Thanks, Lucky, for helping to kill gnutella

[Steve Schear]

At 08:25 PM 8/9/2002 -0700, AARG!Anonymous wrote:
>As far as Freenet and MojoNation, we all know that the latter shut down,
>probably in part because the attempted traffic-control mechanisms made
>the whole network so unwieldy that it never worked.

I worked there and respectfully disagree.  MN never gained a foothold first 
and foremost because of the frequent join/leave problem.

This, in turn, was a direct result of insufficient resources to address 
automated publication of .mp3 header data.  The inability of the client SW 
to automatically create the header data and publish directories full of 
.mp3 files at each client meant users had to expend more much effort to 
make available their content than file-oriented P2P alternatives.  This 
hurdle, when combined with data retention problems related to other MN 
deficiencies, assured that little content was available for DL.  New users 
simply abandoned the effort when they came up empty handed.

The introducer problem could probably have been solved using Usenet 
postings.  The nature of Usenet meant it could scale and was fairly 
resistant legal and technical attacks.  Usenet might also have served for a 
fallback block store but neither approach was ever carefully considered, 
again due to resource limitations.

>At least in part
>this was also due to malicious clients, according to the analysis at
>http://www.cs.rice.edu/Conferences/IPTPS02/188.pdf.

My experience is that the malicious client problem was not a major issue.

[much deleted]

>Lucky can provide all this misinformation, all under the pretence,
>mind you, that this *is* TCPA.  He was educating the audience, mostly
>people who were completely unfamiliar with the system other than some
>vague rumors.  And this is what he presents, a tissue of lies and
>fabrications and unfounded sensationalism.

At Lucky's Defcon talk he stated that he was a participant in the 
development of TCPA.  Can't clearly recall in what capacity he served but 
me recollection is it was as a reviewer.

steve