Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looks like it's this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Gorton Oh well.
[flagged]
Lmao, I’m not even in the US. I just know that advocating against child vaccinations is objectively a bad thing.
Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
71–80 of 101 posts
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#72I'd say the biggest reason that Gnutella (and other services like it) is no longer in much use is because for a long, long time now the easiest way to download music for free, without ads, and with virtually zero chance of getting caught, has been via YouTube and downloader clients. For most practical uses, it's good enough. You wouldn't want to share the resulting downloads (not only is the audio quality slightly de…
Gnutella fell in popularity before Youtube existed. The big reason the decentralized P2P file sharing networks went away was their vulnerability to spoofing. Downloads were slow so it was important to be sure of the quality of the files being downloaded, which meant grabbing links from a website or some sort of forum. And once there's a forum, for some of the sites it was not much of a jump to add a BitTorrent tracker to the infrastructure. Additionally, for those sites that were primary sources of uploaded material, BitTorrent was a much better fit.
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gnutella's original sin was that it combined distributed search with distributed download. In a rational world, that would be smart and good but in a litigious world, that was too sophisticated for the Supreme Court and they ruled it as infringing on copyright through inducement of the user. Gnutella clients, like other P2P clients with search, got sued out of existence. Bittorrent offloaded the distributed search on…
I don't think it has much to do with legality. For me the biggest problem is authenticity. On most of the decentralized P2P networks of that time is that you never know what you are getting. Look for some Disney movie, get porn. Very common back in the days. Of course you also had all the malware, scams, etc... More generally, it didn't do much to incentive good behavior (sharing). Bittorrent, with its private tracke…
i remember downloading an mp3 of a songs that claimed to be collab between hendrix and jim morrison.
just found it on youtube now (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSRLf30lj0M), and i'm excited to see another commenter was there for the same reason!
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#74A client for this was one of the first complete programs I ever wrote.
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#75On a tangent OiNK's Pink Palace never died either, if you know you know… The high seas have never been better.
[dead]
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
DC++ now that's some nostalgia. Myself used IRC XDCC bots connected to my 33k modem connected to my 486DX which would disconnect every three hours. eDonkey, WinMX, lovely fashionable protocols.
Not to forget the eMule.
That shit is apparently still alive somewhere in Latin America. I used it to get Spanish versions of films.
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
or was it Windows hiding file extensions by default and you downloaded a .mp3.exe file?
Isn't it just great how a decision made by some genius in Microsoft decades ago caused so much confusion and mess. Even on Windows 11 the default is to hide extensions, because, geez, wouldn't want to confuse people with change after decades of it being like that. Although, was the hiding something that the Mac introduced? The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launch…
> The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launched to handle the file is odd anyway...
I challenge you to suggest a better solution - the best that Linux came up with is a giant database of all magic numbers known to God and praying that something matches... sometimes it does, and sometimes it even matches the correct program.
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn't it just great how a decision made by some genius in Microsoft decades ago caused so much confusion and mess. Even on Windows 11 the default is to hide extensions, because, geez, wouldn't want to confuse people with change after decades of it being like that. Although, was the hiding something that the Mac introduced? The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launch…
> The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launched to handle the file is odd anyway... I challenge you to suggest a better solution - the best that Linux came up with is a giant database of all magic numbers known to God and praying that something matches... sometimes it does, and sometimes it even matches the correct program.
the linux way works tho
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The idea of the last part of the filename (after the period) determining what program is launched to handle the file is odd anyway... I challenge you to suggest a better solution - the best that Linux came up with is a giant database of all magic numbers known to God and praying that something matches... sometimes it does, and sometimes it even matches the correct program.
the linux way works tho
it really doesn't
hiding information from user is not good by any means
Re: Gnutella: A Protocol Outliving the World That Created It
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
the linux way works tho
it really doesn't hiding information from user is not good by any means
But relying on them to tell the OS what type a file is, or allowing them to change the extension, isn't good either. lena.jpg doesn't become lena.pdf by changing the last 3 letters of the filename..