Unexpected Peer-to-Peer Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] http://epidemic.ws Catania. May 28th 2003

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Social sculpture Art that can not shape society and therefore also can not penetrate the heart questions of society is no art Joseph Beuys, 1985 Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Internet and society Since mid 90s Internet has become a social place Its foundation rules haven’t helped us understanding the way the world has used this new media We learned that: We must design network technologies thinking about the way they will be influenced by the human behavior any new protocol, technology or tool we add to the internet world will be used in a different way from the original design Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Internet peer-to-peer P2P is a network architecture where all the nodes share files among the others It’s been famous since Napster advent (and collapse) It’s very related to all the latest copyright discussions Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

What’s good about peer-to-peer It’s a un-centric technology It doesn’t need leaders or any form of control It’s owned by nobody It allows an easy sharing of files It promotes the idea of people to people communication Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Eccentric peer-to-peer Imagine a program which use the peer-to-peer technology for sharing ideas Imagine it allows people to share their own statements Imagine it allows people to see all the other people statements and agree about them Imagine that statements to be linked to small programs, which allow for the execution of some actions Imagine the program execution is automatically synchronized by the peer-to-peer protocol Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Antimafia Antimafia was released at the Museum of Applied Arts of Frankfurt on May 23rd 2002 Antimafia is a program developed for the Windows environment It’s based on the gnutella protocol It allows plug-in action programs It’s freeware Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Why Windows ? It’s the most used operating system Our target customers use windows Antimafia is intended to be mainstream Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Gnutella Gnutella is a peer-to-peer protocol We can use it freely, because its specifications are open source Nobody owns it Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Gnutella: what’s for It designed to exchange files via Internet All nodes are both client and server, where clients request files and servers offer them To participate to a gnutella network, the node need only the IP address of one of its member No main server (as in Napster or Kazaa) Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Gnutella: searching Searching works similarly to connecting A node sends out a search request it is propagated through the network each server that has matching terms passes back its result set Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Gnutella: downloading each server acts as a miniature HTTP web server When a node finds a search result that wants to download, it connects to the server and requests that file Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Dynamic grouping for acting together

How is a group created on the internet Newsgroups Chat Email Web Site Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

How the action is synchronized Date / Time Email Chat Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Old style activity flow A statement is sent using standard technique, with comments about the program needed for the action People need to understand how the activity is meant to be executed People who agreed need to take care of the activity execution at the established time Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Issues People could be not skilled for participate in the proposed action Synchronization could be hard, and the resulting action effect is diminished Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Effects Real people tends to avoid participating to online action because they are frustrated by technical problems Action groups tend to be composed by selected people, loosing the community effect and feeling Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Dynamic grouping Everyone agrees about one standard interface The community is self established The action can be proposed by everyone No central management No filtering Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Dynamic grouping Action plugin is selected from a set of preloaded actions Or a new action plugin is created by one user and automatically distributed to all the people in the community, who agree the statement Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Antimafia: Action creation User describes the action with : a statement an optional comment start time and duration an action plug-in from a list of the available plug-ins Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Antimafia: Action sharing User saves the action All nodes continuously search for new actions The new action is found The action definition is downloaded If the user agrees the statement the plug-in is downloaded (if it’s not already present locally) Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Antimafia: Action execution At the set start time antimafia will run the action After the set duration the action will stop The action is saved as being executed Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] Eccentric The grid Analyzing other uses of the grid not forecasted by his design Improving dynamic grouping by common interests Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] [epidemic] is a network based on the alliance and cooperation of people working in sectors as diverse as art, computer science, anthropology, communication, history and economy Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]

Massimo Ferronato [epidemic] The goal of the [epidemiC] network is the identification, the analysis and the synthesis of phenomena that have raised due to the intrusion of traditional culture models by computer science based new models of cultural behavior. [epidemic] has been active since 2000 Massimo Ferronato [epidemic]