[ILUG] Question on an encryption system (using OSS)

[Paul Jakma]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005, Braun Brelin wrote:

> I could just as easily say that HTTP or SMTP wasn't invented so that
> companies could profit from it, yet, here we are, Yahoo, EBay and all.

Uh, but his point stands though. Exactly how is P2P going to be 
useful if you encrypt it with an end-user specific key? If you have N 
end-users, then either:

a) Each file will be specific to each end-user, so there won't be any 
point in them either sharing it out retrieving it from anyone but 
you, plus you'll be uploading it to P2P N times anyway.

or:

b) If have a single file encrypted with N keys, it's going to be far 
bigger than needs be, unscaleable for any kind of reasonable N, no 
one is going bother downloading it.

P2P just isn't going to help you at all, other than as an utterly 
vain marketing tick-box.

> Braun Brelin

>> Just don't DRM it. If you want to DRM it, or make money from it, 
>> then tough luck - you're going to have to foot the bandwidth bill. 
>> P2P wasn't construcuted to subsidise that kind of activity.

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
"Never ascribe to malice that which is caused by greed and ignorance."
-- Cal Keegan