RE: [GNUnet-developers] slocate

[jan marco alkema]

Hello Igor,

>Basically, what Jan wants is a distributed global database or filesystem
that contains all the information in the world. This database is built of
nodes that provide different sorts of information. In Jan's scenario, the
owner of the node should be able to specify how his node is used, who uses
it, perhaps ability to set prices on different services or content provided,
and security/anonymity levels for content. Also, Jan would want the system
to incorporate existing protocols such as ftp seamlessly, and choose
transport mechanism according to the level of anonymity required either by
the recipient, the content, or the provider, allowing for maximum
efficiency/security tradeoff with minimum redundancy. Whatever information
available should be easily importable/exportable to/from Jan's system.

You made a perfect description of my ideas. Igor, Thank you for this --)

I will go futher with an "end users" view:

I looked at the GTK GUI of Gnunet. It is easy to use for end users.

The biggest problem I see for Gnunet AFS protocol is the speed of
transferring a file. I have downloaded 3 files and 1 is still in progress
(after 12 hours).  The BPS (bits pro second) in GTK screen are 3.3 ; 12.3 ;
35.7 ; 46.3 !!!!!

Maybe this slow bits rates can be accelerated, but if you want an acceptable
tool you need speed. In my opinion everything what can be shared without
problem should be set to "not AFS", like ftp.

N.B. The slow AFS speed is appropriate for the telephone resolution of
telephone numbers to name, address, city. In Holland it is forbidden to do
this resolution because of privacy regulations.

The problem/opportunity with ftp is that you have an Ip address. If you want
to download something from mysql,  http://www.mysql.com will do. If the
mysql server is down you have a problem. My suggestion: Give a not IP bound
query on the gnunet network like:

gnunet://ftp/77DBE6F971D66F641B2262DDCE78CA8FB6815E60.E34BFD7843D4C8469EFC3D
AD260F1F71783E2A87.466DC92.17992

If some gnunet server has the file he connects to my server. If there are
more than 1. I download from one server. The other gnunet server I give a
ftp error return code "An other server will give it to me".

I run fshlocate. It is the compiled file of the slocate source code.
I redhat 9 updatedb is the symbolic link to "slocate -u"

I see I have 315622 files on my Linux server.

There are less than 20 files I don't want to share with others, password
files, ip table files, etc. I have < 5000 files which I only want to share
with the AFS protocol. That are the java class files of KPN for example. For
the rest of the files {(315622 - (10 + 5000) ) = 3151612 files} I have no
problem to use the very fast "ftp method" for sharing these files with
others on the Internet.

>GNUnet, on the other hand, has at the moment slightly more modest goals: it
tries to achieve scalable anonymous communication between parties in a
network, without the true identity of a participant leaking out to any party
involved in the message passing.

I understand this limited goal of Gnunet, but for adoption of gnunet by end
users "download speed" and "hit rate of files" are essential.

Greetings Jan Marco

P.S. hit rate of a file is in my definition % that a random file will be
found.