[p2p-hackers] what would you like to see most in a p2p social network?
Pierre St Juste
ptony82 at gmail.com
Mon Jan 17 23:49:44 PST 2011
Here's some explanation about distributed NAT traversal.
We currently run a structured P2P overlay on Planetlab, when you run
SocialVPN you join that structured overlay, we usually have about 500 - 600
nodes running. If node A wants to connect to node B, the following happens:
1 - node A sends a ConnectToMe (CTM) message to node B by using node B's P2P
address (160-bit randomly chosen address).
2 - The CTM message contains node A's public IP and UDP port.
3 - Node B replies through the overlay with his public IP and UDP port and
simultaneous sends a UDP packet to node A's public IP and port.
4. When node A receives the reply with node B's IP and UDP port, node A
sends a UDP packet to node B's public IP and UDP port.
5. If you have a friendly NAT (not symmetric), then node A's packet will
make it to node B's machine since node B has already sent a packet to that
IP and port.
We call it a distributed STUN server because the Brunet P2P library allows
for discovery of one's public IP address and port and it also provides an
all-to-all messaging layer needed to signal the start of UDP hole punching.
As we all know, direct P2P communication is not always possible, in this
case, a node that is reachable by both parties is chosen as the relay nodes
and peers communicate through that.
Finally our NAT traversal is a bit slower than regular STUN because the
initial message is routed through a structured overlay that takes log(N)
hops on average, but you may have dropped UDP packets and retries, so it may
take milliseconds or a few seconds to set up direct P2P connection.
These papers explain in more detail
http://byron.acis.ufl.edu/papers/ipdps06ipop.pdf
http://byron.acis.ufl.edu/papers/hpdc145-ganguly.pdf
http://byron.acis.ufl.edu/papers/cops08.pdf
Hope this helps. I encourage anyone interesting to download SocialVPN and
try it out, there is windows installer and debian package. It currently
works with GoogleChat or by emailing each other your P2P address.
On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 12:49 AM, David Barrett <dbarrett at quinthar.com>wrote:
> Wow, this looks really fantastic. I hadn't followed its progress but it
> sounds like it's come a long way really fast. I'd love to hear more
> about its distributed STUN service and NAT traversal. Do you have any
> data on its effectiveness, perhaps expressed as the likelihood that two
> arbitrary nodes will be able to connect directly via the internet? Is
> there a TURN or other relay service available as a fallback? Thanks!
>
> -david
>
> On 01/17/2011 08:13 PM, Pierre St Juste wrote:
> > I would like to point out the SocialVPN project
> >
> > http://socialvpn.org
> >
> > It is basically a P2P VPN which creates direct encrypted tunnels to
> > friends. It currently uses the XMPP protocol for friend discovery and
> > public key exchange. This VPN thus creates a social graph where edges
> > are IP links. This infrastructure can be used as an enabler for many
> > other social services. Here are a few examples
> >
> > 1 - Instead of using Skype, you can use Ekiga with Avahi, Avahi
> > extension for Ekiga will discover online friends through multicast over
> > the social virtual private network, you can then place SIP call directly
> > over IP link.
> >
> > 2. For instant messaging, you can use Empathy or Pidgin with
> > Bonjour/Avahi support, as concept as above.
> >
> > 3. For video stream, you can stream a video over HTTP or RTP using VLC
> > and your friends can connect directly.
> >
> > 4. For social networking, you can run a wordpress blog locally and have
> > your friends connect to that, or you can write an social networking
> > application that communicates with friends over SocialVPN using Berkeley
> > sockets API instead of having to deal with building P2P library that
> > deals with NAT traversal, peer search and so on.
> >
> > 5. All data sent between peers is encrypted and authenticated, basically
> > the same idea behind IPSec if you support PKI certificate exchanges.
> >
> > One of the hardest thing about building social P2P systems is having
> > with a user-friendly way to bootstrap these social links (or Darknets).
> > SocialVPN makes that step trivial so that developers can focus more on
> > making cool apps versus figuring out how to traverse NATs.
> >
> > I hope this helps.
> >
> > On Mon, 2011-01-17 at 18:57 -0800, David Barrett wrote:
> >> I'd suggest first figuring out why someone would pick a P2P social
> >> network over Facebook, from a perspective of legitimate functionality
> >> rather than just privacy (which as Facebook has demonstrated, isn't a
> >> killer feature). I'd suggest really emphasizing the fact that with
> >> P2P-Book, there is no "uploading" photos or videos: you can share entire
> >> folders of files, videos, documents, or whatever and their instantly
> >> available to your friends -- without first uploading them somewhere
> else.
