Re: design considerations for distributed storage networks
On Sat, 23 Mar 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If mojo failed in the way, and for the reasons you describe, the failure was not that it was money like, but that it was insufficiently money like. Since the value of mojo was indefinite, its value could never be well matched to its purpose. I think claims to Mojo's demise are a bit premature: http://mnet.sourceforge.net/ The commercial part has folded, however the niche is clearly not commercial.
Re: design considerations for distributed storage networks
On 23 Mar 2002 at 9:26, Anonymous wrote: Also, you have not distinguished clearly one of the main differences between the Napster-type file sharing networks and what you are calling storage-surface networks (what does surface mean here anyway?). The difference is that in the latter you have to explicitly inject the data to be stored, while the file sharing networks allow you to implicitly share the data you already have. I think there's something sort of backwards here. Distributed publishing requires nodes to be willing to host data that they have no particular interest in, and generally no direct access to. There's no difficulty in principle in automatically injecting data, writing a routine that goes through a subdirectory structure and publishes all the files would be pretty trivial. The problem is that you'd only get metadata if people go to the trouble to write it up, but you get the same problem with shared files. Thinking about this, there's no particular reason why the same newtork couldn't incorporate elements of both. That is, if I have the equivalent of a mojo nation block server on my machine, and also have a shared director with whatever in it, there's no reason my mojo nation server shouldn't be able to look in my shared directory, check the hashes of the files there and compare them with data from a publication tracker, and tell the publication tracker that I can serve blocks from any of those files. Not all of these are still going but it shows that there is a lot more in the P2P file sharing and publishing world than just a few moldering old cypherpunk projects from the 90s. P2P has really passed the cypherpunk world by. As far as the economics, one of the main lessons of the failure of Mojo Nation was that Mojo didn't work, or perhaps you might say it worked too well. It caused nothing but problems for the operators of the network. People tried to horde it, they got upset when they were losing Mojo, they would cheat and steal to get more. MN steadily downplayed the importance of Mojo over the life of the project, making it harder to see how much you had, decreasing its importance in terms of getting data, etc. Eventually it was practically invisible. There were two problems with the mojo aspect of mojo nation, either of which would prove fatal to the concept as envisioned: 1) Running a mojo server and doing nothing would in general cost mojo rather than acumulating mojo and 2) Accumulating mojo wasn'r worth anything. The lesson? Something may be needed to protect against DoS and similar attacks, but it's not payment. Look at how successful Napster-style file sharing networks have been, despite predictions of parasitism since there is no economic reward for sharing. Your conclusion may or may not be true, but it certainly isn't proven by mojo nation. Unfortunately many of the programmer types who have been pushing P2P development also happen to be libertarians. Their sad faith in that ancient religion prevents them from learning from experience. They see everything through the distorting prism of their ideology. If people are going to learn from the successes and failures of the past, they must have clear vision and the courage to look beyond the circumscribed boundaries imposed by their political beliefs. I think you're confusing actual libertarians with ignorant strawman stereotypes of libertarians, but whatever. George
Re: design considerations for distributed storage networks
