Is a p2p internetwork a new kind of internet ?

[nameta9]

This may be a new internet invention, I am really not sure because I don't know the technology well.

I have a question regarding peer to peer networks. I saw that if you have a p2p client like emule or imesh you can access all the information shared on that particular client's network. So you can access imesh's network if you have imesh OR emule's network if you have emule. But these two distinct networks are separated and not communicating. So if I find a song on emule, that song is not being shared on imesh. Why not just INTERCONNECT ALL THE P2P NETWORKS TOGETHER so as to have all their contents shared by all the p2p networks?

And maybe connect all those p2p networks to some normal internet websites?

Thanks for any suggestions ...

 

[TsunamiJoe]

I'm not sure of where Emule and Imesh are from, but its illegal for the actual p2p client to hold servers of information for download(how napster was caught) but if they are merely p2p its my understanding that emule and imesh simply give you authorization to access those files on someone elses machines, which can be done without, but illegal

also I don't have any personal experience with Emule nor Imesh, so I could be completely wrong on my diagnosis

 

[chroot]

The two networks use disparate protocols, and so cannot be just "tied" together. You could write a client which participates on both networks, offering the same files on both, but that's the best you could do to tie them together.

- Warren

 

[ramollari]

Emule and Imesh are but two of many existing p2p (application layer) protocols used by corresponding p2p programs. So even if you managed to write clients that understand the protocol of both kinds of programs, there are too many other existing protocols to create a kind of unified p2p internet.
As long as there is competition among p2p products, different protocols will continue to exist that do not cooperate with each other.

 

[nameta9]

So then I am right! This would be A NEW INTERNET INVENTION or application!

I mean finding a way of internetworking all the p2p networks could lead to a further huge extension of the internet and could increase many times its power.

With millions of computers sharing files and being able to cross the boundaries of the various proprietary p2p networks creating a peer to peer internetwork could really be an interesting thing!

I imagine that within an individual PC you could have a few p2p clients operating and creating a kind of bridge - router application amongst them. The these bridges could diffuse amongst all the users and you could end up with a peer to peer internetwork.

 

[chroot]

It would be a waste of time to write clients which operate on all the different networks; in truth, some of the networks have major design flaws. Just pick the best such network and make it the biggest. It wouldn't be a "new kind of internet," whatever that means.

- Warren

 

[TsunamiJoe]

bud, you go ahead and make your new kind of internet, and hackers would have a field day with such things, and to personaly believe viruses would spread like mania and the entire thing would cease to exist after all the computers stopped working

 

[chroot]

Also, you might be missing an obvious drawback to such a scheme:

The machines that "bridge" two peer-to-peer networks would be enormous bottlenecks. A single peer with a DSL or cable connection cannot hope to route any significant traffic through his/her personal connection. It's like trying to suggest that you should route of all North America's internet traffic through a laptop in Italy before going on to the rest of the world.

If someone on network A wanted a file that was on network B, then some user who is bridging A and B would have to route all their traffic. The end result is that rather than having two finicky, slow peers to worry about, you've now got three.

The only real way to accomplish this would be to get people to use clients which operated on more than one network simultaneously, which serves no real purpose other than bloating clients. Just make one -good- network.

- Warren

 

[chroot]

bud, you go ahead and make your new kind of internet, and hackers would have a field day with such things, and to personaly believe viruses would spread like mania and the entire thing would cease to exist after all the computers stopped working

I don't know why you think it would have any worse problems with viruses than do existing p2p networks.

- Warren

 

[Pengwuino]

I suppose if its a 'unified' network, a highly downloaded virus (maybe disguised as a really popular file) would spread quicker i suppose

 

[TsunamiJoe]

peng has my opinion stated lol

also they could instate a sort of bit-torrent like network, which to my understanding is where a lot of computers download the same file off of each other - any thoughts on that?

 

[nameta9]

I guess the best idea is one really good network. If Microsoft and Linux decided to put the same excellent open source peer to peer clients free on all their operating systems (or if someone would give such a client away free that would be compatible with both M$ and linux), then anyone would have the peer to peer network immediately right under their hands and could use it. Then this one good, free open source p2p client network would quickly become the largest and best and contain all the contents of all the PCs of the world. Obviously for CRAPPY POLITICAL COMMERCIAL REASONS this will probably never happen.

Yes I agree the bridge idea is a bit complicated, but maybe if many million PCs had these bridges then there would not be a bootlenet.