Any push service works this way. The client contacts the server to be updated. The server gives a no data or a data response. The server cannot magically contact the client.
Well, the server could contact the client. The client would just need to be listening on a port/address that the server knows. Which is completely infeasible for 99.99% of end user devices.
The majority of end user devices are run from within private networks protected from the Internet. If you have connected to your cell provider, then in the majority the cell providers are running their own private networks. For one reason the IPv4 address space is limited as such, that there are no other possibilities. IPv4 is still the important protocol compared to IPv6. Second, it is that those providers, want to protect you. Some don't even allow cross communication.
If you devices are connected with Wifi, then there is the very same situation. There is almost no campus, commercial, and home network, that gives you public route-able IP addresses. I only know a view deployments were you get public route-able IP addresses at conferences like C3, EMF, and alike.
tl/dr: No, the end user devices is not easily to reach without additional infrastructure.
I think this is one of those many cases where how the technology works doesn't match the actual meaning of the English word, but for whatever reason the word has stuck.
For better or worse, a lot of things on the Internet now assume that only "servers" can accept incoming connections, and therefore anything that needs to be "sent" to clients needs to be done by making the client poll a server over and over. True P2P apps (with no intermediary server) are pretty rare now, for a variety of reasons: some good reasons, some stupid reasons.
j_w|8 months ago
PinguTS|8 months ago
The majority of end user devices are run from within private networks protected from the Internet. If you have connected to your cell provider, then in the majority the cell providers are running their own private networks. For one reason the IPv4 address space is limited as such, that there are no other possibilities. IPv4 is still the important protocol compared to IPv6. Second, it is that those providers, want to protect you. Some don't even allow cross communication.
If you devices are connected with Wifi, then there is the very same situation. There is almost no campus, commercial, and home network, that gives you public route-able IP addresses. I only know a view deployments were you get public route-able IP addresses at conferences like C3, EMF, and alike.
tl/dr: No, the end user devices is not easily to reach without additional infrastructure.
juped|8 months ago
ryandrake|8 months ago
For better or worse, a lot of things on the Internet now assume that only "servers" can accept incoming connections, and therefore anything that needs to be "sent" to clients needs to be done by making the client poll a server over and over. True P2P apps (with no intermediary server) are pretty rare now, for a variety of reasons: some good reasons, some stupid reasons.
thesuitonym|8 months ago