Untraceable File Sharing Inspired by Ants
By Paul Eng
January 20, 2004
Like ants foraging for food, the requests continue on their way across the network. When the file is finally located on the network, the computer that has the file sends the message back to the nearby computer that sent the request, which then passes it to the computer that it received the request from and so on.

An invasion of ants has become the unlikely inspiration for what may be an untraceable way to trade files online.
Since last September, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed over 380 copyright infringement lawsuits against suspected online music pirates in the United States. And the effect has been chilling.
A recent Pew survey of online users found just 14 percent still downloading music files from so-called peer-to-peer, or P2P, networks such as KaZaA, compared to 29 percent a year ago. Many cited fears of being nabbed as online "pirates."
Still, the legal clampdown hasn't stopped others, according to a recent survey by market researcher The NPD Group. As many as 12 million individuals claimed to have downloaded music illegally in November -- a 9 percent increase in the number of pirates reported in a September survey.
Now Jason Rohrer, a 26-year-old programmer in Potsdam, N.Y., thinks he has a way to really boost file-sharing back into popularity.
When Rohrer was living in Santa Cruz, Calif., and studying for a master's degree in computer science, he noticed a trail of ants had invaded his indoor Ficus tree from the front door. No matter how he tried to destroy the trail -- sweeping daily, or blocking the path with chalk or hot pepper -- the ants always figured a way around the obstacle to the tree.
"I read about how they use pheromones -- chemical scents -- to create the trails and how it's used by the colony," says Rohrer. And it inspired him to see if the same "swarm intelligence" could be applied to how programs work over the Internet.
The result: MUTE, freely-available software for a P2P system that Rohrer maintains is almost as hard to trace and stop as, well, ants at a picnic.
In current P2P networks such as KaZaA and Grokster, software identifies each computer on the network using Internet Protocol (IP) addresses -- a string of numbers similar to a telephone number.
When a member searches a P2P network, the request -- say for music by Britney Spears -- goes out across the network. Computers that have the requested files send a response back directly to the computer that made the request using the IP address.
Files are traded directly between computers in small packets using the IP addresses -- making it extremely easy to track.
But MUTE's system has several different ways to thwart tracking efforts.
First of all, each computer on the MUTE network is "addressed" by a random string of characters and numbers. And each time a computer connects to the MUTE network, a new random address is generated.
When a MUTE member searches a file, Rohrer says the request goes out from the originating computer only to nearby computers the program knows about. If the files aren't found there, the MUTE software on those nearby computers then sends out requests to the next set of computers they know about.
Like ants foraging for food, the requests continue on their way across the network. When the file is finally located on the network, the computer that has the file sends the message back to the nearby computer that sent the request, which then passes it to the computer that it received the request from and so on.

Calling for Attention
Rohrer says MUTE's setup offers several advantages over current P2P networks.
For one, chances of finding and retrieving a particular file across the network might be increased since each computer on the network is actively looking and sending data back to the originating computer.
Rohrer compares it to sending a message using the old "telephone" party game.
"Let's say you're in a room crowded with people, one of whom is someone you know," says Rohrer. "To reach that person, you ask the seven people next to you to pass a written message to that person. They may not know the person or where he is in the room, but in turn, they'll copy and pass the note to the people closest to them and so on. Eventually, the person you want to reach gets the message because you've covered everyone in the room."
What's more, such a system offers another layer of anonymity to user. In order for parties such as the RIAA to track such requests, the organization would have to monitor every single computer on the MUTE network.
Rohrer says he initially didn't design MUTE as a blatant challenge to the RIAA and its efforts to stop piracy. But he says he was troubled by the recent RIAA lawsuits, which he believes trampled on individuals rights to privacy .
"It's a scary environment to be living in when an organization like the RIAA can just snoop on what you're doing online," says Rohrer. "I've created a piece of software that helps people protect their privacy."

Flies in the Ointment
But even he admits that for the privacy and other possible advantages a MUTE network would offer, there are plenty of downsides as well.
For now, MUTE has garnered only a very small group of users. Since its initial released last month, just about 32,000 have downloaded the program to establish the fledgling P2P net. That hardly a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of computers running KaZaA or Gnutella worldwide.
And there's no guarantee that if the network gets bigger, it will become as powerful as other file sharing networks. In fact, Rohrer admits that MUTE may become terribly inefficient if too many computers -- each generating its own messages as well as passing along search requests from all the other computers on the network -- join up.
What's more, there are questions if such a network would survive any legal battles in the ongoing war between the RIAA and purported music pirates.
Last month a U.S. District Court had ruled that the lawsuit tactics used by the RIAA to obtain user information from ISPs was illegal, marking a small victory for advocates of privacy.

