[FoRK] Opera Unite

[Stephen Williams]

They have to proxy, at least the connection.  According to this early 
analysis, they currently proxy the whole thing:
http://www.jorgemarsal.com/blog/2009/06/16/how-does-opera-unites-file-sharing-service-work/

I've said for a while that browsers should directly support peer-to-peer 
protocols and methods for web traffic.  Bittorrent-enabled HTTP Get's 
would make any popular web site with large files more scalable.  What 
Opera should have done I think, and may get to, is doing the connection 
setup method were the proxy establishes the connection but the data 
flows directly.  I.e. STUN and TURN:

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~library/TR-repository/reports/reports-2004/cucs-039-04.pdf
http://www.brynosaurus.com/pub/net/p2pnat/
http://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-rosenberg-midcom-turn-08.txt
http://www.b500.com/~hplus/nat-punch.html
http://midcom-p2p.sourceforge.net/

For this application, the client should try to establish a TCP 
connection and then use that connection as an HTTP1.1 web proxy to the 
other system.

Obviously it is better for data to flow directly, and it would be better 
for everything to be TLS.

Clearly this has been doable for a while.  Skype could have done it at 
any time.  Any of the IM services too.  Kind of nice that it came from 
Opera.  Being from a browser vendor sets a nice precedent and puts the 
security issues in a different light.

sdw

Tom Higgins wrote:
> Ok, color me hooked. Simple useful and no ads. Could a foaf thing be
> built into a service for this?
>
> Now, who here is working for/with/around opera these days? I would
> love to know , with out digging thru white papers, how much opera is
> in the mix of the sharing/directing/loging traffic.
>
> -tom(--)higgins
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