This is not quite what I've expected.

First, it's not a technical solution but a legal one. whatever authorization methods are used, I'm sure they can be circumvented. the authorization handshake can be logged, if there's a digital key inside the servent it can be extracted, and will sooner or later.

Second, it only works because bearshare uses closed code. this is no offense against closed source products, but i'm sorry that it is not a possible solution for open source servents.

Third: You can choose to receive all query replies, downloads and uploads only from other BearShare clients?? did i understand that correctly??? the word blackhole is known to you, isn't it??? man, you're really provoking the next flamewar...the only reason why those anti-clustering folks are silent now is because they were told that clustering is not a bad thing as long as the servents respond to queries from outside the cluster...if this feature was enabled by all of your users gnutella would be only one last tiny step away from a private bearshare network: stop connecting the cluster to the gnutella environment, for it is not interested in their messages anyway...i took it for mere conspiration theory, but i get the impression that you are really moving in that direction, one step with every major release. do you want that? i thought you didn't...