>By Ariana Eunjung Cha Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, May 18, 2000; >Page A01 > >Two months ago, Justin Frankel created an ingenious little software tool >that allows its users to bypass the dominant Internet companies and >communicate directly among themselves. His bosses at America Online Inc., >the biggest computing network of them all, were so impressed they tried to >snuff it out of existence. Within 24 hours, AOL officials had removed the >tool, called Gnutella, from the Web site of its Nullsoft development house. >It was, they declared, an "unauthorized freelance project." But they were >too late. About 10,000 people had already downloaded the program onto their >own machines, creating bustling networks for the free exchange of >everything from digital music files and pictures to political propaganda >beyond the control of AOL, its merger partner Time Warner Inc. or anyone >else. Both the beauty and danger of Gnutella are that it is a more >sophisticated version of Napster, the infamous and popular program that >college students have been using to swap music files over the Web. >Napster's developers have recently been hit with a flurry of >copyright-infringement lawsuits. But unlike users of Napster, Gnutella >aficionados can trade files without going through a storage center, making >it impossible to shut down the system without unplugging every computer on >the network and difficult to control by laws because there's no central >authority. Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape Communications and a >former chief technology officer for AOL, compares Gnutella to a benevolent >virus, a "revolutionary" program that spreads the power of publishing from >an elite set of corporations to anyone who has a computer. "It changes the >Internet in a way that it hasn't changed since the browser," Andreessen >said. At a time when the general assumption is that the World Wide Web's >destiny will be guided by international conglomerates such as AOL, >Amazon.com Inc., Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., Gnutella is the unexpected >variable. Its very existence is a statement about the wild nature of the >Web and how difficult it will be for anyone to tame it. It is also a >dramatic display of how easily the Internet can be transformed or at least >shaken by smart computer programmers who are barely old enough to drink or >drive. Frankel, 21, and his good friend and software co-creator, Tom >Pepper, another twentysomething Nullsoft employee, have become virtual cult >heroes. Their work is being refined daily by hundreds of young volunteer >programmers around the world who hope to extend Gnutella's reach, making it >a free search engine for the masses. The decentralization of power that >Gnutella represents has revived the romantic dream of many a cyberspace >pioneer--that of a truly free realm where no information gatekeeper exists >and where all property is commonly owned. But those who hope to profit >handsomely from the Internet's transformation into a global >marketplace--record companies, book publishers, movie makers and >practically everyone else with a stake in selling information--regard >Gnutella as a device for thievery. It was, after all, Gerald Levin, chief >executive of Time Warner Inc., which owns the Warner Music label, who >called on his AOL counterpart, Steve Case, to quash the Gnutella project. >Carey Heckman, a professor of law and technology at Stanford University, >said the software could undermine the foundation of many >multibillion-dollar corporations. "It's about how information flows and who >controls that system," Heckman said. "The idea of a handful of institutions >filtering information may be decaying." Origin of a New Species The name >Gnutella comes from a combination of Gnu, the popular suite of free Unix >software, and Nutella, the chocolatey hazelnut spread that Frankel is said >to favor. It is the most advanced of a new generation of what are known as >"distributed network" programs with names like Freenet and iMesh. Freenet, >also a relative of Napster, is the brainchild of Ian Clarke, a 23-year-old >in London. The program, which is still in the early stages of development, >has drawn attention because it deliberately makes it all but impossible to >identify the source of a file. Thus it could act as a megaphone for >political dissidents fearful of retribution, as well as potentially a >gathering place for terrorists, pornographers and other malevolent users. >"People should be free to distribute information without restrictions of >any form," Clarke said in an e-mail. Programs such as Freenet and Gnutella >conform to the original vision of the Internet's architects, who imagined >it to be a completely decentralized system. But then corporations came >along and set up central information storehouses called "servers." Being >able to control storage and distribution of information, of course, gives >online companies the ability to set prices, track the habits of users and >block material they find objectionable. Any computer running Gnutella, >though, can search all the others running the program and retrieve >information that the user makes publicly available. The data still flows >over the wires of the Internet, but the distributed network theoretically >reduces the need for vast content repositories such as AOL. Through his >mother, Frankel declined a request for an interview, saying, sorry, he was >no longer allowed to discuss the project. His mother, Kathleen Blake, >remembers that Frankel, who grew up in Arizona, was always fiddling with >some sort of computer program in his spare time and in fact had built >Nullsoft on one of those projects, Winamp, a free online music player. "My >son is really a rebel," she said. "He thinks everything should be free." >Frankel didn't think his company should be free, though. He sold it to AOL >for just under $100 million last fall. He still works at Nullsoft in San >Francisco and hasn't spoken publicly since Gnutella was disavowed. Cloning >the Program Within two days of Gnutella's release, software developers who >heard of its existence managed to decipher the Rosetta Stone of technical >documents that the creators had left on the Nullsoft Web site and were able >to duplicate or "clone" the program, assuring that the project could never >be bottled up. Bryan Mayland, a 26-year-old programmer from Tampa, became >the first to reconstruct Gnutella. Mayland said the test version he got off >the Nullsoft site worked well enough but was unstable. The authors had >promised that a new version would be released soon but it was clear when >AOL shut down the project that that wouldn't happen, Mayland said. So he >decided to do it himself. "When I saw Gnutella I thought, 'This is really >interesting. This could change a lot of things.' And I wanted to make sure >it lived up to its potential," said Mayland, who is taking a break from >getting his undergraduate degree from University of South Florida. He >locked himself in his office, above an Irish pub on the outskirts of town, >and ended up writing 973 lines