> >>
> >> Furthermore, emphasize that you're not sharing *copies* of the videos,
> >> songs, and photos -- you're sharing the originals: change the original
> >> (crop, reorient, touch up, tag with metadata, etc) and its automatically
> >> updated.
> >>
> >> -david
> >>
> >> On 01/17/2011 12:51 PM, Jan DomaEski wrote:
> >>> Hey Michael,
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for the comments, they're helpful.
> >>>
> >>> A lot of this boils down to having two (or more) 'sides' of self. One
> >>> for general public, others for the rest; this is doable.
> >>>
> >>> Grudge-friendly and jackboot resistant, in ideal world, comes with the
> >>> 'distributed' and 'secure+encrypted'. But sure, seems to have been lost
> >>> in the implementation of at least one social network i can think of.
> >>>
> >>> As to the grandmother compatibility, at least to me, this is not
> >>> absolutely essential at first.
> >>>
> >>> Cherio, Jan
> >>>
> >>> 2011/1/16 Michael Rogers<m-- at gmx.com<mailto:m-- at gmx.com>>
> >>>
> >>> Hi Jan,
> >>>
> >>> Here's a quick list of features I'd like to see in any social
> network
> >>> (not just P2P ones):
> >>>
> >>> * Grandmother-compatible. It should be possible to be friends with
> my
> >>> grandmother without her seeing the photo of the time I did that
> thing
> >>> with the grapes.
> >>>
> >>> * Alcohol-compatible. There should be something as easy to
> remember as
> >>> an email address that I can give to random people I befriend while
> >>> drunk. And if they look me up the next day, there should be a
> polite way
> >>> of not responding.
> >>>
> >>> * Schoolproof. People should not be able to find my profile just
> because
> >>> we went to school together 20 years ago. Similarly, people should
> not be
> >>> able to find my profile just because I applied for a job at their
> >>> company (or at least, they shouldn't be able to see the photo of
> the
> >>> thing with the grapes).
> >>>
> >>> * Grudge-friendly. It should be possible to move my data from one
> >>> provider to another when the current provider accuses me of
> lacking
> >>> integrity because I don't want my grandmother to see the photo etc
> etc.
> >>>
> >>> * Jackboot-resistant. The Tunisian government should not be able
> to
> >>> steal my password by setting up a fake login page.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>> Michael
> >>>
> >>> On 15/01/11 20:35, Jan DomaEski wrote:
> >>> > Hello everybody out there interested in p2p social networking,
> >>> >
> >>> > I'm doing a (free) p2p social network (just a hobby, wonbt be
> big and
> >>> > professional like diaspora). It has been in the works since
> >>> summer, and
> >>> > begins to get some shape. I'd like any feedback on things
> people
> >>> > like/dislike in the idea of a p2p social network and how this
> is
> >>> solved
> >>> > by the little toy.
> >>> >
> >>> > I've currently written it in java, netty handles the
> networking,
> >>> Qt is
> >>> > used for GUI. Some yml for configs and db4o for storage.
> Non-blocking
> >>> > xml (XMPP) parser is a missing puzzle. The app has been run
> only on a
> >>> > single machine, but it's already practical and I'd like to
> know what
> >>> > features most people would want. Any suggestions are welcome,
> but I
> >>> > wonbt promise Ibll implement them :]
> >>> >
> >>> > Two demos (the top one is new) below, gitorious and blog links
> inside
> >>> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rAwCsYt16w
> >>> > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1dujrhGvBQ
> >>> >
> >>> > Jan (jan.domanski at new.ox.ac.uk<mailto:
> jan.domanski at new.ox.ac.uk>
> >>> <mailto:jan.domanski at new.ox.ac.uk<mailto:
> jan.domanski at new.ox.ac.uk>>)
> >>> >
> >>> > PS. Yes - it's all my own work and done as a scientist not a
> >>> programmer,
> >>> > which has terrible implications for code ;)
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> > _______________________________________________
> >>> > p2p-hackers mailing list
> >>> > p2p-hackers at lists.zooko.com<mailto:
> p2p-hackers at lists.zooko.com>
> >>> > http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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--
Pierre St Juste
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