BitTorrent Chat Demystified

An anonymous reader writes "Can you really do group chat with no central server? BitTorrent's Patrick Williams has developed a new app that leverages a distributed architecture to eliminate the need for any servers — even to host a buddy list. He says magnet links are the key."

I did it at Apple in 1991

[hchesley]

Reference: Harry R. Chesley, "Asynchronous Background Networking on the Macintosh," Develop 5, Winter 1991. It was called Rumor Monger.

Re:I did it at Apple in 1991

[hchesley]

Online copy of the article: http://www.mactech.com/articles/develop/issue_05/6-30_Chesley_Docv9_CHG.html [mactech.com].

Can you?

[JackSpratts]

Yes, and it's called WASTE. Came out in '03 and I've been "running" a decentralized mesh non-stop ever since.

Re:ICQ

[errandum]

I believe the only central server is for authentication (as it should be). It might also save the "initial" budy list, but a local copy is also kept.

Or actually, 1 minute in google:

http://www.mjalali.com/blog/?p=10 [mjalali.com]

"Skype Authentication Server: This is the only centralized Skype server which is used to authenticate Skype users. "

Re:Can you?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been possible for a long time.
Some applications that can do this apart from WASTE are:
- Oneswarm
- Retroshare
- GNUnet
- Torchat
All decentralized, and apart from torchat they are all activity being developed.