P2P In 15 Lines of Code

nile_list writes "Edward Felten of the very fine Freedom to Tinker has written a 15 line P2P program in Python. From the post on Freedom to Tinker, "I wrote TinyP2P to illustrate the difficulty of regulating peer-to-peer applications. Peer-to-peer apps can be very simple, and any moderately skilled programmer can write one, so attempts to ban their creation would be fruitless." Matthew Scala, a reader of Freedom to Tinker, has responded with the 9 line MoleSter, written in Perl."

hrm..

[grub]

Freedom to Tinker has written a 15 line P2P program in Python

Does anyone have a .torrent link for it?

Size complex?

[stevenbdjr]

Do Perl developers have some kind of reverse size-compensation complex?

Anything you can do I can do smaller?

I wrote a 7-line renderer with physics engine...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but it only worked with 1 dimension. I'm working on scaling it up, but I'm worried it might get longer.

Slashdot editors strike again!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm Matthew Skala, the author of MoleSter, and my name was spelled correctly in the item I submitted about this.

I can beat that

[Anonymous Coward]

I have just created a zero line P2P program which I have entitled "Walking to the Neighbor's House to Borrow a Movie".

I could be evil and patent it, but I have decided to release it under the GPL.

I bet 13 of those lines...

[Anonymous Coward]

...are dedicated to spyware if its anything like kazaa.

Oh yeah?

[KillerDeathRobot]

Well I can write "Pointless story" in one line.

Re:hrm..

[Anonymous Coward]

it's 9 lines in perl....

#!/usr/bin/perl

fjdohsb0y[tu34qtyjhq5ykl2yjh4u5iongvwy5iopy9uy7u 87 srthmn90;
ps394b7-6vh0ae6se0n89789t75j890t67scj89 067j890e54t 890;
5478n35890904hn907t85j90670w9-57-xfg90hjx;om nxrt9b n0ps54;
s907n-679s-90xe54/6w547/7589vj0s9-78se-06 vw346hbn8 7n98i7eu6;
463g3w6g6v6u45betyv4yc45y4y5s7n86uijy4 63q4awy;
4w57ne568une5j7vc7uyh35xjh7z6jx5uj6ukdtm cdryjtu;
68ne578iyjvyhdrc h6ug37eb64n84mw6m8 s4r6i4rt6;

I was suprised it was so simple! i can not believe i did not think of it already!

MoleSter?

[Mad_Rain]

From the webpage: Every time I look at the word "molester" my brain tries to parse it as "mole-ster" instead of the agentive of "to molest", and now I have an excuse to name a piece of software MoleSter, so I'm going to use it.

I think that the RIAA and MPAA are going to get a lot of positive spin when people start reading that they're going after all the MoleSters on the Internets.

Oh yeah, I got it in 2 lines of shell:

[Anonymous Coward]

#!/bin/bash
### ToDo: Write P2P app here

or in BASH:

[Anonymous Coward]

#! /bin/bash

cd /src/mldonkey/distrib/

# --- start mldonkey ---
./mlnet

ThinkGeek

[Lord_Dweomer]

And cue ThinkGeek tshirt slashvertisement in 5...4...3...

Baah...that's nothing

[GillBates0]

Here's a one-line P2P application I wrote in whitespace [dur.ac.uk]:

/*following code does p2p transfer*/

Re:Not a good true complexity issue.

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Those are both cheating.

Okay, here's p2p in two lines of perl:

#!/usr/bin/perl
`wget http://www.filefront.com/?filepath=/gnutelliums/gt k-gnutella/gtk-gnutella-0.92.1c.tar.gz`;

Duh factor (me, not you)

[JCOTTON]

Excuse me for asking, but this article implies that you need to have "python" running to use the 15 line code. Here is the command line:

python tinyp2p.py password server hostname portnum [otherurl]

I believe that the python interpreter (i am assuming that it runs like an interpreter) may be larger than 15 lines.
It also assumes that you have a web server running on your box. What other assumptions are unique to this app? That you have a url defined as a domain?