Adam Back writes: Here's something I wrote up the other night with my thoughts about the differences between peer-to-peer networks vs the more ambitious storage surface type propsals and the design criteria which one might entertain designing against. http://www.cypherspace.org/p2p/ Suggestions for more criteria welcome. Another criterion you could use is download speed. Freenet claims to solve the flash crowd syndrome by automatically spreading the data out as more requests are made. Also, you have not distinguished clearly one of the main differences between the Napster-type file sharing networks and what you are calling storage-surface networks (what does surface mean here anyway?). The difference is that in the latter you have to explicitly inject the data to be stored, while the file sharing networks allow you to implicitly share the data you already have. A note, your links to various P2P products are a bit moldy (or mouldy as you would say). Mojonation.net is dead; the TAZ paper is from 1998. Here is a list of recent file-sharing P2P products and projects from Oreillynet.com: 1stWorks AlpineB, AudioFindB, BadBlueB, BearShareB, CareScience, Inc.B, Clip2B, EudoraB, Fatbubble, Inc.B, File Rogue, Inc.B, FiletopiaB, Frontcode TechnologiesB, GnotellaB, GnutellaB, Harmonic Invention SoftwareB, Hotline ConnectB, iMesh Ltd.B, iNoizeB, JibeB, Jungle MonkeyB, KaZaAB, LimeWireB, MangoSoftB, MorpheusB, MysterB, NapsterB, NextPage, Inc.B, Ogg VorbisB, OhahaB, OnSystems, Inc.B, OpenNapB, PointeraB, Radio UserlandB, RapigatorB, SoftwaxB, SongbirdB, SongSpy, Inc.B, Spinfrenzy.comB, Splooge, Inc.B, Swaptor, Ltd.B, ThinkstreamB, Toadnode.com, LLCB, Tripnosis, Inc.B, VitaminicB, WebDAVB, And here is a list of infrastructure products: Akamai Technologies, Inc.B, Alliance Consulting, Inc.B, BitziB, Brazil ProjectB, Consilient, Inc.B, Freenet, The Free Network ProjectB, Glue Technology, Inc.B, Groove NetworksB, HailStormB, JabberB, Kalepa Networks, IncB, Oculus Technologies CorporationB, OpenDesignB, Planet 7 TechnologiesB, Prompt2UB, The Free Haven ProjectB, ThinkstreamB, Tpresence, Inc.B, VeriscapeB, vTrailsB, Zodiac NetworksB, Other neat ones are OpenPrivacy and of course Peek-A-Booty. These are all linked from http://www.openp2p.com/pub/d/447. Not all of these are still going but it shows that there is a lot more in the P2P file sharing and publishing world than just a few moldering old cypherpunk projects from the 90s. P2P has really passed the cypherpunk world by. As far as the economics, one of the main lessons of the failure of Mojo Nation was that Mojo didn't work, or perhaps you might say it worked too well. It caused nothing but problems for the operators of the network. People tried to horde it, they got upset when they were losing Mojo, they would cheat and steal to get more. MN steadily downplayed the importance of Mojo over the life of the project, making it harder to see how much you had, decreasing its importance in terms of getting data, etc. Eventually it was practically invisible. The lesson? Something may be needed to protect against DoS and similar attacks, but it's not payment. Look at how successful Napster-style file sharing networks have been, despite predictions of parasitism since there is no economic reward for sharing. Unfortunately many of the programmer types who have been pushing P2P development also happen to be libertarians. Their sad faith in that ancient religion prevents them from learning from experience. They see everything through the distorting prism of their ideology. If people are going to learn from the successes and failures of the past, they must have clear vision and the courage to look beyond the circumscribed boundaries imposed by their political beliefs. btw I've noticed while looking around at storage-surface web pages recently while writing the above that it would seem that some are showing signs of gearing up for commercial backing. eg. http://www.intermemory.org -- I'm pretty sure that used to look more research oriented and it's now looking quite corporate. Also the interest from commercial vendors like micrsoft who has their own farsite project: http://www.research.microsoft.com/sn/Farsite/ Apparently you didn't notice but there was a huge influx of commercial money flowing into P2P starting about two years ago. Everyone wanted to be the next Napster, forgetting or ignoring that Napster never made any money. P2P is actually yesterday's news now. The money is quickly evaporating and it will be left to the hobbyists, i.e., us.
