Waste, rubbish, trash, garbage, or junk is unwanted or undesired material. "Waste" is the general term; though the other terms are used loosely as synonyms, they have more specific meanings: rubbish or trash are mixed household waste and including paper and packaging; food waste or garbage (North America) is kitchen and table waste; and junk or scrap is metallic or industrial material. There are other categories of waste as well: sewage, ash, manure, and plant materials from garden operations, including grass cuttings, fallen leaves, and pruned branches.

Though the cleanliness of public streets has long been a public responsibility, it was only towards the end of the 19th century that waste collection and disposal began to be considered part of the public health and sanitation function of municipalities.

Some components of waste can be recycled once recovered from the waste stream, e.g. plastic bottles, metals, glass or paper. The biodegradable component of wastes (e.g. paper & food waste) can be composted or anaerobically digested to produce soil improvers and renewable fuels. If it is not dealt with in a sustainable manner, biodegradable waste can thus contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and by implication climate change.^[1]

There are two main definitions of waste.. One view comes from the individual or organisation producing the material, the second is the view of Government, and is set out in different acts of waste legislation. The two have to combine to ensure the safe and legal disposal of the waste.^[2]

Waste definitions

European definition of waste

The European Union defines waste as an object the holder discards, intends to discard or is required to discard is waste under the Waste Framework Directive (European Directive 75/442/EC as amended).

Once a substance or object has become waste, it will remain waste until it has been fully recovered and no longer poses a potential threat to the environment or to human health."^[3]''

United Kingdom's definition of waste

The UK's Environmental Protection Act 1990 indicated waste includes any substance which constitutes a scrap material, an effluent or other unwanted surplus arising from the application of any process or any substance or article which requires to be disposed of which has been broken, worn out, contaminated or otherwise spoiled; this is supplemented with anything which is discarded otherwise dealt with as if it were waste shall be presumed to be waste unless the contrary is proved. This definition was amended by the Waste Management Licensing Regulations 1994 defining waste as:

"any substance or object which the producer or the person in possession of it, discards or intends or is required to discard but with exception of anything excluded from the scope of the Waste Directive".^[4]

Cultural dynamics of waste

In addition to these points above, there is also an important cultural dimension to waste. "Wasting time," "wasting money," "wasting good food" or "being wasteful" in innumerable ways involves moral judgments that carry a great deal of weight in human interaction and that differ in the societies of the world and even within those societies.

For example: chefs from different culinary traditions prize cuts of meat that other countries' chefs will "waste"; parents may view a child's career in a rock band as a "waste" of their education (an opinion not shared by the child, who may feel they have found their calling); and so on. The expenditure of money on matters which attract disapproval may be described as "wasting money" independently of the economic underpinning of the transactions concerned. An example of this in popular culture is the T-shirt and poster slogan "I spent most of my money on beer, women and cigarettes - the rest of it I just wasted".

These varying conceptions of waste frequently impact environmental decision-making in societies different from, those of Europe, North America, Australia, etc., which have a rough consensus on environmentalist values.^[5][6][7][8]

See also

• List of solid waste treatment technologies
• Waste collection vehicle
• Waste management

External links

• BBC h2g2 - Waste
• Waste-US Environmental Protection Agency
• Wasteonline
• Wastewatch
• Taking back the trash
• European Waste Catalogue!!
• Municipal waste generation by country
• Waste recycling technology, how to separate materials with automatic system - videos availables

References

Topics related to waste	[ edit]
Anaerobic digestion | Compost | Dustbins | E-waste | Waste collection vehicle | Incineration | Landfill | Mechanical biological treatment | Radioactive waste | Recycling | Reuse | Sewage | Scrap | Sewage treatment | Waste | Toxic waste | Waste management | Waste management topics | Waste minimisation |}

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WASTE
Author:	Justin Frankel
Initial release:	2003
Programming language(s):	C++
Available language(s):	English
Genre:	Darknet

WASTE is a peer-to-peer and friend-to-friend protocol and software application developed by Justin Frankel at Nullsoft in 2003 that features instant messaging, chat rooms & file browsing/sharing capabilities. The name WASTE is a reference to Thomas Pynchon's novel The Crying of Lot 49, in which it is an acronym for "We Await Silent Tristero's Empire". In the novel, W.A.S.T.E. is an underground postal service.

After its release, WASTE was removed from distribution by AOL, Nullsoft's parent company. The original page was replaced with a statement claiming that the posting of the software was unauthorized and that no lawful rights to it were held by anyone who had downloaded it, in spite of the original claim that the software was released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Several developers have modified and upgraded the WASTE client and protocol. The SourceForge edition is considered by many to be the "official" development branch, but there are several forks.

Description

WASTE is a decentralized chat, instant messaging and file sharing program & protocol. It behaves similar to a virtual private network by connecting to a group of trusted computers, as determined by the users. This kind of network is commonly referred to as a darknet. It employs heavy encryption to ensure that third parties cannot decipher the messages being transferred. The same encryption is used to transmit and receive instant messages, chat, and files, maintain the connection, and browse and search.

WASTE Networks

WASTE networks are decentralized (see social networks), meaning there is no central hub or server that everyone connects to. Peers must connect to each other individually. Normally, this is accomplished by having individuals sharing their RSA public keys, ensuring that their computers are accessible via the appropriate ports (one or more parties must have an IP address & port that can be reached by the other), and entering the IP address & port someone on the network to connect to.

Once connected to the network, public keys are automatically exchanged amongst members (provided enough of the members are set to forward & accept public keys), and nodes will then attempt to connect to each other, strengthening the network (decreasing the odds that any one node going down will collapse or shut out any part of the network), as well as increasing the number of possible routes from any given point to any other point, decreasing latency and bandwidth required for communication and file transfer.

