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bluesky - Re: Hi, and some comments

bluesky AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Global-Scale Distributed Storage Systems

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  • From: Brandon <blanu AT uts.cc.utexas.edu>
  • To: Global-Scale Distributed Storage Systems <bluesky AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Hi, and some comments
  • Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 22:43:04 -0600 (CST)



> Popularity is only one reason to store data. Some data may not be popular
> but may have high value for a small group of people or have long-term
> archival value. I guess Freenet focuses on popularity because it's harder
> to manipulate than subjective value, but the downside is that it can't
> handle the latter kind of data. A market-based system can automatically
> and optimally balance between the two.

Popularity is local, not global, in Freenet. So if your small group of
people with shared values have nodes which shared proximity then they will
serve as an island in which that information will survive. It will
disappear from the greater network as is proper since no one else wants
it. Unfortunately, Freenet has been moving against my protestations
towards a system of organization in which you cannot control the proximity
of nodes to each other. In the future Freenet the random connections
between nodes will mean that popularity is more or less global since you
will be statistically likely to share proximity with plebian nodes rather
than special interest nodes. I think that's too bad, but oh well.

I think that ad-hoc clustering of nodes with shared intersts is a
fascinating area of P2P development and would really like to hear about
anyone that is working on this.

The Freenet developers are exploring a system in which you can voluntarily
give resources to the network in order to host data which you think has
long-term archival value. This is still preliminary, though, and we don't
know how it will work out.

There are some issues with anonymity if you decide to host long-term
data. We consider that to be okay since it's really just an option on top
of our more anonymous system which doesn't supply long-term hosting.

Hopefully the FreeHaven folks will come up with a more sophisticated
system of anonymous long-term hosting which we can try to use. If not then
that's okay because we fancy ourselves a distribution network anyway.

I'm still interesting in gatewaying distribution and storage networks
together, but there are of course obstacles in that direction as well.






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