But in a reaction statement released by RIAA President Cary Sherman: "This decision in no way changes our right to sue, or the fact that those who upload or download copyrighted music without authorization are engaging in illegal activity. We can and will continue to file copyright infringement lawsuits against illegal file sharers."
So while Rhorer's tiny, experimental Mute network has escaped the attention of the RIAA so far, there's no guarantee that the music industry will challenge him and his creation much like they did Shaun Fanning and his Napster creation.
And that leaves it unclear if MUTE will become the latest pest to the RIAA's attempts to thwart piracy, or squashed like the insect that inspired it.

more here

This will be even harder to stop than regular p2p and virtually impossible to identify the users.

As predicted, the legal action just drives the techies further underground.

Support file sharing or die!

I've downloaded it a couple weeks ago to try it out. it's pretty simple and straight forward. My only concern is that if too many people log on it would take a very long time to get through every system to find certin files. but we'll see

.. all that for music by Britnay Spears?? don't think so..

I read about this on other boards, the concept is good. But, I heard that you need to make a portion of your hard drive open to have bits of various files stored on your hard drive. I don't believe you have control over what is put on your hard drive.
I have a problem with that.

I think the RIAA just found out about it.

That's true, files automaticly working on your Hard drive without you doing anything. it's kinda like freenet in that respect

Add an encryption layer and its perfect....

yea and chop up the files into different samples and store them randomly in the H.D of all computers with the software and...

i just installed it and shared a couple hundred gig of mp3's and it about used up all my resources . my puter didnt seem to like it maybe ill try it again when im not ripping and hosting on IRC and have nothing better to do . did a search for dvd rip and only 4 results . will try again this weekend and try tweaking it if i can

I can see this one falling apart fast. His prediction about the network being inefficient if a lot of users log in is right. Think about it for a minute. There are 100,000 users and 10 of them send a request for a file so those 10 request to go 10 more computers each to make 100 computers now searching for 10 files. Then 10 more computers get involved to make the number 1000. If all 100,000 users each sent one request each think of the amount of bandwidth that would be used just for a search. No one would have any bandwidth left for downloading or uploading since they would all be relaying search requests. This might be alieviated if there were some backbones placed in that relayed the search requests instead of user's machines. The backbones would have to have their adresses rotated, and their logs wiped every hour or so. Or it might work if you were given the option not to act as a search request relay all the time and just be a relay when you weren't downloading or uploading. That would kind of work on the honor system though and we all know how that goes.

Its untraceable. Its also got an overhead to saturate any connection. If you could get a stable topology, and set up huge routing tables, it would scale. But the topology would never be stable on a p2p net. If a larger caching system were added it would work, basicly reducing bandwidth usage at the expense of storage space. Would people mind if it greated a gig or two of temp space with todays hard drives?

Well actually it just means it needs to be kept within its means. So you only have 100 people on one network, if they all share stuff each other like or keep the sharing to a very fucosed content. It'll work. They need to work the bugs out and specialize the networks. Say you want startrek episodes you logon to the trekkie network and share with a hundred fellow startrek fans. or the same for certain kinds of music. I think the days of having massive networks with anything and everything are gone thanks to the riaa. but that just means we need to segregate into smaller groups.

Aslo there are a lot of things that can be done to make the network for efficient. like deviding up the files among different mechines, keeping caches of who has what on different mechines. My curiosity is how does this thing coordinate?

I like your idea, purfus. However, what if the network automatically divided users into random groups of 100, 1000 or even 10000, instead of users logging onto a specifically themed group. When you search for a file, the computers within your current network would be searched first. If the requested file(s) are not found then you would automatically be logged out of that group and logged onto another group.

In this way, searches would be made in smaller portions of the network at a time instead of the whole network at once.

The themed groups would probably be more efficient, but it may make it too easy for the RIAA goons to narrow down their searches as well.

you guys have some great ideas. you ought to go to the Mute website and submit those ideas. I'm sure they'll be considered

yup that is a good idea. Perhaps a mix of both would be good. From what I have read there is no way for the RIAA to track the systems. Even if they were logged on they would never know where data actually came from. They couldn't even group everyone into one big category because they would need the logs (which I presume don't even exist in the first place) from every computer in the network. About all their are left with is packetsniffing the high bandwidth users. I don't think our government would give them permission to do that. I hope not at least.

I'm actually pretty impressed with the thing, I'm downloading a file now at 30k/s (just for testing purposes of course...)

I dont yet understand how it initially locates other computers without having a centralized server to relay info.

Jazzmary2U :

Britney Spears isn't even listed as being targeted by the RIAA...

http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1728&sid=cfda2c4864b3bed9acb5fd9a864eb214

the problem with this model is the fact that it is very bandwidth consuming on the part of the middlemen. a 3rd generation p2p solution, though it's not a true option right now with large content.

Encryption and standard transport packageing plus specialised nodes, that's the way that I believe a true p2p2p aka 3rd generation p2p can be done effeciently.

Hmm... this model is not imperfectable... nice...