[p2p-research] CatBot...and an introduction.

[Tomas Rawlings]

Hi - I have recently joined the list having seen Michel speak in 
Bristol, UK and become inspired by the work of the p2p foundation - so I 
joined.

I am currently doing a PhD at the University of the West of England 
looking at the cross-over points between evolutionary theory and p2p.  
The idea grows out of seeing p2p file trading technology survive attack 
upon attack by the music and film industry and thinking; "this seems 
like the mythic Hydra - when you cut off one head, two new ones grow." 
and then realising upon closer examination it was much more than this:  
What is clearer to me now is that the opposition of the music and film 
industry have created a kind of 'survival of the fittest' environment 
for p2p technology where the more vulnerable systems get legally taken 
out, but less vulnerable ones - more decentralised systems - survive and 
produce new generations of their technology.  Ironically, the better the 
music and film industry have fared in the courts, the more interesting 
the technology this has developed.  At least that is where the thinking 
is now...

As part of all this, we run a project, CatBot - this is looking at the 
idea of building a simple to use p2p torrent system for universities and 
other such institutions to allow easy publishing of material to the 
public.  There is much more about this project here; 
http://catbot.org/help.php and there is a news mailing-list to keep 
up-to date with the project at; 
http://mail.fluffylogic.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/catbot-news

Myself and my colleague Ana also blog at plugincinema - 
http://www.plugincinema.com - a site about film and the internet, and 
also the subject of Ana's PhD research.  As part of this we wrote the 
first book looking at Internet filmmaking, which you can download for 
free/buy from here; http://plugincinema.com/plugin/content/view/168/46/

Thanks for taking the time to read all this, and thanks for all the 
interesting links and information you all post to the list!

-- 
Tomas

-----------------------
Tomas Rawlings
e: tom at fluffylogic.net
w: www.fluffylogic.net
w: www.plugincinema.com
t: 0117 9442233