Hi,
As The Penguin has had to be shut down, does anyone know of a suitable decentralised network that preferably allows chatting as well as filesharing, and is suitable for use on a LAN without Internet traffic? Discussions are most welcome in this thread.
Cocodude
Decentralised Networks
Moderator: Operators
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thewizzy321
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 10:01 pm
not sure if something like that is there....
but, to write something like that wouldnt be too hard and it wouldnt actually take too long... it wouldnt be truely decentralized that would take a while and that wouldnt support chatting.... i am willing to write the server, but I need some people along with me to make a nice client ... i can write the interface for it maybe in perl or python (for portability), if some ppl are willing to do the rest then we have something going...
but, to write something like that wouldnt be too hard and it wouldnt actually take too long... it wouldnt be truely decentralized that would take a while and that wouldnt support chatting.... i am willing to write the server, but I need some people along with me to make a nice client ... i can write the interface for it maybe in perl or python (for portability), if some ppl are willing to do the rest then we have something going...
Waste
Has anyone considered using waste, its not as fast in terms of transfer speeds, but very secure, it would be a pain to setup and would mean a lot of people would need some tech help (ok 90% of people) 
but would be worth it in the end. Just a thought.
It was used successfully last term as a trial for a possible replacement by a few "select" users.
http://waste.sourceforge.net/
Edit: Ok this wouldn't really work as it only supports a small number of users (Max 50), which I didn't realise, but there must be others out there that could support more.
but would be worth it in the end. Just a thought.It was used successfully last term as a trial for a possible replacement by a few "select" users.
http://waste.sourceforge.net/
Edit: Ok this wouldn't really work as it only supports a small number of users (Max 50), which I didn't realise, but there must be others out there that could support more.
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UnholySmoke
- Posts: 16
- Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 8:21 pm
Keeping ideas rolling
So, it looks like the IT people are wise to DC as the sharing tool of choice. No doubt they'll be reading this as well. 
Would a decentralised network have a search function? If so, how?
Everyone round here has gone back to trawling MSHOME and so on to find stuff. It's not pretty, and it's pot luck as to who appears in your MS networks at any one time, but it works. Just thinking aloud, but is there any way of fleshing this out? Or even a better way of browsing than explorer, which is slower than slow....
Are we back at the point where leaving Twofo running for a while can yield a connection? Something's better than nothing....
UnholySmoke
Would a decentralised network have a search function? If so, how?
Everyone round here has gone back to trawling MSHOME and so on to find stuff. It's not pretty, and it's pot luck as to who appears in your MS networks at any one time, but it works. Just thinking aloud, but is there any way of fleshing this out? Or even a better way of browsing than explorer, which is slower than slow....
Are we back at the point where leaving Twofo running for a while can yield a connection? Something's better than nothing....
UnholySmoke
This might be something to look at
http://anatomic.berlios.de/drupal/
A decentralised bit torrent program.
Maybe it might be of use, though I honestly can't make a head or tail of it.
A decentralised bit torrent program.
Maybe it might be of use, though I honestly can't make a head or tail of it.
Getting searches in realtime would definitely arouse suspicion of ITS.
To search every windows share first you need to pin down what boxes are in the ip range (not that hard you can lookup the range warwick has purchased for the *.warwick-network.co.uk suffix) then you need to probe every address for shares, then of those machines that have shares check for the search parameter - this is far too SLOW and far too OBVIOUS to do - it could actually cause to amount of traffic (just in the searching) to reduce the network performance quite significantly. Definitely enough for ITS to go nuts over...
What we need is one machine to do the searching (in the dead of night would be best) and then present this data with a website search interface. All we need to do is bring together people looking for something with the ip of someone who has it... shares take care of the rest.
Though I would prefer to see a true decentralised implementation - Kademlia probably fits best - though I dont think an suitable client exists... yet!
To search every windows share first you need to pin down what boxes are in the ip range (not that hard you can lookup the range warwick has purchased for the *.warwick-network.co.uk suffix) then you need to probe every address for shares, then of those machines that have shares check for the search parameter - this is far too SLOW and far too OBVIOUS to do - it could actually cause to amount of traffic (just in the searching) to reduce the network performance quite significantly. Definitely enough for ITS to go nuts over...
What we need is one machine to do the searching (in the dead of night would be best) and then present this data with a website search interface. All we need to do is bring together people looking for something with the ip of someone who has it... shares take care of the rest.
Though I would prefer to see a true decentralised implementation - Kademlia probably fits best - though I dont think an suitable client exists... yet!