of code. On March 16 at 8 p.m. he pushed a >button on his keyboard to release his clone to the Web. In subsequent >weeks, other programmers have been picking at, patching and building on top >of Mayland's Gnutella. A version that could run on Windows came out within >days. A Linux version came within three weeks. And a Macintosh version >appeared just two weeks ago. About 50 people worldwide are collaborating on >a 2.0 release they have dubbed "Gnutella Next Generation," which its >developers hope will come out in the next few months and will make Gnutella >able to handle many more users. Gene Kan, 23, a recent University of >California at Berkeley graduate, met other Gnutella enthusiasts on Internet >chat rooms called #gnutella and #gnutelladev. Most are male and very young: >"Uh, I think we actually have some people of legal drinking age," Kan says. >Few have ever met offline.. They know little about each other's personal >lives, only about their programming strengths and weaknesses. There's Ian >Hall-Beyer, a 27-year-old systems administrator from Denver who considers >himself the grandfather of the group; Spencer Kimball, 26, a friend of >Kan's from Berkeley; and Nathan Moinvaziri, a soft-spoken 16-year-old whom >many credit with being the first to set up a Gnutella Web site, on his >sluggish 300-megahertz Compaq personal computer at his home in Phoenix. >"There's not much new on the Internet these days," Moinvaziri said. "I >wanted to do something that's challenging, and this was so cool." Preparing >for the Mainstream On a recent night, more than 10,000 machines were hooked >up to the main Gnutella network and about 1.5 million files were available; >those numbers continue to grow every day, and Gnutella's developers >fervently believe that Gnutella will someday run through nearly every >machine on the Internet. Kan's group has been working with the Internet >standards association to come up with a way to take the technology >mainstream. Gnutella fans believe the program soon could be used to >replace, or at least supplement, existing search sites such as Yahoo, Lycos >and Google, which increasingly have difficulty keeping up with the >explosive growth of the Internet and often contain links to Web pages that >no longer exist. Gnutella developers liken the way their network searches >to the children's game of telephone. The computer acts like a person >looking for, say, a recipe for rhubarb pie; he or she asks 10 friends and >those 10 friends each ask 10 of their friends and so forth until it is >found, or until all the people in the group have been asked. Kan, who has >been working on modifications to Gnutella every night after work from 7 >p.m. to 5 a.m., predicts that within months some group, somewhere in the >world, will be able to modify Gnutella enough so it will function as a >real-time search engine. Nathaniel Daw, a computer science PhD candidate at >Carnegie Mellon University who has studied search theories, thinks that >might be too optimistic--developers must first get around the problem of >how a Gnutella network slows down as more people become a part of it and be >able to make common searches run faster. "It's clearly not efficient" the >way it works now, Daw said. As Gnutella's popularity grows, its corporate >parent has taken notice. In a recent interview, Time Warner's Levin and AOL >President Bob Pittman suggested the technology could be harnessed, given >time. Pittman said the interest in the project simply represents "consumer >demand before the launch of a product," meaning a controlled system for >distributing copyrighted information. But security experts say there's >another reason why the public's acceptance of Gnutella will be difficult: >File-sharing tools are good cloaks for hackers who want to pillage entire >hard drives or to pass on viruses or worms. "If I were a system >administrator in charge of security, something like Gnutella would keep me >awake at night," said Avi Rubin, an Internet security researcher at AT&T >Labs. Rubin said while it's easy to take one central machine that serves >data from inside a company or other organization and put walls around it, >it will be impractical to do that to the thousands of personal computers on >workers' desks within that same organization. Many Gnutella developers >blithely brush off concerns about lawsuits and security, saying >technological solutions, such as encryption tools to preserve copyright, >will arise. Visions of Fortunes In their chat rooms, Gnutella's developers >say they are motivated by a love of invention, freedom and transformation. >But in the new economy of instant millionaires, financial dreams aren't far >below the surface. Most of the Gnutella Web sites have received hundreds of >thousands of hits. So far they've all turned down offers to tack on paid >advertisements, but Sebastien Lambla, an 18-year-old student in Monaco who >is a key Gnutella developer, says he knows of people who have started >creating Gnutella interfaces with rotating advertisements. Kan says none of >the 400-plus people who subscribe to the various Gnutella developers' >e-mail lists has dared to bring up business proposals, but he concedes that >the idea is always looming. Earlier this month, Mayland received an e-mail >offer from a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. There might be funding to >build a version of Gnutella that could be used to create a private network. >"That kind of goes away from the whole philosophy of Gnutella and that >upsets me," said Mayland, who says he is happy with his $56,000-a-year job. >He said he's trying to turn the venture idea over to someone else. But, he >conceded, he hasn't yet rejected the potential benefactor either. Staff >researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report. Two Ways to Search >the Web 1. When you're looking for something on the Internet, you generally >ask a search engine, such as AltaVista or Yahoo, to find it for you. The >engine checks the Web sites it knows about (the average search engine >actually searches less than 20 percent of all the sites on the Internet). >Computer sends query via search engine . . . .. . . the search engine >checks the Web sites it has listed in its catalogue and responds. 2. >Members of a network using Gnutella software in essence form a search >engine of their own that expands its search exponentially. When a Gnutella >user has a query, the software sends it to 10 computers on the network. If >the first 10 computers don't have the file, each computer sends it to 10 >other computers and so on until, designers say, an estimated million >computers would be looking for it in just five to 10 seconds. The program >could theoretically check every site on the Web. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Vincent Cate Offshore Information Services [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://offshore.ai/ Anguilla, East Caribbean http://offshore.ai/vince ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You have to take life as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want to take it. - German Proverb
