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Morpheus - the bitter thruth?

 [1/25] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 3-Mar-2002 14:37


Hi, so I downloaded new Morpheus, and even if I should stay from negative comments, I can't, as the impression is really bad. It's UI looks like last minute hack composed of some Delphi template. Well, I am not even alone thinking that the situation sucks. Here's one of user comments: As we all know, StreamCast Networks (aka MusicCity), learned this past week that they aren't welcomed on Kazaa's FastTrack network anymore, as millions of Morpheus users were given the incompatable version" finger. StreamCast promised us back in December that they would integrate Gnutella network compatability. Gnutella is a free peer to peer technology, whereas StreamCast had to pay in order to use FastTrack. Anyhow, the promised "Morpheus Preview Edition" is now out, and it seems to be based on Gnucleus, a free, GPL'd Gnutella client. StreamCast even forgot to remove some icons. As far as I can tell, the preferences dialog, the "Go" button, and the file structure all are identical to Gnucleus's. Now, I am wondering, like every good free software supporter should, where is the source?" It seems to be true - Gnucleus screenshost are just very similar to new Morpheus - some of Windows are just identical: http://www.gnutelliums.com/windows/gnucleus/screenshots.shtml Even Slyck.com provided hard critique, which now seems to be removed from their site ... My personal impression is, that MusicCity divorced (or was divorced) with Kazaa, so hundred of thousands of Morhpeus users were cut-off. MusicCity had to find some solution really quickly. Now the question is - if they will not use FastTrack networking technology, is Rebol based Morpheus still planned? Well, those are my opinions and conclusions, - you don't have to agree with me, of course ... Some other links: http://quotes.freerealtime.com/dl/frt/N?art=C2002030100060p3272&SA=Latest News http://news.com.com/2100-1023-849867.html Now who's a bad guy? :-) PS: has anyone looked into Gnutella protocol, if it is free? Would it be possible to build Rebol Gnutella client, without the need to interface any kind of library (tcp communication only)? Or just should be some search capabilities added to IOS (IOS is server based though)? :-) http://www.gnutella.com http://www.gnutellanews.com http://www.gnutelliums.com -pekr-

 [2/25] from: chris:starforge at: 3-Mar-2002 16:15


#Sunday 03 March 2002 13:37# Message from Petr Krenzelok:
> PS: has anyone looked into Gnutella protocol, if it is free? Would it be > possible to build Rebol Gnutella client, without the need to interface > any kind of library (tcp communication only)? Or just should be some > search capabilities added to IOS (IOS is server based though)? :-)
There's no end of open source Gnutella clients out there, so it looks like it's free - not sure how tricky implementing a version in REBOL would be though. Chris -- .------{ http://www.starforge.co.uk }-----. .---------------------------. =[ Explorer2260, Designer and Coder \=\ P: TexMaker, Draktar \ =[_[ You will obey the corporate masters. ]_]==[ Stack: EEOeOeOeTmTmDD---- ] -- If God had intended Man to Watch TV, He would have given him Rabbit Ears.

 [3/25] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 3-Mar-2002 18:50


Chris wrote:
>#Sunday 03 March 2002 13:37# Message from Petr Krenzelok: >>PS: has anyone looked into Gnutella protocol, if it is free? Would it be
<<quoted lines omitted: 6>>
>though. >Chris
Well, I don't know if it even matters .... Morpheus was the no 1. Now it seems to be only second league player, with uncertain future (according the quality of new client). New reports show, that Morpheus is down to some 300K users, while Kazaa wins with 1 mil ones. If they divorced with FastTrack, who knows if they still plan on Rebol version. So, save your reblets in your pockets for some time .... they are already two months late anyway, and looking at their new client, who knows what the future brings for them ... -pekr-

