IRC is no longer used, but might be the most easy to implement:Īs of version 0.6.x the Bitcoin client no longer uses IRC bootstrapping by default, and as of version 0.8.2 support for IRC bootstrapping has been removed completely. The BitcoinQT client uses a variety of methods to find nodes, some of them might be useful to you. such that when a new node comes online it knows what to search the blockchain for - SEND - 104.003021133 MOON IP = 104.3.21.133 not an expensive proposition. Even if they later prohibit adding metadata to transactions, you could make a transaction equivalent to your IP address in MOON, and use vanity addresses in MOON coin for your app. There would still be a miners fee, but this is only fractions of pennies. such that you can post micro transactions back and forth between addresses that your app controls. Build wallet functionality into your app. Pick a cheap coin that's likely to hang around. Think secret IRC channel, embedding data in photos and posting to photo sharing sites 4chan?, any site that would allow your application to login and post data without captia logins etc.Īnother strategy might be to embedded messages in digital currency transactions. Take advantage of any existing forum where data can posted. And this sure is more lightweight than email (which, due to spam filters at the very least, would not work anyway). It can be something as simple as a PHP script on a webserver (the gnutella network, today, is held up by ten-twenty such scripts, hosted by people who don't even know each other). I really would rethink having some kind of a central tracker. The later approach, of course, is abusing the internet, as well as illegal in most countries. The first approach is well-meaning but in at least 98% of cases won't yield any results. If you truly can't have any kind of a centralized resource, the best you can do is find the first peer through broadcasted messages and ultimately IP address scanning. The client will discover the whole network or portions of it by asking other peers for more addresses, for example when delegating a file search. These can come off a web-based automated tracker for example. There's no way around having to know at least one initial peer to discover more.įully P2P protocols, such as Gnutella or Gnutella2, or the simpler Overnet (made famous by Storm Worm), are based on each client having a start-up list of a few peers.