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The eDonkey network (also known as eDonkey2000 network or eD2k) is a decentralized, server-based, peer-to-peer file sharing network used primarily to exchange audio and video files and computer software. Like most file sharing networks, it is decentralized; files are not stored on a central server but are exchanged directly between users based on the peer-to-peer principle. Currently, the eD2k network is not sponsored by any corporation nor Government (in the past it was sponsored by the MetaMachine Corporation, now out of business) and works by being fully supported by its users. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is a network that relies on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively few servers. ... File sharing is the activity of making files available to other users for download over the Internet, but also over smaller networks. ... A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network is a network that relies on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively few servers. ...

The server part of the network is proprietary software but freeware. There are two families of server software for the eD2k network: the original one from MetaMachine, written in C++, closed-source and proprietary, and no longer maintained; and eserver, written from scratch by Lugdunum in pure C, also closed-source and proprietary, although available free of charge and for several operating systems and computer architectures. The eserver family is currently in active development and support, and almost all eD2k servers now (2007) run this server software. C++ (pronounced see plus plus, IPA: ) is a general-purpose, high-level programming language with low-level facilities. ... C is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ...

There are many programs that act as the client part of the network. Most notably, eDonkey2000, the original client by MetaMachine, closed-source but freeware, and no longer maintained but very popular in its day; and eMule, an open-source program for Windows written in Visual C++ and under the GPL license. eMule is in constant development and currently represents about 90% of all clients in the eD2k network. eDonkey2000 was a peer-to-peer file sharing application developed by MetaMachine, using the Multisource File Transfer Protocol. ... eMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. ... The Open Source Definition is used by the Open Source Initiative to determine whether or not a software license can be considered open source. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The GNU logo For other uses of GPL, see GPL (disambiguation). ...

The original eD2k protocol has been extended by subsequent releases of both eserver and eMule programs, generally working together to decide what new features the eD2k protocol should support. However, the eD2k protocol is not formally documented (specially, in its current extended state), and it can be said that in practice the eD2k protocol is what eMule and eserver do together when running. As eMule is open-source, its code is open for peer-review of the workings of the protocol (at the program source code level). Examples of eD2k protocol extensions are "peer exchange", "protocol obfuscation" and support for files bigger than 4 Gbytes, among others. The other eD2k client programs, given time, generally follow suit adopting those protocol extensions.

eDonkey client programs connect to the network to share files. eDonkey servers act as communication hubs for the clients, allowing users to locate files within the network. Clients and servers are available for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and other UNIX-like operating systems. By running an eDonkey server program on a machine connected to the Internet, any user can add a server to the network. As the number of servers and their addresses change frequently, client programs update their server lists regularly. In computing, a client is a system that accesses a (remote) service on another computer by some kind of network. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... The first Macintosh computer, introduced in 1984, upgraded to a 512K Fat Mac. The Macintosh or Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, manufactured, and marketed by Apple Computer. ... Linux (IPA pronunciation: ) is a Unix-like computer operating system family. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ...

Features

Hash Identification

Files on the eDonkey network are uniquely identified using compound MD4 hash checksums, which are a function of the bit content of the file. This treats files with identical content but different names as the same, and files with different contents but same name as different. MD4 is a message digest algorithm (the fourth in a series) designed by Professor Ronald Rivest of MIT in 1990. ... A hash function [1] is a reproducible method of turning some kind of data into a (relatively) small number that may serve as a digital fingerprint of the data. ... A checksum is a form of redundancy check, a very simple measure for protecting the integrity of data by detecting errors in data that is sent through space (telecommunications) or time (storage). ...

Files are divided in full chunks of 9,728,000 bytes (9500 kiB, around 9.28 MiB) plus a remainder chunk, and a separate 128-bit MD4 checksum is computed for each. That way, a transmission error is detected and corrupts only a chunk instead of the whole file. Furthermore, valid downloaded chunks are available for sharing before the rest of the file is downloaded, speeding up the distribution of large files throughout the network.
A file's identification checksum is computed by concatenating the chunks' MD4 checksums in order and hashing the result.

It is possible for two different chunks or files to have the same checksum and thus appear the same (see Birthday attack), but the chance of that happening is so small that for all practical purposes it never happens, and checksums are considered unique identifiers. A birthday attack is a type of cryptographic attack which exploits the mathematics behind the birthday paradox, making use of a space_time tradeoff. ...

Search

The eDonkey network supports searching of files by name and a number of secondary characteristics such as size, extension, bitrate, etc. The lugdunum versions of eserver (eDonkey server software) support complex boolean searches like 'one AND two AND (three OR four) AND ("five four three" OR "two one") NOT seven'.

To ease file searching, some websites list the checksums of sought-after files in the form of an eD2k link. Some of these websites also have lists of active servers for users to update. (Two such sites are Figator.com and eMugle.)

History

The original eDonkey network relied on central servers run by users willing to donate the necessary bandwidth and processing/disk usage overhead. Such servers could be subject to heavy traffic and, consequently, more vulnerable to attacks.