 [4/25] from: chris:starforge at: 3-Mar-2002 19:21


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 #Sunday 03 March 2002 13:37# Message from Petr Krenzelok:
> It seems to be true - Gnucleus screenshost are just very similar to new > Morpheus - some of Windows are just identical:
It is true, from slashdot: Posted by CmdrTaco on Saturday March 02, @11:51PM from the now-thats-not-right dept. dotslash writes The new Morpheus Preview Edition client [download.com] is actually just a fork of Gnucleus an open source GPLd Gnutella client. Upon installation Morpheus PE displays the GPL and asks the user to accept. It is currently being distributed without source in violation of article 3 of the GPL. Gnucleus developers are not too happy about this. This Morpheus client is being downloaded by thousands of frustrated Morpheus users who have been cutoff the FastTrack/Kazaa network and are now migrating to Gnutella. The violation of the GPL is blatant and will also be the first glimpse of the GPL for many of these new users. It seems like the executives at MusicCity have decided that they prefer free 'as in beer' not 'as in speech.'" Update: 03/03 05:10 GMT by T: It looks like the source is available now, gpl.txt and all." http://www.gnucleus.com/home.html may be of interest. Chris - -- .------{ http://www.starforge.co.uk }-----. .---------------------------. =[ Explorer2260, Designer and Coder \=\ P: TexMaker, Draktar \ =[_[ You will obey the corporate masters. ]_]==[ Stack: EEOeOeOeTmTmDD---- ] - -- The Scripture of the Master Programmer [Principals 1:40] Simple languages complicate all but simple designs. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8gnfFtwxr0HXns0wRAnSQAKCyFT6bpq/W7lQ58dMGJfsYqtWNMwCgrPwY PO3BWq6Ol5rvbKBBV+z2a4E=cugD -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

 [5/25] from: tbrownell:shaw:ca at: 3-Mar-2002 10:58


Any word on this from Rebol Tech.? TB

 [6/25] from: ptretter:charter at: 3-Mar-2002 15:25


The reason Kazaa might be #1 is because more teenagers know about Kazaa than Morpheus. In my home Kazaa was downloaded by my teanager. I downloaded Morpheus after I heard about it - only to find it so similiar to Kazaa. Problem is that teens can market things by far faster than anyone else. So maybe Morpheus should put a big target on Teens and get the WORD out! Paul Tretter

 [7/25] from: ptretter:charter at: 3-Mar-2002 15:27


Sounds like the ideal time for Napster to crawl back into the game with maybe a new client under a new name. Just a thought. Paul Tretter

 [8/25] from: tbrownell:shaw:ca at: 3-Mar-2002 13:56


>Sounds like the ideal time for Napster to crawl back into the game with >maybe a new client under a new name. Just a thought. >Paul Tretter
Sounds like the ideal time for Rebol to get INTO the P2P game, with reblets and all :) TB

 [9/25] from: chris:starforge:demon at: 4-Mar-2002 10:23


Terry Brownell wrote:
>>Sounds like the ideal time for Napster to crawl back into the game with >>maybe a new client under a new name. Just a thought.
I'm probably going to catch a log of flamage for this but.... Quite frankly, I will now be surprised if REBOL ever appears as part of Morpheus. The switch to being nothing more than a Gnucleus fork is going to kill Morpheus - why would anyone use an ad-filled, cut-down version of one of the best GPL gnutella clients when they can use the real thing? There is certainly unlikely to be any viable revenue stream from the project now, especially given the continued free-fall in advertising revenues. RT as a company isn't IMO going to get anything out of a partnership with Morpheus now, unless REBOL completely replaces the interface and protocol - and somehow you can persuade people to stop using Gnucleus or Kaazaa and pay to use the new Morpheus client. IMO that's an unattainable target. Chris -- .------{ http://www.starforge.co.uk }-----. .--------------------------. =[ Explorer2260, Designer and Coder \=\ P: TexMaker, ROACH, site \ =[___You_will_obey_your_corporate_masters___]==[ Stack: EETmTmTRRSS------ ]

 [10/25] from: carl:rebol at: 5-Mar-2002 16:01


Ah, P2P... interesting... very interesting. -Carl At 3/3/02 01:56 PM -0800, you wrote:

 [11/25] from: chaz:innocent at: 6-Mar-2002 3:02


uh, what do you suppose he meant by that?

