We all know that anonymity in a P2P Network like Gnutella is very important.

The difficult part is to find a way to do this and also keep Gnutella an open-source protocol.

On the contrary. Anonymity on a p2p network is not important at all unless you plan on committing crimes.

Well, that says it all, doesn't it?
Now if only all of the Gnutella Network users would read this simple statement and understand it!!!!!!!

Crimes
 

Taliban wrote: On the contrary. Anonymity on a p2p network is not important at all unless you plan on committing crimes.

Read the Freenet philosophy page and decide if this statement is true.

http://freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/tw...ain/Philosophy

7. But why is anonymity necessary?
You cannot have freedom of speech without the option to remain anonymous. Most censorship is retrospective, it is generally much easier to curtail free speech by punishing those who exercise it afterward, rather than preventing them from doing it in the first place. The only way to prevent this is to remain anonymous. It is a common misconception that you cannot trust anonymous information. This is not necessarily true, using digital signatures people can create a secure anonymous pseudonym which, in time, people can learn to trust. Freenet incorporates a mechanism called "subspaces" to facilitate this.

the future?
 

Looking into the future I think the most needed features are (in order they should be implemented):

-GGEP
-Complete implementation of HUGE
-gnet:// urls (clicking link launches search by hash)
-Global searching (see Vinnies proposal at the_gdf)
-Partail File Sharing
-Publishing to Gnet (mirroring, proxy, ect) <-----------<<<<<
-Advanced searching (and, or, +, -, ect)
-More meta data!!!


Maybe you can see where this could go ;-)

Partial file sharing via HASH and have a option to not allow a complete file or say only 20% to reside on your system at any one time and

If high speed people would simply let others share THROUGH their node, then it would be very difficult to say you are 100% sure it's on someone's computer.
Even if people never use the pass through feature, since you can't tell if someone is using it or not, then there is still no 100% way to know where it's coming from.
You also need a way to block IPs from passing through, let's say you only allow certian IP groups because you have nothing better to do.
Why do that? because you could use another client and try to connect & pass your files through, and if it doesn't happen then you can say "that guy isn't passing through". But maybe, just maybe that guy is only passing certian IPs he likes! So no 100%.

Oh, and if you say "that would make trading too slow", you haven't been paying attention.

Re: Crimes
 

You cannot compare freenet with gnutella. Freenet was designed for text messages and small files, for small amounts of data, that could be distributed without having to fear censorship. It's rather a replacement for the world wide web than a file-sharing application.

Gnutella is a file-sharing protocol, designed to find and transmit large amounts of data over a serverless and very stable network at the highest possible speed. If freenet was the WWW, then gnutella would be the FTP servers.

The point was "But why is anonymity necessary?"

Not just freenet. A "secure anonymous pseudonym" can be used anywhere you have a system for anonymous posting or file sharing.

You need anonymity in order to have freedom. It's that simple.

Besides, it's a great defense for the small guy against the super power greedy types.

You should support and defend anonymity if you are a flag waiving, freedom loving person. The "press" keeps it's sources secret, and you would defend that wouldn't you?

You did not prove that and your statement is anything but self-evident. If you live in a village or a small town, there is no anonymity - would you say you can only be free, if you're living in a major city?

What anonymity truly means (and you mistake for freedom) is, that you don't have to take responsibility for your actions.

<sarcasm>

Here's yet another reason why one should have anonimity and encryption on the web and Gnutella:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/764107.asp

</sarcasm>