Senator Diane Feinstein Wants to know about the Benefits of P2P

Tue Aug 31 16:49:20 UTC 2004

Big Snip ...


>At 07:03 PM 8/30/2004, Sean Donlan postualted:
>Is the problem P2P?  Or is the problem copyright infringement?

    Thank you, Sean.

    What does Peer-to-Peer mean, anyway.  Unfortunately, lots of things.

    One could argue (I've seen a few replies re this subject hinting around 
this definition) that the entire Internet works because of the Peer-to-Peer 
concept.  After all, if I am on a 100MBs Ethernet and want to communicate 
directly with another NIC on MY ethernet, then we must be Peer at Layer 1.

    Is the Peer-to-Peer ethernet network a danger?

    I would tell her that the benefits of Peer-to-Peer is that this concept 
allows us to communicate on networks using computers ... Including allowing 
Senator Feinstein to receive E-Mail replies to her question (after all, 
isn't SMTP (or X.400 for that matter) Peer-to-Peer at Layer 7?).

    Until Senator Feinstein asks a meaningful question, the result will be 
GIGO.


                                 Ted Fischer