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May 29, 2003

W.A.S.T.E.

[muted horn]Last night, she might have wondered what undergrounds apart from the couple she knew of communicated by WASTE system. By sunrise she could legitimately ask what undergrounds didn’t. … For here were God knew how many citizens, deliberately choosing not to communicate by U. S. Mail. It was not an act of treason, nor possibly even of defiance. But it was a calculated withdrawal, from the life of the Republic, from its machinery. Whatever else was being denied them out of hate, indifference to the power of their vote, loopholes, simple ignorance, this withdrawal was their own, un-publicized, private. Since they could not have withdrawn into a vacuum (could they?), there had to exist the separate, silent, unsuspected world.

WASTE is a private and secure system for file sharing and messaging between small groups of people. This could suit our organization nicely. Would anybody like to test this with me one evening?

Download WASTE for Windows or the WASTE source code.

posted at 12:21 PM | nerdy

comments

  1. oh yes, i got pretty interested when i read about it on slashdot this morning. nullsoft have a keen sense of style.

    it still mystifies me that there isn’t a plug-in for outlook express available that auto-encrypts any email sent to people who you have PGP keys for, totally behind the scenes. you just enter a passphrase when you open outlook or send mail.

    posted by chris on May 29, 2003 12:32 PM

  2. i’m pretty excited about WASTE; it’s just what i was looking for. i anticipate having some problems with my firewall, but supposedly you only need one user to be behind an open port for it to work. i would expect someone to port it to the mac within the next couple weeks, too, so i’m sure chomi will be able to use it.

    a lot of people on slashdot didn’t see the point of WASTE, since it’s meant for small groups. that’s exactly the point. for SNF and friends, at least.

    about outlook/PGP, yeah, that would be nice. we use some email encryption scheme at work that i’ve never heard of, but it almost works like that. unlike PGP, your private keys are stored in a central repository, so the company can dig through your mail if it really has to.

    posted by jacob on May 29, 2003 1:35 PM

  3. I would like to be in on this. I have a personal firewall (McAfee) running. Will this matter? It doesn’t seem to make a difference to Kazaa.

    posted by seth on May 29, 2003 2:22 PM

  4. we’ll find out! i think the most you’ll have to do is open a port on your firewall, though.

    posted by jacob on May 29, 2003 3:08 PM

  5. jeez, the WASTE URL has already gone 404. just like what happened when they released gnutella, i guess.

    you can download the windows version of “WASTE”:http://www.chompy.net/downloads/waste-setup.exe here, though. i’m sure other people will continue development, just like gnutella.

    posted by jacob on May 29, 2003 5:51 PM

  6. okay, now what.

    posted by seth on May 29, 2003 6:38 PM

  7. hmm… now we have to figure this thing out. but i need to do important family stuff tonight, so i don’t get to dork around with WASTE just yet.

    i’m very eager to try it out, though.

    posted by jacob on May 29, 2003 7:06 PM

  8. if one computer has the capability to connect with multiple WASTE networks, then… wow. the folk on the slashdot forums lack imagination.

    posted by chris on May 29, 2003 8:17 PM

  9. it’s possible that WASTE is billed for small groups because the networking doesn’t scale well. beats me, though. you kinda lose the security benefit, too, if you allow anyone in to your WASTE network. then again, that aspect doesn’t really matter to me, either.

    at any rate, the WASTE system will probably change significantly over the next several months as people play with the code and iron out the problems.

    me, i have to figure out my firewall again. i wrote the rules for it last year, and now none of it makes sense to me.

    i heart file sharing

    posted by jacob on May 30, 2003 2:12 AM

  10. nah, i just meant that if the WASTE program let you flip easily through half a dozen or so different networks, a music enthusiast could have access to a lot of what they like while still having a pretty large degree of privacy, as each network is technically independent.

    posted by chris on May 30, 2003 2:51 AM

  11. oh yeah, it has the ability to save and load profiles, presumably varying settings based on different networks.

    did you try it out yet?

    posted by jacob on May 30, 2003 8:33 AM

  12. okay, i got it to work!

    i’m talking to my empty machine at home from work. it’s kind of sad with no one else using it.

    posted by jacob on May 30, 2003 10:56 AM

  13. I use it!

    posted by seth on May 30, 2003 9:00 PM

  14. since i can’t tell from here what the difference is with jabber, can you all explain? (i haven’t read anything about it ‘sides this blog & comments.)

    posted by sentry on May 31, 2003 3:17 AM

  15. well, jabber’s role is really to be an open alternative to systems like AOL Instant Messenger. WASTE occupies more of a niche — it’s intended to be used by small, closed groups for private messaging and file sharing. on the technical side, jabber uses a client/server model very similar to SMTP, while WASTE uses a distributed peer-to-peer model more like Gnutella, so you gain all of the advantages of peer-to-peer networking plus encryption.

    i noticed that the 404 message on the Nullsoft site has been replaced by a “NOTICE OF UNAUTHORIZED SOFTWARE.” hmm. i wonder if AOL can legally revoke the original license? in any case, some people have mirrored the original site.

    (i’d definitely like jabber to take off, too. my jabber ID is the same as my email address.)

    posted by jacob on May 31, 2003 1:56 PM

  16. i would like to try waste, it looks promising. hopefully a mac client will be available soon. i never tried jabber. i found direct connect to be not very user friendly, and KDX has a really terrible interface and still seem buggy, but i really liked the concept - filesharing + messaging centered on collaboration and project development. i also find carracho useful and sometimes appreciate its mac-centrism, but i don’t like the idea of a central server. too often it leads to idiotic rules and selfishness. in conclusion i guess what i always truly wish to find, in these programs as in life, is a respectful and fun community, and they are hard to find. SNF team go to WASTE!

    posted by chomi cat on June 1, 2003 10:35 PM

  17. How do i get this thing to work >

    Can somebody help me get started please ?

    posted by Chris on June 23, 2003 7:31 AM

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