 [12/25] from: robbo1mark:aol at: 6-Mar-2002 6:21


Chaz, I'm not sure what the point of even posting such a cryptic and obscure message is , but it's good to see carl is still alive, his first post in a *long* time. Just hope Carl or REBOL aren't thinking or planning any stupid proprietary P2P system, Morpheous and others are already competing in the space with varying degrees of success and failure, and Iam confident that the only way any internet distribution system is going to succeed is by being based on completely open protocols and not proprietary - the world wide web and email are perfect examples of these. Anything else is backing a loser. Everybody has to be free to join in and interoperate and be able to set up and use & contributeusing their own systems. This is what made the web & email a success and is what will need to happen in Instant-Messaging & P2P for these to truly succeed. However REBOL could and should be used to develop the bleeding edge of a super new open P2P system. My 2 pence worth. Mark Dickson In a message dated Wed, 6 Mar 2002 6:05:18 AM Eastern Standard Time, "chaz" <[chaz--innocent--com]> writes:

 [13/25] from: petr:krenzelok:trz:cz at: 6-Mar-2002 14:16


chaz wrote:
> uh, what do you suppose he meant by that? >
hehe, that knows only Carl :-) Carl was interested in P2P discussion in IOS Conference too, so he joined us once there was talk about P2P issues. Maybe RT has something interesting in the pocket? (I doubt that because they have no free time left imo and are concentrating upon IOS issues imo). For us, the problem is, that if Morpheus goes under, so goes under one of few possibilities of how world would be introduced to Rebol ... -pekr-

 [14/25] from: koopmans:itr:ing:nl at: 6-Mar-2002 14:35


Combined with C/S, or is P2P just a way of viewing things on a connection-oriented network anyway? And isn't there a broker out there that handles transparent communication tunneled over HTTP with high security? Interesting it will be..... --Maarten

 [15/25] from: info:id-net:ch at: 6-Mar-2002 14:42


What about a collaboration between us to make our Morpheus and show the world what Rebol is ??

 [16/25] from: jason:cunliffe:verizon at: 6-Mar-2002 7:20


> uh, what do you suppose he meant by that?
dunno.. echoes of rowan+martins's laugh-in??

 [17/25] from: jason:cunliffe:verizon at: 6-Mar-2002 9:13


> Just hope Carl or REBOL aren't thinking or planning any stupid proprietary
P2P system, Morpheous and others are already competing in the space with varying degrees of success and failure, and Iam confident that the only way any internet distribution system is going to succeed is by being based on completely open protocols and not proprietary - the world wide web and email are perfect examples of these.
> Anything else is backing a loser.
Not so fast.. anything which works and lets people do what they want easily is not always a 'loser'... The easiest way to have *secure* P2P is to develop some [obscure] proprietary, non-published set of matching tools. End of story. OpenSource is one of the great modern adventures in multi-cultural collaboration. I love it, but it has its problems too. When you use xyz electronic appliance [telephone, PC, HiFi, Bank ATM machine.. Airplane...etc] You don't particularly want or need to get inside those subcompenents at a very low level. Ever since integrated circuits became the norm, opensource electronics has been completely beyond most people's reach. But what replaced it was a different higher-level order of open modularity.. and things accelerated wildly[somewhere around 1975 ?? ] For P2P to really succeed, it needs a [globally] acceptable construct, though it may in fact mostly be applied in many small groups and many communities. We need not necessarily a language, but a language-like approach - which lets people describe useful kinds of interaction, services and situations. Something which can be applied and implemented regardless of the underlying technology. Just as digital electronics enabled open development though based on proprietary eveolving chip families. Nobody really undertsands the P2P problem or application domains yet anyway.. there's gonna have to be _lots_ of hands-on trial and error, both technical and social. Rapid Prototyping and keen grasp of changing human workflow patterns will be perhasp the most critical ingredients. Rebol is well suited for its rapid prototyping, as is Python, FlashMX etc. The military arena is probably the biggest customer. Again and again communications are where accidents happen. Same story in WTC911. If the military are the first to commission and specify new tech, the Sex [+drugsnvice] industries are usually the first to appropriate new technology [VHS, 900-lines, Minitel in France, pagers, web subscriptions, streaming-Video-on-demand]. I can see lots of other social uses for P2P. But these are most likely to make it happen first. Longterm, I think the largest social change and benefits of P2P will be Transportation and Medecine. I fear medicine will the last last to sanely embrace P2P in America because is so !@#$-ed by insurance system. Europe and Asia seem most likely. But then maybe this century will truly surprise us, and Africa will be transformed. ./Jason

