FastTrack

I hate to ask anything about FastCrap but how does it work?

Is it fully distributed like Gnutella or does it connect to indexing servers like eDonkey? Or none of those? Thanks.

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FastTrack is a so-called second generation P2P protocol. It uses supernodes to improve scalability. The supernode functionality is built into the client; if a powerful computer with a fast network connection runs the client software, it will automatically become a supernode, effectively acting as a temporary indexing server for other, slower clients.

In order to be able to initially connect to the network, a list of supernode IP numbers is stored in the program. The client attempts to contact these, and as soon as it finds a working supernode, it requests a list of currently active supernodes, to be used for future connection attempts. The client picks one supernode as its "upstream" and uploads a list of files it intends to share to that supernode. It also sends search requests to this supernode. The supernode communicates with other supernodes in order to satisfy search requests. The client then connects directly to a peer to download the file; this transfer is done using HTTP.

To allow downloading from multiple sources, FastTrack employs the UUHash hashing algorithm. While UUHash allows very large files to be checksummed in a short time, even on slow computers, it also allows for massive corruption of a file to go unnoticed. Many people, as well as the RIAA, have exploited this vulnerability to spread corrupt and fake files on the network.

>>3
Well Wikipedia is nice and all but from that one could get the idea that it's like Gnutella. However then over at Gnutella section it says that:

"The Gnutella network is a fully distributed alternative to such semi-centralized systems as FastTrack (KaZaA)..."

So that would mean that they have indexing servers but also have supernodes? I'm guessing that is what "uses supernodes to improve scalability" means?

I think the supernodes are the indexing servers. Semi-centralized is only bad in the sense that the RIAA needs to attack or take over less nodes to destroy network integrity.

>>5
So then it's like Gnutella?

This thread inspired me to install giFT. Sadly it sucks. Such is life.

Stop bothering with Fasttrack; besides, KaZaA is on its way to suckage pretty fast.

Go for eMule, the largest network where you'll find most stuff and help make it even bigger. It has both paradigms - semi-centric server based search (although there's by no means a central server), and fully decentralized network (Kademlia).

>>8
Well eMule is a client for eDonkey, but otherwise right.

But I don't want to use FastTreack, I want to know how it works.

Is it "semi-centric server based" ? or is it "fully decentralized" ? or semi-centric server based with a fully decentralized backup system or what?