To overcome this problem, MetaMachine, the developer of the original eDonkey client, developed Overnet (www.overnet.com) as a successor to the eDonkey protocol. The eMule Project also developed a Kademlia network of their own (called Kad) to overcome the reliance on central servers. In addition, eMule includes a pure P2P client source-exchange capability, allowing a client with a ‘High ID’ (i. e., with incoming eD2k connections not blocked by a firewall) to continue downloading (and uploading) files with a high number of sources for days, even after complete disconnection from the original Kad or eD2k servers that handled the original requests. (eMule does not query secondary servers when told to disconnect from the server). This source-exchange capability is designed to reduce the load on servers by two thirds or more for files that have a large number of seeds, or sources (other clients) for the files. The original eDonkey client by MetaMachine does not support source exchanges. Overnet is a decentralized peer-to-peer computer network, usually used for sharing large files (e. ... Kademlia is an overlay network system designed by Petar Maymounkov and David Mazières, for decentralized peer to peer computer networks. ... The Kad network is a peer-to-peer (P2P) network which implements the Kademlia P2P overlay protocol. ... eMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. ...

In 2004, the eDonkey network overtook FastTrack to become the most widely used file sharing network on the Internet. While figures vary from hour to hour, it is believed, as of mid-2005, to host on average approximately two to three million users sharing 500 million to two billion files via 100 to 200 servers. The network’s most popular server was at one time Razorback2, which usually hosted about one million users. Sometime around February 21, 2006, the Razorback2 servers were raided and seized by the Federal Belgian Police.^[1] DonkeyServer No1 and DonkeyServer No2 currently combine for over one and a half million users. 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... FastTrack is a peer-to-peer protocol, used by the Kazaa (and variants, Grokster and iMesh) file sharing programs. ... Razorback2 were two servers (195. ... February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...

eDonkey client RIAA agreement

Main article: eDonkey2000

On September 13, 2006, MetaMachine Inc., the developer of the eDonkey2000 client, agreed to pay $30 million to avoid potential copyright infringement lawsuits brought by the RIAA. In accordance with the agreement, eDonkey is to discontinue distribution of their software as well as to take measures to prevent the use of previous copies of their software for file sharing. The RIAA agreement has likely had little impact on the eD2k network as a whole; eMule had been the dominant client on the network since 2002, and it already represented over 90% of the network at the time of the agreement.^[2] eDonkey was also outnumbered by aMule and Shareaza, the second- and third-ranked eD2k clients in terms of usage. The eDonkey client software that was currently available no longer works as a hard-coded check to the eDonkey2000 web site has been placed in the latest and last version of eDonkey in preparation for implementation of the agreement. Users that visit the eDonkey website, intentionally, or by simply using the latest eDonkey client, are being greeted by a message mentioning the shutdown and pasting their IP address claiming it's logged as a scare tactic in an attempt to discourage them. The automatic check to the official eDonkey2000 client's website can be disabled by assigning www.edonkey2000.com to an incorrect IP address such as 127.0.0.1 in the hosts file. eDonkey2000 was a peer-to-peer file sharing application developed by MetaMachine, using the Multisource File Transfer Protocol. ... September 13 is the 256th day of the year (257th in leap years). ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... eDonkey2000 was a peer-to-peer file sharing application developed by MetaMachine, using the Multisource File Transfer Protocol. ... The RIAA Logo. ... In computing, aMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing application that works with the eDonkey2000 network and the Kad Network, but offers more features than the standard eDonkey client, including support for Kademlia. ... Shareaza is a free Windows–based peer-to-peer client which supports the Gnutella, Gnutella2, EDonkey Network, BitTorrent, FTP and HTTP network protocols and which can handle magnet links, ed2k links, Piolet links, and the now deprecated Gnutella links. ... In computing, a hosts file, stored on the computers filesystem, is used to look up the Internet Protocol address of a device connected to a computer network, such as your home computer connected to the Internet. ...

Servers

The most widely used eD2k server is currently Lugdunum eserver (see official home page). After MetaMachine abandoned development of eD2k server software and revealed the source code to Lugdunum in late 2002, Lugdunum has extended the eD2k protocol while maintaining backward compatibility. Although sources of the metamachine's software were given to Lugdunum, he never used them.[1] The Lugdunum server software was created by reverse engineering edonkey protocol and redesigned from scratch. Lugdunum server software is free as in beer, but not open source. The stated reason for not opening the source is to prevent the easy creation of fake servers. Gratis versus Libre is the distinction between zero price and freedom. ...

Servers have appeared on the eDonkey network that censor shared content searches and information about files by the type of the file (such as video or MP3) or by keywords (‘xxx,’ ‘sex,’ etc.). These include ‘Sonny Boy,’ ‘Byte Devils,’ ‘Pirate’s Lair,’ and others. Some of these servers have an IP starting with ‘72.51’^[3] and are located in United States, although others exist in other countries. These servers report large numbers of users (up to 1.5 million) connected to them, thus raising the number of users in the network to 10—13 million; however, it is impossible to determine how many people are actually connected to them. Such servers often disseminate advertisements disguised as commonly searched-for music/video files. Due to such fraud, server listing services such as ocbmaurice stopped listing all American servers since most of the trouble comes from within American borders. MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a popular digital audio encoding format. ...