 [18/25] from: robbo1mark:aol at: 6-Mar-2002 11:58


JASON, Iam not proposing "open source" here what IAM saying is that any P2P system should be based on a transparent and open system just like previous examples TCP/IP and SMTP for email and HTTP/HTML for the world wide web. If you look at the history of the internet and networking I'll think you'll see that all proprietary network distribution mechanisms and protocols eventually get routed around by more OPEN though possibly sometimes technically inferior solutions. They end up being an irrelevance to what the bulk of people are doing and using and creating new apps for. All I was doing was trying to implore RT to avoid the futility of trying to create a closed P2P system with them as the central hub as I believe such an approach would have some limited success at best and is more probably "DOOMED" to fail from the start. AOL Instant Messaging though hugely popular is not a money maker for AOL and is another example of a proprietary internet service which we are in the process of seeing this being routed around by the restof the net because of AOL's closed approach to interoperability. The same applies to Yahoo & MSN Instant Messaging. the only thing these proprietary systems have done is fragment the market and now much effort is being poured into finding and establishing an open common standard for IM and IM interoperability. The overall system has to be open and transparent - not necessarily the end-point applications. That's all. Mark Dickson In a message dated Wed, 6 Mar 2002 11:11:09 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Jason Cunliffe" <[jason--cunliffe--verizon--net]> writes:

 [19/25] from: tbrownell:shaw:ca at: 6-Mar-2002 9:44


> What about a collaboration between us to make our Morpheus and show the > world what Rebol is ??
I second the motion. TBrownell

 [20/25] from: chris:starforge at: 6-Mar-2002 18:29


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 #
> The easiest way to have *secure* P2P is to develop some [obscure] > proprietary, non-published set of matching tools. End of story.
Please, not that old oneagain. Security through obscurity never has and never will work. The world is full of people far more intelligent than people who write "secure" protocols - give them a disassembler, packet sniffer and a few weeks and the secure protocol will be plastered over pirate and cracker BSS, IRC and newsgroups. In Europe people would even be legally *allowed* to do this so that they could write tools to interoperate with your network. Then you're stuck in the cycle of trying to second-guess people, update everything and hope it doesn't break and spending far more man hours trying to stay half a step ahead of everyone else than actually putting effort into making the system good. Pointless, counter productive and self-defeating as closed protocols are an open invitation to crackers: which carries more cracker karma, cracking a closed protocol or exploting an old, documented, probably well patched exploit in an open protocol? Chris - -- .------{ http://www.starforge.co.uk }-----. .---------------------------. =[ Explorer2260, Designer and Coder \=\ P: TexMaker, Draktar \ =[_[ You will obey the corporate masters. ]_]==[ Stack: EEOeOeOeTmTmDD---- ] - -- HOW TO ANNOY OTHER PEOPLE 19. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go." -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8hl/vtwxr0HXns0wRAob+AJ0f4X8ptm15gqQGRML4P0vKR3hnNwCgp+Fy O4xVtmyoeKZJFbdPd35NOzA=BfAn -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

 [21/25] from: joel:neely:fedex at: 6-Mar-2002 16:18


Hi, Chris, Chris wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1
<<quoted lines omitted: 3>>
> Please, not that old one again. Security through obscurity never > has and never will work...
I completely concur with your analysis, only adding the minor point that either a disgruntled "insider", or the untimely departure of the only wizard who knows the obscure secret, can both bring the whole thing to a screeching halt as well. -jn-

