> My fellow Cypherpunks,
>
> Ray Dillinger believes that scanning would assist oppressors as
> much as regular users. Joseph Ashwood agrees with this and further
> thinks that the Internet overhead of a scanner would be a serious
> problem.
>
The problem is this: there's no way that you can set this up
so that random users can find gnutella servers and LEOs can't.
No way, impossible, give up.
> I still think that scanners would be effective. Here's why:
>
> Gnutella still exists, Napster doesn't! Security does not have to be
> bulletproof in all cases. Gnutella is a harder target than was Napster.
> There may be other reasons why Gnutella is alive and Napster is dead.
> I would think the ability to pin blame on the target might be another
> reason.
>
Right. Napster is an entity, Gnutella is a protocol.
> A scan enabled Gnutella would be a much harder target than a central
> service provided Gnutella. The scan enabled version would be much harder to
> shut down due to various kinds of expenses - legal, administ-
> rative, politics, etc.. Not impossible to shut down - just harder,
> slower, and with various expenses we would like the oppressors to pick
> up :-)
>
No. The scan version would make it a little harder for everyone to
find the first gnutella server to connect to, and that's all it would do.
The only way a scan version would make any sense would be if
it somehow became illegal to post a list of gnutella servers while
it remained legal to actually run a gnutella server, a situation so
bizzare I don't think it merits discussion.
> As far as Joseph Ashwood's claim that the Internet overhead would be
> too much. Is his point exaggerated? Would it be possible to write low
> overhead scanners? I do not have the "skill set" to say. Maybe he is
> right, maybe not. Anybody got something definitive to say on this?
>
> Yours Truly,
> Gary Jeffers
>
Atwood's numbers are based on estimates as to how many people
want to use scanners, and the fact that they're pretty likely to
hit the same set of addresses. If you're the only one using a scanner, it won't be much of a burden on anyone.
It really wouldn't be difficult to write one.
Here's the URL of the protocol spec
http://www.gnutelladev.com/protocol/gdnp.html
basically, all you have to do is send it a UDP packet saying
'GDNP CONNECT/0.10\n\n'
and see if you get back
'GDNP OK\n\n'
it may be worth your while just to see if you can get it to
work as an excercise. If you're running your own server
and just look at your own IP address (use 127.0.0.1 if you
don't know it) you can play with it without affecting the outside world.
George
> BEAT STATE!!!
>
>
>
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>
