In a world full of watchful eyes you don't really get many protocols that actually try to hide your information. Limewire after doing a review of their traffic and client usage actually implemented a custom protocol which actually acts as a layer on top of P2P. Basically it masks your information like IP addresses and uses a random key and then it connects with clients using other keys. All the key information is maintained by a central server which is highly encrypted and flushes the database whenever the user disconnects from the network. It's like a torrent tracker but with more security.
The protocol is active in the beta builds on Limewire. You can enable CP2P via the options. According to our beta testers it seems the CP2P was created to make it harder for the Feds to find CP uploaders. According to Limewire search stats, CP, pthc and other groups get a high volume of hits and it's not a secret that LimeWire has been uses for distribution of rated and restricted content.
By implementing CP2P which is looked closely CP2P actually reveals everything about this new feature.
Comments
It's Limewire with CP2P, it's supposed to ahem make things easier. Get it!
Well, you can download LimeWire and see it for yourself. It really works well and the searches are pretty precise.
Also any protocol woud require an abstraction layer such as Tor. This already exhists in some torrent clients.
On a side note: doesn anyone know of a P2P DNS service? One that doesn't rely on a server?
Finally someone gets it
Yes, I was. Dunno about a P2P DNS.