[MUD-Dev] [TECH] Peer-to-peer downloads for MMO games

[Jon Leonard]

On Thu, Feb 21, 2002 at 01:32:37PM +0100, Olof Ekstrom wrote:

> Abstract: 
 
>   A suggestion for use of peer-to-peer technology to limit network
>   demands on servers in massively multiplayer scenarios with large
>   download volumes.

[much content snipped -- I only have three comments]

An enhancement:

  Use cryptographic hashes for checksums.  It wasn't explicit in the
  proposal that the checksums to be used were to be strong.  That
  would essentially eliminate the possibility of a client providing
  corrupt data, since anything that doesn't match the hash provided
  by the server can just be discarded (or at least not trusted).

A minor problem:

  Firewalls & NAT.  You may not be able to open a connection to the
  peer machines, so this is limited to clients on open networks.

A major problem:

  Privacy/Security.  If you set up a peer-to-peer relation, then a
  malicious client knows a player to attack.  If the game loads zone
  data on demand, then it can even tell which player is which
  without the need for further investigation.  So this may require
  some mechanism for only sharing the client's IP address with
  friends.  Maybe an in-guild structure, or something similar.
  Convincing users that this is a good idea may not be too bad;
  Present it as a 'goes faster but reveals your IP', and enough
  clients to matter will probably enable it.  If it happens to be
  mixed with in-guild communication, you might even be able to
  piggyback world data/downloads on top of communications, by
  filling out a reasonable sized packet (after the presumably short
  communication) with zone data.

I would be very interested in seeing any implementations, of course.

Jon Leonard
_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev