[circle] Re: TheCircle search system

[thomasV]

RITA Y/O RODRIGO DIAZ Y/O BENENSON wrote:

> Many thanks for your description, but I had already studied the Chord and Kadmelia papers. My problem is that the key->hash mapping is almost unique. So if I have a user_name->ip map, and let say that "rodrigob" is online. 
>
> How do a search for "Rodrigo Benenson" is achieved ?
> Or if I search "rodrigo_b" ?
>
> It look that the mapping is unique, so no match for "Rodrigo Benenson" and "rodrigo_b" wil appear. 
>
> So how such search are achieved ? A rapid search in the net did not give me a 
> real answer. It looks like a complicated problem, but thecircle and overnet 
> look to solve it, at least in a basic way.
>
> So, how it is achieved ?
>
> Thanks.
> RodrigoB.
In circle the user IDs are based on their public key, so they are unique.

however, several objects (people or files) can be searched through a common
key (like two persons that have the name rodrigo, or like the keyword 'mp3')
In order to solve this, circle appends a 'salt' to the key, in order to 
make it unique.
The salt is a random 2 bytes number (or maybe 4 bytes, I do not remember).
The link is then published with the salted key.

So, 'mp3' does not map to a precise location, but to an interval in the 
table.
if there are more than 256^2 objects that have this keyword, the 
interval is
saturated, and no more link can be published (or I guess they are 
overwritten).
Similarly, a query to a keyword cannot return more than 256^2 results.

I guess Overnet works the same way, because if you type mp3 it returns
a limited number of items.

> p.s: yes, using a thecircle to keep the whitepages allow a descentralized users reaching system, avoiying an "adress server". Remember that most ip are dinamic. 
>
>  
that would be great. please let me know if circle needs to be modified 
for that.
I think it might need to return a port number in addition to the ip address.