Gnutella is a peer-to-peer network protocol. Founded in 2000, it was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model.
The Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is a signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating communication sessions that include voice, video and messaging applications. SIP is used in Internet telephony, in private IP telephone systems, as well as mobile phone calling over LTE (VoLTE).
BitTorrent, also referred to simply as torrent, is a communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a decentralized manner. The protocol is developed and maintained by Rainberry, Inc., and was first released in 2001.
GNUnet is a software framework for decentralized, peer-to-peer networking and an official GNU package. The framework offers link encryption, peer discovery, resource allocation, communication over many transports and various basic peer-to-peer algorithms for routing, multicast and network size estimation.
Gnutella2, often referred to as G2, is a peer-to-peer protocol developed mainly by Michael Stokes and released in 2002.
A digital object identifier (DOI) is a persistent identifier or handle used to uniquely identify various objects, standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). DOIs are an implementation of the Handle System; they also fit within the URI system. They are widely used to identify academic, professional, and government information, such as journal articles, research reports, data sets, and official publications.
A cryptographic hash function (CHF) is a hash algorithm that has special properties desirable for a cryptographic application:
Magnet is a URI scheme that defines the format of magnet links, a de facto standard for identifying files (URN) by their content, via cryptographic hash value rather than by their location.
Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RgSSfeeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data usually consists of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, distance, accuracy data, and place names, and perhaps a time stamp.
GnucDNA was a software library for building peer-to-peer applications. It provides developers with a common layer to create their own Gnutella or Gnutella2 client or network. As a separate component, GnucDNA can be updated independently of the client, passing down improvements to the applications already using it.
In cryptography and computer science, a hash tree or Merkle tree is a tree in which every "leaf" node is labelled with the cryptographic hash of a data block, and every node that is not a leaf is labelled with the cryptographic hash of the labels of its child nodes. A hash tree allows efficient and secure verification of the contents of a large data structure. A hash tree is a generalization of a hash list and a hash chain.
Content-addressable storage (CAS), also referred to as content-addressed storage or fixed-content storage, is a way to store information so it can be retrieved based on its content, not its name or location. It has been used for high-speed storage and retrieval of fixed content, such as documents stored for compliance with government regulations. Content-addressable storage is similar to content-addressable memory.
In computing, eD2k links (ed2k://) are hyperlinks used to denote files stored on computers connected to the eDonkey filesharing P2P network.
The following is a general comparison of BitTorrent clients, which are computer programs designed for peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol.
This is a glossary of jargon related to peer-to-peer file sharing via the BitTorrent protocol.
Peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) systems like Gnutella, KaZaA, and eDonkey/eMule, have become extremely popular in recent years, with the estimated user population in the millions. An academic research paper analyzed Gnutella and eMule protocols and found weaknesses in the protocol; many of the issues found in these networks are fundamental and probably common on other P2P networks. Users of file sharing networks, such as eMule and Gnutella, are subject to monitoring of their activity. Clients may be tracked by IP address, DNS name, software version they use, files they share, queries they initiate, and queries they answer to. Clients may also share their private files to the network without notice due to inappropriate settings.
Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including:
The Handle System is a proprietary registry assigning persistent identifiers, or handles, to information resources, and for resolving "those handles into the information necessary to locate, access, and otherwise make use of the resources". As with handles used elsewhere in computing, Handle System handles are opaque, and encode no information about the underlying resource, being bound only to metadata regarding the resource. Consequently, the handles are not rendered invalid by changes to the metadata.
In the BitTorrent file distribution system, a torrent file or meta-info file is a computer file that contains metadata about files and folders to be distributed, and usually also a list of the network locations of trackers, which are computers that help participants in the system find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms. Torrent files are normally named with the extension .torrent.
A well-known URI is a Uniform Resource Identifier for URL path prefixes that start with /.well-known/. They are implemented in webservers so that requests to the servers for well-known services or information are available at URLs consistent well-known locations across servers.