Re: design considerations for distributed storage networks
At 09:26 AM 3/23/2002 +0100, Anonymous wrote: As far as the economics, one of the main lessons of the failure of Mojo Nation was that Mojo didn't work, or perhaps you might say it worked too well. It caused nothing but problems for the operators of the network. People tried to horde it, they got upset when they were losing Mojo, they would cheat and steal to get more. MN steadily downplayed the importance of Mojo over the life of the project, making it harder to see how much you had, decreasing its importance in terms of getting data, etc. Eventually it was practically invisible. I think the Mojo hoarding and cheating was a relatively small problem. I think it was an excellent idea, but should not have been introduced until the system reached a critical mass. The key reasons for MN's failure: lack of stability and data retention and lack of automated meta-data generation from file headers (esp. .mp3). The first problem caused users to have to manually and constantly refresh lost blocks (an automated client missing block search and refresh function would have been a god send, and something along these lines was planned for a disk/data backup service but that never happened). The second kept many potential new users from joining when the saw how difficult MN was to use compared to Napster. Unfortunately many of the programmer types who have been pushing P2P development also happen to be libertarians. Their sad faith in that ancient religion prevents them from learning from experience. They see everything through the distorting prism of their ideology. If people are going to learn from the successes and failures of the past, they must have clear vision and the courage to look beyond the circumscribed boundaries imposed by their political beliefs. Not all. Someone has to pay for the resources provided and the system must not encourage too much freeloading. btw I've noticed while looking around at storage-surface web pages recently while writing the above that it would seem that some are showing signs of gearing up for commercial backing. eg. http://www.intermemory.org -- I'm pretty sure that used to look more research oriented and it's now looking quite corporate. Also the interest from commercial vendors like micrsoft who has their own farsite project: http://www.research.microsoft.com/sn/Farsite/ Apparently you didn't notice but there was a huge influx of commercial money flowing into P2P starting about two years ago. Everyone wanted to be the next Napster, forgetting or ignoring that Napster never made any money. P2P is actually yesterday's news now. The money is quickly evaporating and it will be left to the hobbyists, i.e., us. We shall see. steve
Re: design considerations for distributed storage networks
-- On 23 Mar 2002 at 9:26, Anonymous wrote: Not all of these are still going but it shows that there is a lot more in the P2P file sharing and publishing world than just a few moldering old cypherpunk projects from the 90s. P2P has really passed the cypherpunk world by. As far as the economics, one of the main lessons of the failure of Mojo Nation was that Mojo didn't work, or perhaps you might say it worked too well. It caused nothing but problems for the operators of the network. People tried to horde it, they got upset when they were losing Mojo, they would cheat and steal to get more. First: Digital money needs to be money like, thus needs to be convertible to other forms of money, especially e-gold which has now become the defacto standard. Secondly, if its function is merely to prevent denial of service, rather than to actually make a living, then the fees should be so low that they are clearly insignificant in normal usage, but a significant burden to DOS attacker, and significant benefit to a person subject to DOS attack, making it worth while to continue doing whatever is provoking the DOS attack. If mojo failed in the way, and for the reasons you describe, the failure was not that it was money like, but that it was insufficiently money like. Since the value of mojo was indefinite, its value could never be well matched to its purpose. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG MQqEiiQk1ACY9olZagxHnjzoNps9yoSZnvn7YOAx 4d8wscIB8IgjR+w0GO2Dwcqh5H7FpW4uF/2F2g9HS
design considerations for distributed storage networks
Here's something I wrote up the other night with my thoughts about the differences between peer-to-peer networks vs the more ambitious storage surface type propsals and the design criteria which one might entertain designing against. http://www.cypherspace.org/p2p/ Suggestions for more criteria welcome. How do the current raft of systems like bittorrent, mnet/mojonation, freenet, and the others presented at codecon rack up against criteria such as these? Plus how do the non privacy and censor-resistant focussed, but censor resistant to some extent just by sheer volume and popularity like gnutella, morpheus/kazza/fasttrack, edonkey, imesh compare. btw I've noticed while looking around at storage-surface web pages recently while writing the above that it would seem that some are showing signs of gearing up for commercial backing. eg. http://www.intermemory.org -- I'm pretty sure that used to look more research oriented and it's now looking quite corporate. Also the interest from commercial vendors like micrsoft who has their own farsite project: http://www.research.microsoft.com/sn/Farsite/ Adam
Re: design considerations for distributed storage networks
Sharing copyrighted material in order to get the same is the only working example that I can see. If someone can point to reason why large number of people would give a fuck about fighting censorship, enhancing privacy and anonymity, I'd like to be enlightened. With working real-world examples. Unemployed cypherpunks do not count. It is not necessary for the entire population to adopt a technology; merely a user-base of sufficient size to forfill the technical social requirements of the project leaders. Visions of world domination are for propaganda, not for actualisation. The 95% of the population which comprise the flock have never been my target, and neither should they be yours; it's the 2.5% percent at either end of the normal that I find in my sights, one to be cherished and the other to be destroyed. -- Julian Assange|If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people |together to collect wood or assign them tasks and [EMAIL PROTECTED] |work, but rather teach them to long for the endless [EMAIL PROTECTED] |immensity of the sea. -- Antoine de Saint Exupery
Re: design considerations for distributed storage networks
At 03:43 PM 3/22/02 -0800, Tim May wrote: On Friday, March 22, 2002, at 01:55 PM, Morlock Elloi wrote: Suggestions for more criteria welcome. Motivation. I cannot find a non-computer paradigm that relates to sharing in-house private resources with unknown others. This maybe the the principal conceptual obstacle. Outside irrelevantly low-numbered activist circles, masses just do not want to share without very obvious and immediate gratification. Why do folks rip CDs they have licensed? Because they want to access them at work. Or to share them with friends. As a side effect, you have these MP3s which you can trivially share with the world. If you estimate your risk at being caught as approaching nil, and the effort required to share also approaches nil, it happens. I gave Phil the example of someone soliciting something like Optimum implant doses for CMOS process sought. Will pay $500. Optimum doses are around 125 micrograms. Costs much less than $500. To make the point graphically to Phil, I devised Black Net as the place where epi implant information is bought and sold, where someone offers $100K for the Stealth bomber blueprints, where all sorts of secrets are solicited and offered. Left under a bridge in a park in D.C... Any person, any organization, any company which gets into the napstering business will face the guns of the lawyers, the Feds, international bodies (when it suits them), and so on. Whether that company is Mojo or BitTorrent or whatever, the criminal and civil suits will be aimed at whomever can be identified as a nexus. * Forego ego and develop and release a product _untraceably). Many in, or formerly in, the software biz have realized that: 1. Microsoft can buy you out (at least you make some one-time money), or duplicate you 2. Open source folks can duplicate you *for free* and now you add, 3. Lawyers/congresscum will harass you. Alas, poor programmers... But find other ways to make money or stroke your ego. The familiar saw about two people being able to keep a secret...if one of them is dead. And real friends help you move bodies... Cheers, (and we agree with you, if its not obvious)
Re: design considerations for distributed storage networks
On Friday, March 22, 2002, at 01:55 PM, Morlock Elloi wrote: Sharing copyrighted material in order to get the same is the only working example that I can see. If someone can point to reason why large number of people would give a fuck about fighting censorship, enhancing privacy and anonymity, I'd like to be enlightened. With working real-world examples. Unemployed cypherpunks do not count. It doesn't require a large number of people, only a small number who are willing to spend their lives to expunge those who would deny the rest their rights to speech and privacy. One has only to look at the middle east to see what a small number of zealots with C4 can do. Fear of imprisonment and/or loss of friends, family and financial stability are the main weapons of the state. Many may be capable but few are willing to engage in some creative political destuction. There are very few like Timmy, but there could be more if the terminably ill were offered a sufficient incentive. Maybe what's needed is an American Patriot family relief fund. A group which supports families of those who gave their all fighting the powers that be. If had less than 6 months to live I would, without a doubt, take one or more tyrants to the grave with me. After all what have I got to lose. For the majority of short-timers without the ideological zeal but who haven't planned very well for their retirement and their family's support a posthumous windfall could tip the balance. Hush provide the worlds most secure, easy to use online applications - which solution is right for you? HushMail Secure Email http://www.hushmail.com/ HushDrive Secure Online Storage http://www.hushmail.com/hushdrive/ Hush Business - security for your Business http://www.hush.com/ Hush Enterprise - Secure Solutions for your Enterprise http://www.hush.com/ Looking for a good deal on a domain name? http://www.hush.com/partners/offers.cgi?id=domainpeople
