, Alan (2003-08-22). Testimony of Mr. Alan Morris about Pornography, Technology and Process: Problems and Solutions on Peer-to-Peer Networks. United States Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Washington, DC. Retrieved on November 20, 2006.

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Filed under: Ambient network, BSD, BitTorrent, Byzantine Fault Tolerance, CSpace, Client-server, Comparison of P2P applications, Computer cluster, Definitions, Distributed hash table, Downloads, Encyclopedia, F2F, File sharing, Free, Freenet, Friend-to-friend, GNUnet, Gnutella, Grid computing, Krawler, Linux, MFPnet, Overlay network, P2PTV, Peer-To-Peer, Peercasting, Republished, Reviews, Servent, Software, Swarm, Unix, Usenet, ad hoc network | Closed

Characteristics of a server:

Characteristics of a client:

Contents

Tiered architecture

Advantages

Disadvantages

Addressing

Examples

See also

Contents

Byzantine failures

Solutions

See also

Contents

Anonymous P2P as a misnomer

Uses of anonymous P2P

Views on the desirability of anonymous P2P

Consequences of P2P anonymity

Other issues include:

Technical drawbacks of current anonymous P2P networks

Pseudonymous P2P clients

Private P2P clients

Friend-to-friend clients

References

See also

Hypothetical or defunct networks

Contents

The Ambient Networks Project

Interfaces and their use

ACS Functional Entities

Example Situation

Laptop -> (Bluetooth) -> Mobile -> (GPRS) -> Mobile phone network

PDA-> (bluetooth) -> Laptop-> (WLAN) -> Hotspot

Contents

Ad hoc committee

Ad hoc hypothesis

Ad hoc pronunciation

Contents

The first P2P-Generation: Server-Client

Web Based Sharing

Server-client-protocols

The second P2P-Generation: Decentralization

Multi-Network-Clients

eDonkey2000 - Network

Gnutella - Network

BitTorrent - Network

FastTrack - Network

Further networks or clients

The third P2P-Generation: non-direct and encrypted

Waste network

Ants network

Mute network

I2P network

Turtle-Network (F2F Instant Messenger)

other networks or clients

The fourth P2P-Generation: Streams over P2P

General

Tree structure

Swarm structure such as Bittorrent

Copyright issues

Legal controversy

Important Cases

Attacks on peer-to-peer networks

Examples include:

Risks

See also

References

Further reading

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