In other words, I really couldn't run this from a DOS prompt, could I? So, it doesn't really count as a "program". Does it compile into an exe? If not, then what is this article talking about?

Re:When will this code be on a T-shirt?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a lazy bastard you are! Not only do you think you're entitled to steal music, but you think you're guaranteed a shirt!

It's too much effort to print a lousy t-shirt yourself, but artists shouldn't get paid for their lives' work?

Re:Not a good true complexity issue.

[Rheagar]

It also uses files, which is totally cheating. Without fi.write(), this guy would have to do a lot more work to have the computer convert a virtual address into the a device real address and accessing the filesystem implementation specific rules to carry out the necessary data and metadata operations to complete the task. And thats just the half of it.

Proof of concept...

[d-man]

...that Perl is a true write-only language.

Nice Try, Mr. Felten!

[smug_lisp_weenie]

Our lawyers are currently perfecting a new TinyLawsuit specifically to defeat your invention. You will like it- Only _10_ lines of legalese!

The ball is now in your court, Mr. Felten!

Regards, The RIAA/MPAA

Re:MoleSter?

[LiquidCoooled]

9 line molesters at that.

The most worrying part is on the site, he challenges people to make smaller molester clones.

Re:I can beat that

[idontgno]

I have discovered a truly marvelous demonstration of P2P that this margin is too narrow to contain.

--Fermat's Second-to-Last Conjecture

ugh

[ProfKyne]

There goes my argument that Python promotes readable code....

Re:P2P Does Not Break the Law

[cmstremi]

What I think you meant to say is:
"Guns don't kill people. *I* kill people."

Happy Gilmore's boss (the one Happy shot in the head with a nail) had that on his t-shirt if I remember correctly...

Won't run

[Saeger]

My new computer won't run that python p2p app for some odd reason, even though Python is installed.

I get the following error:

TCPA ERROR #12: Unsigned script execution blocked; Trusted Computing violation sent to MS-Patriot Log Authority.

Can anyone help?

Guns don't kill people

[electrichamster]

Rappers do.

Re:Not a good true complexity issue.

[flumps]

no one blames Visual Basic

Believe me, VB has ALOT to answer for.. *shakes fist*

I think you mean Bram

[toby]

Brian Cohen was, however, the eponymous hero of Monty Python's Life of Brian [imdb.com]. Bloody Romans. [mwscomp.com]

I perfer my

[geekoid]

"Friend Gives me movie to return to rental place and I forgot to go to the rental place" method.

I get more movies that way.

Release Candidate 2

[lxt]

I've added some new features to your wonderful program, which I too am releasing under the GPL. I call it:

"Breaking in to the Neighbor's House to steal a Movie".

I hope he's got a good job.

[SmittyTheBold]

Matthew Scala, a reader of Freedom to Tinker, has responded with the 9 line MoleSter, written in Perl.

There have been discussions recently about potential employers doing a Google search on job applicants, so the way I see it Mr. Scala's either very smart or very stupid.

Very stupid, for the fact a lot of searches will put "Matthew Scala" and "molester" together on the same page.

Very smart, because this tactic will bury any evidence of his pedophilia under a pile of MoleSter links and pages.

=P

Re:MoleSter?

[Webmonger]

Maybe he can join forces with the author of EtheRape.

Re:Parent is -1, Redundant

[sicking]

You're using Socket.pm, and it's huge, that's cheating!
Read the fucking code.

How the hell am I supposed to be able read that code?

Re:Nice Try, Mr. Felten!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be happy to sign the TinyPaycheck their going to get. It only has one digit, and it's binary.

Re:hrm..

[forkazoo]

Fermat apparently had proved a theorem for an N-line PERL script P2P app (n!=2), but in his famous "Treatise on the PERL language," he scrawled in the margin:

I have found a single line of PERL to do this, but it is too long to fit in this margin.