Though a little diggin on the net has turned up all these:
Oh yeah and decentralised P2P may not be the answer - since instead of just a "file transfer" or some other burst traffic with limited concurrent connections, when we are running decentralised P2P we are all a server from ITS point of view - each of us will have a lot more concurrent connections, etc... they may just cut us all off...*shrugs*
- Grouper
- Hamachi - looks initially promising
- Waste - in case it can be modified or something.
- Qnext - looks good too
Oh yeah and decentralised P2P may not be the answer - since instead of just a "file transfer" or some other burst traffic with limited concurrent connections, when we are running decentralised P2P we are all a server from ITS point of view - each of us will have a lot more concurrent connections, etc... they may just cut us all off...*shrugs*
does anyone remember years ago a program called audiogalaxy?
that was a v.simple program that everyone logged into and in the background uploaded a list of files being shared. you logged into the server via a html webpage and searched and scheduled downloads that way.
it got shut down a long time ago, but not long before they released all their source code in hte hope someone else would set up a similar thing elsewhere outside the US DMCA shit. now that never happened, it never took off the way it did as napster came along....
i dont know how it worked as i'm not a programmer, but if the source code could be found maybe we could get something running like that. I'm thinking that an external server could work as all you need to do is upload a small txt file, or file similar to the 'file list' DC++ makes, and then everyone logs in via the html website.
since everything is done via html, there should be no possible way of shutting down that 'network' without completely shutting down the internet connection AND it should be easy on external bandwidth as you're not sending stuff to everyone at once, just as people request the pages.
that was a v.simple program that everyone logged into and in the background uploaded a list of files being shared. you logged into the server via a html webpage and searched and scheduled downloads that way.
it got shut down a long time ago, but not long before they released all their source code in hte hope someone else would set up a similar thing elsewhere outside the US DMCA shit. now that never happened, it never took off the way it did as napster came along....
i dont know how it worked as i'm not a programmer, but if the source code could be found maybe we could get something running like that. I'm thinking that an external server could work as all you need to do is upload a small txt file, or file similar to the 'file list' DC++ makes, and then everyone logs in via the html website.
since everything is done via html, there should be no possible way of shutting down that 'network' without completely shutting down the internet connection AND it should be easy on external bandwidth as you're not sending stuff to everyone at once, just as people request the pages.
Found another one that on the face of it looks like an answer...
Lan2P
Sounds like a winner, though has a god awful interface!
Give it a try, could be useful if outbound DC ports get block (which I doubt will happen if we make sure the omount of traffic is low - IE no campus --> off campus transfers)
Lan2P
Sounds like a winner, though has a god awful interface!
Give it a try, could be useful if outbound DC ports get block (which I doubt will happen if we make sure the omount of traffic is low - IE no campus --> off campus transfers)
i've got a mate and myself and someone off DC++ to get Lan2P connected and working... tho with fairly limited sucsess..... but thats probably because ther eare only 3 of us using it...
in options i had to change the port to 4150 for now and you have to add an IP port manually to get it going but atleast it works!
if DC does get blocked we have atleast one program that does work
speak to me on DC to get my IP and try to connect
in options i had to change the port to 4150 for now and you have to add an IP port manually to get it going but atleast it works!
if DC does get blocked we have atleast one program that does work
speak to me on DC to get my IP and try to connect
Last edited by adfad666 on Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Update: 4 of us are using Lan2P sucsessfully so it seems this could be the one... the only set back at the moment is that it seems you have to manually enter everyone's IP addresses but i'm hoping that it'll be able to 'accuire' everyone's IP's once enough people get connected...
but since there is no documentation and the forums are down i'm merely guessing...
anyone want to help test PM me on DC
but since there is no documentation and the forums are down i'm merely guessing...
anyone want to help test PM me on DC
Good effort, but it's Windows only. I'm sure there must be something similar, but cross-platform!adfad666 wrote:Update: 4 of us are using Lan2P sucsessfully so it seems this could be the one...
I do! In fact, I wrote a RISC OS client for it - http://www.alpha-programming.co.uk/software/adfa666 wrote:does anyone remember years ago a program called audiogalaxy?
It's possible this would work - there wouldn't be that much bandwidth usage to the website so it would be possible to run it off campus. If you look into the servers and clients available, and let me know if it's suitable, I may be able to set up an experimental network.that was a v.simple program that everyone logged into and in the background uploaded a list of files being shared. you logged into the server via a html webpage and searched and scheduled downloads that way.
Cocodude
