On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Gary Jeffers wrote:

If a scanner were written and widely deployed, then I think that the problem of crushing Gnutella would be at least a magnitude harder. Maybe the Gnutella support sites would promote and distribute such a scanner?

You can always use the following method: Participating Nodes listen on random (UDP, say) ports for "I'm here" and "Gimme a pointer" queries. When booting your Node, it randomly sends "Gimme a pointer" messages to random IP addresses/ports until a helpful Participating Node is found, who shares the indexing info he has. Or if you are worried about exposure when a Fed/RIAA/MPAA box receives such a query from your machine: Nodes could instead listen for contacts on an 'uninteresting' port like TCP/80, and disguise queries as innocent looking requests. (You'll note resemblances to Code Red IIS-exploits...) Note also similarities to how spooks arrange to meet in public places... with a deniable nonsuspicious introduction