How much effort would need to be made to make a system like this a reality (In LimeWire, that is)?
-=-

Would anything need to be added to "The Gnutella Protocol". Yeah, I'd suppose so.

Lets cover the basics.

* Keys sign the file.

Could this be done by appending a file itself?

...Possibly.

But that would change the SHA-1 hash after every append, defeating hashing (bad). Unless. We could add/change the ID3 tag (that might not change the hash, I should check on that..) ... But you can modify tags (facilitating the removal of keys).

There has to be something I missed. Where would signatures go?

Obviously not a central database! LOL!

* Clients want to search for the file by signer.

That means that Ultrapeers would probably need to hold this additional data, am I right?

* People want to add "Trusted Users". Thats done locally.

* People want to share trusted user database. Locally.

-=- Searching for Content
"That is, unless a piece of content is very popular, there's a good chance you won't find it." Damn freenet... err... gnutella. :P

Didnt the implementation of supernodes increase the possibility of finding files for all users?


-=- Off Topic
Has anyone else noticed that bitrates arent always displayed for MP3's in Limewire, when searching?

-=-
Also.. what about signing to prove you were the one who ripped the file? (I would like to show that "I did this", I don't care much about the RIAA. It should be an option, as far as I know). Can a key carry an "original" tag if nobody else has signed it yet. I suppose so...



(edited for: spelling, clarity)