teh Forum

It is about time we figured out a way to make teh Gig Spiggot a reality. This thread shall be dedicated to that purpose.

What is teh Gig Spiggot?
Teh Gig Spiggot is a euphemism for a file sharing method that would allow a private group of users to share files and particularly browse each others files without risk of unauthorized users browsing, downloading, or uploading.
Teh Gig Siggot is not necessarily a particular piece of software. If, however, we were unable to find such a method and had to build one on our own we would call it that.

Objectives:
The first objective of the project is to determine if software already exists that can do this.

BitTorrent?
Well, a solution based on BT technology seems like a likely possibility, but as BT stands now a seed would have to be created for each file shared. Someone would need to run a tracker and likely some kind of security could be built into that, but this seems overly complicated. This also discourages the file browsing functionality that would be so crucial in the project. However, the ability to download from multiple sources would certainly be a bonus as far as DL speeds are concerned and for lightening the upload burden on individual users. Please correct me if I am incorrect about any of this.

Methlab's XS - Methlabs is known for their product PeerGuardian. I also stumbled across a product there called XS Client and XS Hub. There is very little info on the site (some dead links and a 10 thread forum) but the software is there. It seems that this might be along the lines of a private BT client. Does someone want to look into it further?

Downhillbattle.org is sposoring a challenge to add file sharing capabilites to the encrypted chat protocol known as GAIM. This could lead to protected user branched file sharing clients, but it seems like it is still a ways off. Still, there is some interesting info here (and a chance to make some dough).

So there is a start. Anyone else have some input on this? It would be too awesome if we could actually get this thing working.

wish I could help...

if you decide you need any optimal controllers, or want to figure out how to launch the thing into space, give me a holla

I can hold the flashlight while you guys put the screws in.

Ahh... got to love the name. GIGSPIGOT!

Basically I think it should be like DFS in Windows 2000.

Dfs is a way of organizing file share resources across network servers into one logical structure that users can easily navigate. In the same way that Dfs lets you organize shares and directories on one server into a logical hierarchical structure for simplified navigation, Dfs lets you organize resources across multiple servers on your network.

These shares and directories can be on any of your network servers—whether your systems are spread throughout your building or across the globe. When users navigate through the Dfs structure, they move from one server to another without realizing they've changed servers.

Add multi source downloading and we got somthing pretty good,

I don't think this would be too hard to do... although it probably would have to work within the framework of a tracker/host that everyone in the private network would have to connect to and authenticate with.

we could do something like this using bittorrent as a backbone...

- peers connect to host, and register their shared files with the host

- host keeps track of different peers that have registered the same files

- users can search through host's registered file list or sort through other users' shared directories as if they were navigating a filesystem

- A typical transfer request would go something like this:
1. user requests a file transfer
2. host generates a torrent for the requested file and registers it with the tracker
3. host transfers the torrent to the requester and the peers registered for that file.
4. host triggers the clients to kick off the torrents for peers and requester.


It's totally doable with a little clever assembly of readily available off-the-shelf technology.