MARABUNTA -- P2P Anónimo y Distribuido --

For the latest web version and project information go to the Spanish page
PÁGINA EN CASTELLANO

Main Ideas -- Characteristics -- Mail List -- Documentation -- Download -- Compilation and Execution --

It is a P2P platform for information exchanging among nodes in an anonymous way based on several communication algorithms called "Order and Chaos" which can be found in massive social organizations such as ant colonys.
The project was born in the University of Zaragoza, developed and promoted by students of computing engineering although developement groups and users from many different places seem to be interested because of the importance and the aim of the project.
Marabunta is the real implementation of the ideas explained in the Free Nets project APEIRON and it has been made with these ideas on mind:

AVOIDING CENSURE

Communication between people avoiding central servers is allowed. So it is free from censure attacks, which are commonly launched from many governments and corporations that want to control the communications.
ANONYMITY

Anonymous communication is allowed. So we can access the contents without knowing the original source of the message.
MOTIVES AND DEVELOPEMENT

Marabunta is the first project of this kind developed in Spain. As we said before, it was founded in Aragón but Marabunta is a project thought out to be used by everyone in the world, specially in countries where people have no freedom of speech, due to the fragility of centralized net models.

Marabunta breaks through all of that and puts forward a new way of communication: anonymous, distributed, with no servers and inmune from censure.

CHARACTERISTICS
- Text messages interchange is the first service. It could be taken as a platform for telegram distribution, where each computer in the net works as a Host and as a Server.
  - As a Host:
    
    Messages are sended, active nodes are seeked, etc.
  - As a Server:
    
    Text messages and requests to increase the connectivity between nodes are routed to the network using a broadcast forwarding method.
- There are 4 Messages Distribution Lists. So we only receive messages sended to the list we are interested on.
  - General, Technology, Philosophy, Politics
- Contents filters are allowed so only messages with certain patterns are displayed.
  This is specially useful when searching for some specific information because Marabunta just selects potentially interesting messages.
- Connections:
  
  All generated traffic is UDP/IP. Avoiding setting up connections between nodes lets more traffic flow in the network and the operational redundance of every node can be used. Moreover, UDP protocol increases anonymity in the net because there is no need to validate source hosts to receive a datagram.
- Marabunta is programmed using QT4 libraries because they allow compilation on three main operative systems: GNU Linux, Mac and Windows
- Source code has been published under GNU/GPL License.
MAIL LIST:

All developers and users of Marabunta comunicate with each other using a public mail list. If you are interested in the project, Free Nets or freedom of speech in the net, you can enter on the Mailing List of the project APEIRÓN.

Nombre

Mail
DOCUMENTATION:
- Marabunta : Aim and Operation:
  
  David Gascón
  
  david@laotracara.com
  
  This introduction tries to explain briefly the aim of the aplication and the main workings of its connection distribution protocol and message sending.
  
  -- Download PDF --
- Free Nets:
  
  For more information about how Free Nets models work, have a look at the documentation of the project APEIRON section.
  
  -- Documentation of the Project APEIRON --
DOWNLOADS:

-- Source Code --

-- Debian Package (.deb) --

-- GNU Linux Binaries (Arch i386) --

-- Windows Binary --

-- Subversion Repository --
COMPILATION AND EXECUCION :
- Previous Considerations:
  
  Port-Forwarding on NATS
  
  All connections are made using UDP/IP protocol, that's why every node behind a NAT, with private IP has to establish a "port-forwarding" route to let the router know to which port and node of the internal net it has to forward the arriving datagrams.
  
  This mechanism will be needed in most computer that use ADSL to connect to the Internet. But it is posible that computers holding large private nets such as wireless ones can automatically create this routes, letting Marabunta work properly. We have checked this situation.
- Environment of Marabunta on GNU Linux:
  
  File extraction: #tar -xzvf marabunta.xxx.tar.gz
  When using source code, compilation can be made by running the normal procedure:
  
  #./configure
  
  #make
  
  And now we can run the aplication: #./marabunta
  
  Writing permision is needed for the following files:
  - marabunta.cfg (if doesn't exist, the first execution creates it.)
  - nidos.txt
  - nodos.txt
  - the one specified for "log"
  - the one specified for saving the filtered messages
  The first one has a path fixed in compilation time. The others will be saved in the folder specified as "Working Directory" in the section "General Options".
  
  In the same section you can set other options such as Language (any help on traducing the controls will be thanked), or enable warning windows when a new message arrives or when a new similar node is added.
  
  IP address and port that will be used must be set up on the upper-left corner at the starting of the application.
  
  WARNING: We advise you to test if the version you are running is the latest one, due to the fact that old versions coul not work properly with the new ones. To know it, just press the button "Correct version ?"
  
  On the lower-left corner possible nodes addresses must be set up too.
  
  There are three main methods to connect to existing nodes in the net:
  - 1. By knowing the IP address and port of one active node (you can get this information from a chat, a mail list, a friend, etc.) Once you have connected to this first node, It will find some other nodes in the net by sending the nodes it knows messages asking for active nodes you need to build a good net. You can do this step by yourself by inserting nodes in the lower edit box.
  - 2. By loading a file with several nodes that were in the net in the past, trying to find one which is active at the moment. Use "Load File" button.
  - 3. By connecting to a web server where several nodes are known as active nodes. Use "Download Nodes" button.
  We can use "Save" button on the lower side to keep active nodes in our computer and to avoid this step when starting the application.
  
  Once all nodes that can be in the net are added, start the connection.
  
  Our computer starts to send messages looking for nodes so we can establish a permanent connection to those who answer our requests.
  
  Now that we know some nodes in the net, we can search for more new nodes to make our connection better and send, receive or route messages.
  
  It is important to understand that we are client and server so a certain bandwidth is used to route messages although we are not sending any message to the net.
  
  We can choose which classes of messages we can send or receive.
  
  Moreover, we can filter messages which content a concrete pattern.
- Marabunta environment for Windows:
  
  Pablo Urcola
  
  killims@gmail.com
  
  Because of the use of QT4 libraries is very common in GNU/LINUX, we thought it would be interesting to let the users of Windows use the early versions of the application.
  That is why we have made a step by step compilation guide for Marabunta in Windows.
  
  The latest version of this guide is here.
  
  -- Download PDF --
People supporting this Project:
- Protocol Design: David Gascón
- Development: David Gascón, Daniel Larraz
- Translations: Pablo Urcola, Manuel Pacheco, Valentín Plugaru
- Contributions: J.A. Gutierrez, Enrique J. Hernández
MARABUNTA is released under the GNU/GPL License

--------------------------------

Copyright (C) 2005 David Gascón Cabrejas

Copyright (C) 2005 Daniel Larraz Hurtado

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.

Complete License: gplLicense.txt

--------------------------------

English Translation by Pablo Urcola -- killims@gmail.com

Main Ideas -- Characteristics -- Mail List -- Documentation -- Download -- Compilation and Execution --

david@laotracara.com