Since WASTE connects small, private groups rather than large, public ones, the network search feature is one of the fastest of all the decentralized P2P applications. Its instant messaging & file sharing capabilities are much closer to those of AOL Instant Messenger than more typical file sharing programs. Members of the network can create private and public chat rooms, instant message each other, browse each other's files, and trade files, including the pushing or active sending of files by hosts, as well as the more common downloading by users. Simple drag-and-drop to chat boxes will send files to their intended destinations.

The suggested size for a WASTE network (referred to as a "mesh" by users) is 10-50 nodes, though it has been suggested that the size of the network is less critical than the ratio of nodes willing to route traffic to those that are not. With original Frankel client legacy groups now exceeding three years of age, it's not uncommon for stable meshes to host multiple terabytes of secure content.

By default, WASTE listens to incoming connections on port 1337. This was probably chosen because of 1337's leet connotations.

Since there is no central hub, WASTE networks typically employ a password or passphrase, also called a "network name" to prevent collision. That is, a member from one network connecting to a member of another network, thus bridging the two networks. By assigning a unique identifier (passphrase) to your network, the risk of collisions can be reduced, particularly with the original clients.

Nullnets

There do exist, however, "nullnets" which are networks without a passphrase. It is impossible to know how many nullnets exist, but there is one primary nullnet. The best way to access the nullnet is to post your credentials to the WASTE Key Exchange. ^{[9] [10]} The nullnet can easily merge with other nullnets because there is no passphrase, which makes it a great place for public discussion & file sharing.

Strengths

• Secured through the trade of RSA public keys, allowing for safe and secure communication & data transfer with trusted hosts.
• The distributed nature means that the network isn't dependent on anyone setting up a server to act as a hub. Contrast this with other P2P and chat protocols that require you to connect to a server. This means there is no single point of vulnerability for the network.
• Similarly, there is no single group leader, everyone on the network is equal in what they can or cannot do, including inviting other members in to the group, nor can any member kick another from the group, exclude them from public chats, etc.
• WASTE can obfuscate its protocol, making it difficult to detect that WASTE is being used.
• WASTE has a "Saturate" feature which adds random traffic, making traffic analysis more difficult.
• The nodes (each a trusted connection) automatically determine the lowest latency route for traffic and, in doing so, load balance. This also improves privacy, because packets often take different routes.

Shortcomings

• Trading public keys, enabling port forwarding on your firewall (if necessary), and connecting to each other can be a difficult and/or tedious process, especially for those who aren't very technically proficient.
• Due to the network's distributed nature, it is impossible to "kick" someone from the network once they've gained access. Since every member of the network will have that member's public key, all that member needs to do to regain access is to connect to another member. Coordinating the change of the network name is exceedingly difficult, so the best course of action is to create another network and migrate everyone over to the new network. This could, of course, also be seen as a strength.
• Since there is no central server, once someone disconnects from the network, they must attempt any and all previously known IP addresses to reconnect. It is possible that the network will drift from those IP addresses and they will need to contact some of the members of the network in another way (i.e. email, instant message, etc.) in order to reconnect. Indeed, it is possible that one network could unknowingly split into two networks this way. It takes at least a small amount of coordination to keep a WASTE network intact. This can be as simple as one or more volunteers with a static IP address (or a domain name, which can be freely obtainable^[11][12]) keeping their node up to allow people to reconnect to the network.
• Though the network itself is encrypted, transmissions within the network itself are not encrypted, allowing for eavesdropping and spoofing. This has been partially addressed in "unofficial" release 1.6, which allows for chat that is encrypted using the recipient's public key, preventing eavesdropping. These enhancements have not been incorporated into the SourceForge version.
• Encryption is performed using the Blowfish algorithm (which is thought to be strong), but using the insecure PCBC mode.
• Nicknames are not "registered," again, allowing for eavesdropping or spoofing. Once again, WASTE version 1.6 uses public keys for communication, reducing the chances of eavesdropping, but anyone can still choose any nickname they want so one must know and recognize the public key of the person they're addressing to be sure it's really them.
• In order to connect from behind a firewall, one party must have the proper port forwarded to their computer. It should be noted, however, that because WASTE networks do not depend on an individual server to connect them, there is no way around this, though it is possible to set up a single WASTE node on a publicly accessible computer to act as an intermediary server for the purpose of connecting two or more computers that are behind a firewall. Without a third party server, techniques such as hole punching will not work, though it is possible, in theory, that a WASTE node on a publicly accessible computer could act as a server, but this feature has not been included in WASTE (and probably never will be).

Versions

The latest Windows release on SourceForge is 1.5 beta 3.^[13]

A "non-official" 1.6 Windows edition addresses some UI and privacy concerns.^[14]

A new cross-platform (including Linux, Mac OS and Microsoft Windows) beta version of WASTE called Waste 1.5 beta 4 aka wxWaste, using the WxWidgets toolkit is available.^[15]

VIA Technologies released a fork of WASTE under the name PadlockSL, but removed the product's website after a few weeks. The user interface was written in Qt and the client was available for Linux and Windows.^[16]

See also

• Darknet
• Friend-to-friend (F2F)
• File sharing
• Peer-to-peer (P2P)
• Gnutella
• Nullsoft
• Justin Frankel

References

External links

• Official WASTE site
• WASTE on SourceForge

Misc

• Public Key share (nullnet)
• Alternate Public Key share (nullnet)
• WASTE Yahoo Group
• Original WASTE site (now defunct)
• Original WASTE site mirror
• The World's Most Dangerous Geek (Rolling Stone interview with Justin Frankel)
• The Invisible Inner Circle
• Anonymous Communication With Waste
• The Zer0share Project - A WASTE Open Mesh Initiative
• 'Secure File Transfer With WASTE - Introductory video' by Russell Sayers