WASTE FAQ
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# $Id: waste-faq.txt,v 1.1 2004/01/05 04:40:02 sulrich Exp $
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Warning
This document is half-assed, and definitely in an embryonic state.
Administration
The URL of this document on the web is:
http://www.botwerks.org/waste/waste-faq.html
This document was initially created on June 8, 2003 by Lucas Gonze,
and has subsequently been placed online by Steve Ulrich.
Items are mainly drawn from the waste-discuss mailing list at yahoo
groups (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waste-discuss/). To add a new
item or ask a question, email it to the mailing list.
Questions, answers and corrections have been provided by: Lucas
Gonze, dreamsraven, malakai1911, gnutizen, Justin Rossetti, Vinnie
Tesla, Rodney Lechwar, Rene Champagne, Dark Angel, Higgy, Chris
Smith.
Questions
1. What does "Waste" mean? Where can I find the Pynchon novel "The
Crying of Lot 49" that was the source of this reference?
2. Are there implementations aside from the Nullsoft version?
3. Where can I download the software?
4. How do I find people to connect to? Is there an irc channel set
up yet to exchange servers/keys?
5. Is there a tutorial?
6. What is the legal status of the software?
7. How can I use Waste with a dynamic IP address?
8. When I enter someone's key, I don't get a connection. Do I need
their IP address?
Answers
1. Question: What does "Waste" mean? Where can I find the Pynchon
novel "The Crying of Lot 49" that was the source of this
reference?
Answer: W.A.S.T.E. is a secret postal network in Thomas Pynchon's
novel "The Crying of Lot 49." Discussion and a summary can be
found here:
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_lot49.html
The novel is not in the public domain.
2. Question: Are there implementations aside from the Nullsoft
version?
Answer: gnutizen@yahoo.com has an embryonic one written in C.
3. Question: Where can I download the software?
Answer: Waste (installer & sources), and entire website, archived
as .RAR, is available at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/waste-discuss/files/WASTE.rar
There are a large number of other caches of the software.
If you download the file from a public network like Gnutella, you
should verify that it hasn't with tampered with (i.e. that nobody
has inserted a virus) by calculating a checksum. Checksums for
canonical versions are as follows:
MD5 (waste-setup.exe) = e3609e352afba37683c47ce60f9086bb
MD5 (waste-source.zip) = 554cfa7350333aa4e6eb3b6e24201d80
Please note that this document is not secure -- anybody can edit
it, so it is possible for an attacker to modify those checksums.
Those checksums have also been posted at:
http://www.gonze.com/index.cgi/2003/05/30#waste
4. Question: How do I find people to connect to? Is there an irc
channel set up yet to exchange servers/keys?
Answer:
On the web, try http://www.str8dog.com/?f=32&m=479.
On IRC, irc.freenode.net, #waste does the task. A related channel on
freenode, #infoanarchy, has some discussion of W.A.S.T.E. as well.
(Please do not use #p2p-hackers for WASTE related things like
IPs!) Having access to a private network is fine, but try to get
on the big open, network name-less one as well (it currently has
84 users, I've seen it go up to 120).
An automated resource for exchange of keys/IPs is the WASTE board
at:
http://www.s4s.ip3.com/wasteb/
As of this writing on August 1, 2003, this is the cleanest and
most usable way to exchange IP addresses and keys, in my (LG's)
opinion.
5. Question: Is there a tutorial?
Answer: There is one in French at:
http://protox.biz/tutorial/tutorial_waste_wasted.htm
6. Question: What is the legal status of the software?
Answer: Short answer: unknown. It depends on internal issues at
AOL/Nullsoft that outsiders can't know about. For a longer answer,
see this link
http://www.gonze.com/index.cgi/2003/06/13#waste-updates
for the legal advice of a programmer.
7. Question: How can I use Waste with a dynamic IP address?
Answer #1 from Rene Champagne:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Get a (probably free) dynamic domain name on a service like
DynDNS.org. Then do something like one of the following:
1. Download the program Directupdate. DynDNS will give you a
static IP that will point to your dynamic IP address.
Directupdate will tell DynDNS whenever your IP address
changes.
2. Get a router that will automatically update DynDNS and skip
Directupdate. I had a Netgear router that would do the
updates. Now I have a Linksys Router/Wireless Access Point
(WRT54G) that will do the updates.
Answer #2 from Chris Smith:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Port Setup
In general, if you are fully behind a router, using private IP
addresses on your LAN, then you will need to forward a port from
the router to the machine you wish to connect to. The usual port
to forward for WASTE is 1337, but you can use just about any
port. Be aware that WASTE will by default try to connect via
1337 if no other port is specified.
There is no way to run two machines behind a router using port
forwarding. The forwarded port can only go to one machine. You
could use a different port for the second machine, but all
external users will need to know this in order to request the
irregular port for the connection.
However, if one machine is persistently running WASTE, then a
second machine can connect to it, and using WASTEs own routing
features it will be as connected as the first machine. The
secondary machine can connect across the internal network
directly to the primary machine using the private IP address.
Alternatively, if your router correctly supports loopback, the
secondary machine can connect to the external address and port,
and the router will send the connection back to the primary
machine. This method means that all users (private side and
public side of the router) connect using the same user
instructions.
Dynamic IP Setup
There are free addresses at dyndns.org (or so I've heard). A
number of registrars support dynamic updates as well. Rather than
delve deeply here, there is a good reference, including software
notes, at:
http://support.easydns.com/tutorials/dyndnstutorial.php3
There are still issues using WASTE with dynamic IP addresses. You
can open a connection to a WASTE node by name - zzz.domain.tld
for example. WASTE will do the lookup - but only the first time.
It retains only the IP address. If WASTE is disconnected, perhaps
due to an dynamic IP address change, it will attempt to reconnect
to the original IP address. Only manual intervention will force a
new lookup to connect to a new IP address.
Attempts to run multiple dynamic IP WASTE nodes persistently will
require periodic manual intervention to put the network back
together. (This could be considered a bug in WASTE.)
8. Question: When I enter someone's key, I don't get a connection. Do
I need their IP address? Does the port matter?
Answer: You either need his IP or you need an entry in your HOSTS
file that resolves to the name. Waste isn't going to do any DNS
resolution for you. The port is going to default to 1337, unless
you specify otherwise.