Tyler Laing wrote:
Hi,
That sounds remarkably like Bittorrent. If you check the internet
archive or other sites, you should be able to find the Python code for
Bittorrent before it was closed.
I agree - it's very like bittorrent, but with different properties.
With BitTorrent every client wants a complete replica, whereas with user
rated content, we'd be happy if lower-rated content only resided on the
hosts that specifically cared about it. We can afford to be much
fuzzier here.
About server discovery, my concern is that most systems can be easily
polluted with malicious entries. Look at all the issues with DNS
(which is pretty much exactly what you propose), and what needs to be
done to prevent ARP poisoning attacks. Any such system would have to
be designed to distribute the authentication in a secure way. And if
attackers have control over one or more nodes, it can be difficult to
ensure authority and correctness without a centralized server, hence
the Root DNS nodes.
The difference from DNS is that DNS answers the question of "find me the
host named x" whereas we would want "find me some nearby servers to pick
from". Malicious entries would be much less of a concern - the worst
damage you could do would be to either prevent a game server from
showing up or to always make your own server look good. Neither attack
is nearly as interesting as, for example, making yourself look like a bank.
It sounds like some interesting ideas, but the problems are ones that
still stump PhD's...
As a PhD in training, maybe that's why I think these things would be cool :)
-Tyler
--Mike
