FastTrack is a

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network, forming a peer-to-peer network of Node ...

(P2P) protocol that was used by the Kazaa,

Grokster Grokster Ltd. was a privately owned software company based in Nevis, West Indies that created the Grokster peer-to-peer file-sharing client in 2001 that used the FastTrack protocol. Grokster Ltd. was rendered extinct in late 2005 by the United S ...

, iMesh and Morpheus

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...

programs. FastTrack was the most popular file sharing network in 2003, and used mainly for the exchange of music MP3 files. The network had approximately 2.4 million concurrent users in 2003. It is estimated that the total number of users was greater than that of Napster at its peak.

History

The FastTrack protocol and Kazaa were created and developed by

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n programmers of BlueMoon Interactive headed by Jaan Tallinn, the same team that later created

Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...

. After selling it to Niklas Zennström from

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and Janus Friis from

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

, it was introduced in March 2001 by their Dutch company Consumer Empowerment. It appeared during the end of the first generation of P2P networks – Napster shut down in July of that year. There are three FastTrack-based networks, and they use mutually incompatible versions of the protocol. The most popular clients on each are Kazaa (and its variations), Grokster, and iMesh. For more information about the various

lawsuit A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties (the plaintiff or claimant) against one or more parties (the defendant) in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today ...

s surrounding Kazaa and Sharman Networks, see Kazaa.

Technology

FastTrack uses supernodes to improve

scalability Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work. One definition for software systems specifies that this may be done by adding resources to the system. In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that ...

. To allow downloading from multiple sources, FastTrack employs the UUHash

hashing algorithm A hash function is any function that can be used to map data of arbitrary size to fixed-size values, though there are some hash functions that support variable-length output. The values returned by a hash function are called ''hash values'', ...

. While UUHash allows very large files to be checksummed in a short time, even on slow weak

computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...

s, it also allows for massive

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

of a file to go unnoticed. Many people, as well as the

RIAA The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is a trade organization that represents the music recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors that the RIAA says "create, manufacture, and/o ...

, have exploited this

vulnerability Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." The understanding of social and environmental vulnerability, as a methodological approach, involves ...

to spread corrupt and fake files on the network. The FastTrack protocol uses

encryption In Cryptography law, cryptography, encryption (more specifically, Code, encoding) is the process of transforming information in a way that, ideally, only authorized parties can decode. This process converts the original representation of the inf ...

and was not documented by its creators. The first clients were all closed source software. However, initialization data for the encryption algorithms is sent in the clear and no public key encryption is used, so

reverse engineering Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompl ...

was made comparatively easy. In 2003,

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

s succeeded in reverse-engineering the portion of the protocol dealing with client- supernode communication, but the supernode-supernode communication protocol remains largely unknown.

Clients

The following programs are or have been FastTrack clients: * Kazaa and variants * KCeasy (requires the gIFT-fasttrack plugin) *

* iMesh * Morpheus, until 2002 * Apollon - KDE-Based * giFT-FastTrack – a giFT plugin * MLDonkey, a free multi-platform multi-network file sharing client

References

External links

giFT-FastTrack home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fasttrack File sharing networks File transfer protocols

History

Technology

Clients

See also

References

External links