Maxwell Smart fans will remember the cone of silence.
That horrendous piece of elliptical cone shaped perspex that descended from the ceiling to foil the bugging attempts of KAOS.
As Max, the Chief and spies and persons with secrets to hide have discovered worldwide, sometimes, containment (cone of silence) doesn’t work very well.
At other times, it worked fine.
Magicians use the distraction of “watch this hand” whilst they use their other hand to effect the stunt.
P2P is a little like the cone of silence, at first it didn’t work so well, now it works extremely well.
A few months ago, Chris and I were chatting to some people about the future of P2P.
I stated that by April 2009, the flow of P2P users would start disappearing fast beneath a cover of I2P.
This morning I was searching for MD5 handlers and came across a new meme.
As always, I thought I would share it with a few million people.
I have identified over twenty “legitimate” big-name software projects that utilize the beneficial structure of P2P as integral to their operating capabilities.
Here I do not refer to illegal file sharing – I refer to file handling.
Think online software licensing distribution e.g.: Microsoft Word on an online server with automatic utilisation of same available globally without having to download the program or install it on your computer.
The software resides on the net and authorized users may use it for a fee.
Now combine that with the potential of distributing the software amongst several hundred people based on a restrictive hop count algorithm and localized MAC address authority index.
i.e.: Several people in company “A” have 25% of the code. Several persons in Company “B” located in the same building have another 25% of the code; with the rest of the code allocated to Company “C” also in the same building.
When a user from Company “A” needs to run a spell-check, the
spell-check component is loaded from Company “C” and not from Microsoft’s
servers in
How does it all work ????
Routing is per MAC address cluster [<65,000] and not IP number. Code modules are identified via hash files including encrypted permission keys. Permission keys are recognised based on the level of license paid for.
This is not the forum for discussion of the additional operational details, just assume for a moment that it works. What are the benefits.
Several, firstly, companies don’t have to upgrade thousands of licences any more. They just pay per user for the components used for the time they are active.
Secondly, because the software is shared at a local level,
only new logons need to register with
Therefore internet bandwidth is saved increasing browsing and data transfer capabilities for everyone else.
Microsoft ensures that everyone has the latest version of the software without companies needing to stay on top of the upgrade loop.
What are the Disadvantages?
Microsoft and its affiliates learn about a companies operational modus operandi.
(I didn’t say this was a good idea, just that it was technically feasible now).
What are the Evolutionary Results?
File sharing – now made possible at a MAC address level goes through the roof as an option in MS-Word.
(Fictional composite imagery compiled for article.)
How is this happening ?
Several different ways but XML appears to be the winning strategy at the moment; and of course, only one person per 65,000 addresses needs to be visible to the outside world.
This would appear to suggest that the file sharing game is over.
The Score Board as we see it:
|
|
Visible P2P Software % |
Content Industry Interdiction % |
Government Legislation % |
Invisible P2P % |
Total File Sharing % |
|
1998 |
100 |
0 |
0 |
|
100 |
|
1999 |
90 |
10 |
0 |
|
100 |
|
2000 |
85 |
13 |
2 |
|
100 |
|
2001 |
80 |
17 |
3 |
|
100 |
|
2002 |
90 |
5 |
4 |
1 |
100 |
|
2003 |
90 |
3 |
5 |
2 |
100 |
|
2004 |
90 |
3 |
2 |
5 |
100 |
|
2005 |
75 |
10 |
5 |
10 |
100 |
|
2006 |
70 |
12 |
3 |
15 |
100 |
|
2007 |
65 |
8 |
2 |
25 |
100 |
|
2008 |
45 |
4 |
8 |
43 |
100 |
|
2009 |
33 |
3 |
10 |
54 |
100 |
|
2010 |
23 |
1 |
1 |
75 |
100 |
It would seem from our own internal data collection efforts that the Score appears to be in favour of P2P software with file sharing as the major motivating factor.
Yes, we will still see the industry thrashing about in it’s legalistic death throws but then as it adopts the new emerging business models, P2P will become just another ….
Do you remember the days of the Prohibition? Fellah couldn’t get a decent drink anywhere……
And the Governments? Well, they will get back to doing the
important things for their voters, like ensuring housing is available,
encouraging local manufacturing and learning that ignoring
References:
LUA
A Simulation Study of the Proactive Server Roaming for
Mitigating Denial of Service Attacks
Chatree Sangpachatanaruk et al, 2003
Least Cost Ad-Hoc Routing,Khoo, DiBono, Koltai July 1997
Bogons and Bogon Filtering with
Presentation, Dave Deitrich, NANOG-33 Meeting, Feb 2005
RFC-4632
Classless Inter-domain Routing (CIDR)
RFC-2073
An IPv6 Provider-Based Unicast Address Format
Using Distributed COM with Firewalls
Michael Nelson -
Internet
Explorer 8 to be Distributed by Automatic Updates
Bringing P2P to the Web: Security and Privacy in the Firecoral Network
Jeff Terrace, Harold Laidlaw, Hao Eric Liu, Sean Stern, and Michael J. Freedman
Princeton University
Reference list – incomplete – Commercial-in-confidence - Perceptric
Corporate Data
