Subj: Re: ... gnutella ...
Date: 4/18/00 2:14:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: whirlwind-productions@home.com (Whirlwind Productions)
To: BARDSQUILL@aol.com



in mid-march a group of programmers at, what was, nullsoft released the beta
of a new file search/database/transfer program which fundamentally alters
the manner in which Internet users can search and transfer files (any file)
without the need for centralised servers ... as the network is dependant
solely upon those users whom are connected at any given time, there are not
any means available to authorities/ip to shut it down (other than shutting
down the Internet as a whole) ... this is new ...
... those whom are stakeholders in copyrighted materials
(software/music/movies etc.) are justifiably frightened by this, as pirated
copies of their products had previously been within the realm of so-called
warez ... gnutella could provide home users a relatively simple (and free)
method to anonymously search for, find, and download everything from a
friend's favourite recipe, to a copy of windows2000, to a dvd rip of
american beauty,or even purloined data from the HumanGenomeProject...

...AOL (timewarner) bought nullsoft and shut down beta trial within hours of
gnutella's release...

...but not before the programmers had released the protocol to the open
source community, (who in one month have produced universally compatible
versions for almost every operating system currently in use...)

... as the number of users has exploded (especially at american/european
colleges) over the past few weeks, the pressure brought on by the media and
FBI has also increased ... both cnn & (ms)nbc ran stories stating that
gnutella was some sort of pedophilia haven and "viral" cesspool ... despite
(or perhaps, because of) this propaganda campaign, it's users world-wide are
growing exponentially ...

... the part that drives the lawyers to tears, is that no one person or
group owns (or even controls) the gnutellanet ... no one computer is any
more or less critical to the networks stability than any other ...


the entire effort is supported entirely through the work of thousands of
volunteers and is best understood by installing the software (reading the
online instructions!!!) and entering .mp3, .asf, or .zip in the search field
(in order to appreciate the magnitude of this)...

...further instructions/info/media mentions can be found through the link to
a main reference site:
http://www.gnutella.wego.com/go/wego.group.group?groupId=116705



... which brings us to "what is this?"

... as stated previously, gnutellanet is without a formal hierarchy. The
content, size and nature of the gnutellanet is constantly evolving and
growing ... the image is a plotted representation of how all the gnutella
clients are interconnected (they being a virtual web within a web) during
one particular moment... this plot was originally created as means for the
developers to get a visual image of any routing bottlenecks/cul-de-sacs ...
enthusiasts see it as the first images of a wakening consciousness

hope this has been of some assistance