Centralization: How do clients initially know who to talk to?

[djproject]

I love the decentralization idea of Bitcoin.  My only question on that is:  when the computer first turns on and the client is loaded up and gets on the internet, how does it know who to connect to to join the network?  There must be some sort of central server (I've seen mention of IRC) it logs into.  Isn't there a risk Uncle Sam could take that down?

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[SomeoneWeird]

I love the decentralization idea of Bitcoin.  My only question on that is:  when the computer first turns on and the client is loaded up and gets on the internet, how does it know who to connect to to join the network?  There must be some sort of central server (I've seen mention of IRC) it logs into.  Isn't there a risk Uncle Sam could take that down?

Yeah, there are several hardcoded 'nodes',
if someone manages to take them down
eventually, then the client will just be updated
with new one.

[kuro]

Here are some nodes:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Fallback_Nodes

[eturnerx]

Some hard wired nodes - and apparently a fallback implemented / planned to lookup an IRC channel?

[SomeoneWeird]

Some hard wired nodes - and apparently a fallback implemented / planned to lookup an IRC channel?

The hardcoded nodes are IRC server (pretty sure).

[Alik]

Interesting.

[nhodges]

Here are some nodes:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Fallback_Nodes

Neat, had been told about the fallback nodes but hadn't read through the Wiki yet.

[Cdecker]

This is the classical bootstrapping problem of P2P Networks. We are considering to use BitTorrent trackers as an alternative way to bootstrap.

[Stardust]

There is also peer exchange if I remember correctly.  You can also add manually nodes, and tor and i2p nodes.