The secret knock, the red carnation (Re: Gnutella scanning instead of service providers.)

[Dynamite Bob]

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