This is a real beginner’s question, so forgive me, but I haven’t seen it obviously addressed in this forum, maybe because it is “too obvious”!
I am indeed struck by the concept of a secure peer-to-peer based type of internet existence. It sounds really tempting. Even so, I can’t see how the non-server based model could easily stop viruses spreading from one client to another. With no scanning of files for viruses on a central server, surely if one virus went undetected on a particular client hosting someone’s data, then when that data was accessed on another client, hey presto, the virus travels to that client and so on. Maybe I am missing a trick here, but anyone any thoughts on this question?
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No worries, chunks are hashed and checked by the fact the hash of contents == name. If this is not the case the chunk will not parse from the network, i.e. it will not work. So it is long before anything is executed.
The other thing is that nodes can check each others data. So I have abc and so do you. I can send you some data to prepend to abc and tell me the new hash. If it’s incorrect then one of us has corrupt data. Actually one of us would not have been able to open the data to prepend it (but a bad/good virus/rootkit will infect the hash program etc.). This way we can confirm validity without transmission of data as well. The questioner is multiple nodes and not one though.
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Hi there Dirvine,
Many thanks. That helps me understand it better.
Paul
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