Re: My Gnutella spam reduction idea revised

>
> Zlatin Balevsky wrote:
>  > Very interesting thought, Michael.  The only issue is
>  > backwards-compatibility.  Current clients will not respond to a multi-word
>  > query unless all words match.  If you add a new made up word, they will not
>  > answer at all.  Do you have any ideas how to work around that?
>
>  Good point, it would require two queries - any peer that responded to
>  the query containing the made-up word would be removed from the result
>  set of the genuine query (and perhaps from future result sets).
>
>  Cheers,
>  Michael

There are few issues with this approach:

* the query with the made-up word will be very heavy on the network.
The first few test queries will not travel far, but once the nearby
spammers are caught other test queries will become maximum-weight.
* "post-processing" of results after they arrive does not help with
dynamic querying.  Once the ultrapeers have decreased the intensity of
the search, its too late.
* should a spammer intercept both queries, it becomes really easy to
figure out which word is the made up one.
* If the spammers decide to answer only to single-word queries,
they'll still do considerable damage.

Still, the idea has potential.  Keep'em coming!
-zab