James Delahunty
6 Oct 2004 12:11
Morpheus plans to release an update of its P2P software that will use new P2P technology to make the network stronger. Such technology is already in use by such networks as the eDonkey network, so you have to question what is actually new about it. Morpheus is planning to use a new network it calls Neonet which was written by a couple of former Harvard students. Dubbed "distributed hash tables," Neonet's technology transforms the way that searches happen on peer-to-peer networks. This will make it faster and easier to find the rarest of files.
The eDonkey2000 network uses similar technology thgat has proven to pay off as it seems to be on the verge of over-taking Kazaa as the most widely used P2P network. "Peer-to-peer technology to date is not good enough yet," said Michael Weiss, StreamCast's chief executive officer. "People ask, does the world really need another peer-to-peer network? I think the answer is, yes we do, because nobody's gotten it right yet."
Filesharing has become a fairly dangerous task for some sharers of copyrighted materials in many countries. RIAA lawsuits might scare some people but the overall P2P usage is still on the rise. P2P technology has evolved over time, starting with networks like Napster. Napster worked with one central major server that worked as a man-in-the-middle connecting peer to peer to complete file transfers. However, Napster was ruled illegal as it helped mass copyright infringement with its servers. More networks then came along like KaZaa which does not use one central server but uses different technologies to perform searches. Search requests are passed from computer to computer until files are found, then the information is relayed to the user. These networks were found to be legal. The third generation of P2P is already coming and the rise of eDonkey2000 is proof, it will be interesting to see Morpheus's technology in action.
Source:
News.com