Bill Mccormick wrote: Hi Bill -
I don't quite understand the source of the broadcasts - is there a single node which will originate broadcasts and listens for requests from effectively anonymous users? Or can any node originate broadcasts based on a received request?
Yes every node is a complete peer, and can decide to transmit.
It sounds like you would be flooding all requests and broadcasts over the network, is this correct? If so, how do you prevent flooding loops?
If I understood "flooding loops", the general idea at the moment is that aside from advertisements of content, which are sent out every few seconds, transmissions are only occurring in response to a request heard from nearby. So perhaps several boxes have the part that is requested and might want to transmit it.
But the Wifi device should only transmit the packet when it hears no carrier from another transmission. So there is a random delay before a box decides to fulfill the request it heard: in the meanwhile it might hear another box fulfilling the request, it which case it cancels its scheduled, delayed transmission.
There are no automatic retries and no acknowledgement... if one or more nearby box still wants the block after it has been sent by someone, perhaps because they are a bit too far away from that guy, then they send another request and the process begins again, hopefully with a larger population of nearby boxes (including one closer to the requestor) now being able to consider to fulfill it after the first transmission attempt gave them the packet.
For each transmission all nearby boxes that are interested in that upload can take the transmission without generating any further traffic.
-Andy _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