It has been alleged that some of these servers also function as NetSentry or other spy bots run by companies contracted by the recording industry to collect information on users in order to mount legal action for copyright infringement^{[citation needed]}. However, IP blocking software (such as bluetack) is often used to reduce the risk of such personal information being collected. It is estimated that 30% of eMule users^{[citation needed]} currently use some sort of IP filtering (whether it be built into eMule, Internet firewall, or software such as PeerGuardian, ProtoWall, etc.) Internet bots, also known as web robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the internet. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Clients

Numerous clients, including several that are free and open-source, are available for the eDonkey/eDonkey2000 network: Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... ...

• eDonkey2000: an original MetaMachine client, since discontinued
• eMule: a free, open-source Microsoft Windows client, currently the most widely used, with an estimated 80% of all network users (can also be run on Linux under Wine); numerous mods are also available
• eMule Plus is a free (GPL), open-source Microsoft Windows client loosely based on eMule, but doesn't have KAD or obfuscation support while adding other features such as automated fake checks and enhanced GUI. eMule Plus has no direct association with the original eMule.
• lMule (Linux Mule): A very raw eDonkey client based in eMule, targeted to Linux platforms.
• xMule (X11 Mule): a fork from lMule. Deviating from copying eMule, it have more controls than lMule but is less user-friendly.
• aMule: a successful fork from lMule, it fully copied the interface and feel of eMule, and now it shares code with eMule project.
• Hydranode: a free, open-source, multi-network, cross-platform, core-GUI-separated client
• Jubster: a multi-network client for Windows
• Lphant: an eDonkey and BitTorrent, cross-platform, core-GUI-separated client that runs on the Microsoft .NET and Mono platforms
• MLDonkey: a free, multi-network, cross-platform client
• Morpheus: a file sharing client for Windows
• Pruna (formerly, MediaVAMP): a Korean-language client based on eMule
• Shareaza: a free, open-source, multi-network client for Windows

eDonkey2000 was a peer-to-peer file sharing application developed by MetaMachine, using the Multisource File Transfer Protocol. ... eMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. ... Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... It has been suggested that WineTools, Wine-Doors, and WineXS be merged into this article or section. ... eMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. ... eMule Plus is a open source eMule compatible client created to improve the original eMule P2P client GUI . ... Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... Microsoft Windows is the name of several families of proprietary software operating systems by Microsoft. ... eMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. ... LMule (meaning Linux Mule) was an early attempt to bring an eMule-like client to Linux, starting in January 2003. ... xMule — the X11 Mule — is a client for the eDonkey peer-to-peer file sharing network, intended to bring it to virtually all the major UNIX platforms, with a particular emphasis on Linux. ... In computing, aMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing application that works with the eDonkey2000 network and the Kad Network, but offers more features than the standard eDonkey client, including support for Kademlia. ... Assorted forks. ... Hydranode is a modular, plugin-driven peer-to-peer client framework which is designed with true multi-network downloads in mind. ... Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... Jubster is a Windows-based peer-to-peer client which supports the Gnutella, Gnutella2, eDonkey Network, FastTrack, among others, along with excellent web-based results with great transfer speeds. ... It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... Microsoft . ... Mono is a project led by Novell (formerly by Ximian) to create an ECMA standard compliant . ... MLDonkey is an open source, free software multi-network peer-to-peer application. ... Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without... Morpheus is the name of a file sharing peer to peer client for Microsoft Windows, operated by the company StreamCast, that originally used the OpenNAP and P2P platform. ... Shareaza is a free Windows–based peer-to-peer client which supports the Gnutella, Gnutella2, EDonkey Network, BitTorrent, FTP and HTTP network protocols and which can handle magnet links, ed2k links, Piolet links, and the now deprecated Gnutella links. ... Clockwise from top: The logo of the GNU Project (the GNU head), the Linux kernel mascot Tux the Penguin, and the FreeBSD daemon Free software is a term coined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation[1] to refer to software that can be used, studied, and modified without...

See also

• Comparison of eDonkey software — For a list with more clients
• Comparison of file sharing applications
• Kad network
• Overnet

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of available applications supporting the eDonkey network. ... Comparison of BitTorrent software Comparison of eDonkey software Comparison of Gnutella software Comparison of G2 software Anonymous peer-to-peer Categories: | ... The Kad network is a peer-to-peer (P2P) network which implements the Kademlia P2P overlay protocol. ... Overnet is a decentralized peer-to-peer computer network, usually used for sharing large files (e. ...

References

The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... February 23 is the 54th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini era. ... January 5 is the 5th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Phantom P2P — Large eD2k links database, also with Guides and Support.
• aMule Project FAQ on eD2k — An introduction to the eD2k network, how it works, and how to configure eD2k clients
• pDonkey project — eDonkey protocol description
• Sam Yagan’s letter to the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee
• "Music Downloads: Pirates- or Customers?" Silverthorne, Sean. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge. 2004.
• "Advanced Peer-Based Technology Business Models." Ghosemajumder, Shuman. MIT Sloan School of Management. 2002.
• Peerates.net provide servers list without faked servers, and network informations