Phase I of this project is to establish an understanding of the current state of the protocols. e.g. what's outdated and what's up-to-date and figure out the best collection of docs / guides / code to understand the protocols.

https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/wiki/Peer-to-Peer

https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/%C3%90%CE%9EVp2p-Wire-Protocol
https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Whisper
https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/libp2p-Whitepaper (seems outdated)

https://godoc.org/github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/p2p

https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/wiki/Connecting-to-the-network

v5 discovery protocol https://blog.ethereum.org/2016/11/17/whoa-geth-1-5/

https://github.com/fjl/go-ethereum/tree/rlpx-framing/p2p/rlpx https://github.com/ethereum/devp2p/blob/master/rlpx.md

https://github.com/ethereum/devp2p/blob/master/rlpx.md#node-discovery

• p2p go package in go-eth
• https://github.com/nolash/go-ethereum-p2p-demo
• The 'eth' p2p protocol: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/master/eth/protocol.go
• les - light eth sub-protocol: https://github.com/zsfelfoldi/go-ethereum/blob/light/les/protocol.go

https://github.com/ethereum/pydevp2p

• https://gitter.im/ethereum/devp2p - there's some interesting discussion of protocol scopre, goals and design in this channel going back to 2015
• https://gitter.im/ethereum/whisper
• https://gitter.im/ethereum/swarm

It's a bit like the relationship between TLS and HTTP: RLPx is the encrypted transport protocol, devp2p defines how we use it. devp2p is this: https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/%C3%90%CE%9EVp2p-Wire-Protocol rlpx is how devp2p messages are encrypted and transported

In which ways similar to the p2p protocol of BitTorrent and other file sharing programs, and in which ways different? Check the devp2p gitter channel history for a discussion about this. This is a fundemental question - seems like quite different goals as the eth computer is a signleton and a view from up to 10 nodes should give any node a good picture of the current state and consensus.

ethereum/EIPs#49
https://github.com/ethereum/EIPs/blob/master/EIPS/eip-8.md