 [22/25] from: jason:cunliffe:verizon at: 6-Mar-2002 17:29


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1
<<quoted lines omitted: 3>>
> Please, not that old oneagain. Security through obscurity never has and > never will work. The world is full of people far more intelligent than
people Well perhaps I should be clearer. I was not exactly advocating this. Just pointing out that perhaps the best security is quite off the radar of expected strategy. There is plenty in life beyond the world of packet sniffers. There are plenty of things unquie to us: body language, smell, body metrics like iris, fingerprints..P2P is about peer to peer but I prefer tothin of it as People to People. How many choices then? For example, let's be old fashioned about this for a moment: suppose I send you an innocuous email recommending a book review, or some photos of my holiday.. But it in fact we've already met for coffee, or telephoned one another, or I sent you a nice birthday card, so you know exactly what to do with that information when later I send P2P message like : (page)"345" or jalama beach Perhaps you use software, perhaps you use your eyes.. or memory.. The founding basis of public/private keys and encryption is that separted parts combine to form something else. PGP is cool and clever but it is still an advertisement. obfuscated modular software is another example. jigsaw puzzle mesages which are little programs not just data. Rebol is good for this. do %abc abc does %efg ... does %xyz context context context
> who write "secure" protocols - give them a disassembler, packet sniffer
and a
> few weeks and the secure protocol will be plastered over pirate and > cracker BSS, IRC and newsgroups. In Europe people would even be legally > *allowed* to do this so that they could write tools to interoperate with
your
> network. Then you're stuck in the cycle of trying to second-guess people, > update everything and hope it doesn't break and spending far more man
hours
> trying to stay half a step ahead of everyone else than actually putting > effort into making the system good.
Yes agreed. But all that is very visible bright targets on the radar.
> Pointless, counter productive and self-defeating as closed protocols are
an
> open invitation to crackers: which carries more cracker karma, cracking a > closed protocol or exploting an old, documented, probably well patched > exploit in an open protocol?
I just feel that there so many more approaches which need to be tried yet. Voice, music, image, movement [gesture] which may prove to be far more effective and appropriate for person to person. P2P may prove to be largely about exploring such new directions.. ./Jason

 [23/25] from: chris:starforge:demon at: 7-Mar-2002 12:46


Jason Cunliffe wrote:
> Well perhaps I should be clearer. I was not exactly advocating this. Just > pointing out that perhaps the best security is quite off the radar of > expected strategy. There is plenty in life beyond the world of packet > sniffers.
But ultimately the information must be transferred in some way. While the example you give below - splitting the message over two or more carriers - is partially effective given a single point of weakness, it does not lead to a secure P2P solution any more than me sending someone an email, a text message and P2P message to get the message across. If you have multiple points at which the information could be picked up - someone has bugged the room you had coffee in, your phone is tapped and the P2P protocol has been cracked - then you may as well have sent the whole thing in the open anyway.
> obfuscated modular software is another example.
This is a good read on this subject: http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~boaz/Papers/obfuscate.html http://www.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il/~boaz/Papers/obfuscate.ps On the (Im)possibility of Obfuscating Programs Chris -- .------{ http://www.starforge.co.uk }-----. .--------------------------. =[ Explorer2260, Designer and Coder \=\ P: TexMaker, ROACH, site \ =[___You_will_obey_your_corporate_masters___]==[ Stack: EETmTmTRRSS------ ]

 [24/25] from: g:santilli:tiscalinet:it at: 7-Mar-2002 19:04


Hi Terry, On Wednesday, March 06, 2002, 6:44:45 PM, you wrote:
>> What about a collaboration between us to make our Morpheus and show the >> world what Rebol is ??
TB> I second the motion. Should I repost the specs for the Information World? ;-) Regards, Gabriele. -- Gabriele Santilli <[g--santilli--tiscalinet--it]> -- REBOL Programmer Amigan -- AGI L'Aquila -- REB: http://web.tiscali.it/rebol/index.r

 [25/25] from: chaz:innocent at: 8-Mar-2002 1:46


post it!

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