Byte > Column > P2P Meme > Presence Management, Instant Intranets > September 22, 2000 This Byte artice is a really good, basic, overview of some of the technologies that are being lumped into peer-to-peer (P2P). It's pretty even handed and not sensational. I'm particularly struck by the recollection that, once upon a long time ago, the Internet was entirely a peer network. Then these firewalls and NATs (Network Address Translation) and dynamic IP address assignment schemes got in the way. Napster returned us to the peer Internet, allowing any user to directly (well, almost directly. There's still the matter of routers and firewalls -- but no DNS problems) contact another and share resources. I've finished my Hive Computing white paper and am starting on a white paper on the other aspects of the P2P phenomenon. It's pretty fascinating stuff.