Ian Clarke <ian at freenetproject.org> writes:

> For a while now, we have been working on the distribution servlet, which 
> is basically designed to allow people to give copies of Freenet, together 
> with seednodes, to their friends - effectively augmenting the current 
> centralized pull model of software distribution with a decentralized push 
> model.
> 
Fair enough.  I'm pretty happy that someone will come up with
something that works if/when it's necessary.  But I really doubt it'll
be necessary.

> There is at least one question that hasn't been answered yet : when you
> push a copy of Freenet to your neighbor - should it be the latest jar
> (perhaps distributed over Freenet using a DBR), or should it be the jar
> that you are using?
> 
There's no way to enforce that it's the jar you're using, so we might
as well send the latest jar.

> The advantage of distributing the latest jar is obvious, but the 
> disadvantage is that it creates a danger that whoever has the private key 
> with which these jars are inserted - could be compromized, allowing 
> future Freenet jars to be corrupted.
> 
This is starting to sound like a trusted 3rd party.  It's not a bad
idea, but people should definitely be able to disable auto-updating.

> IF we do the latter (or even just offer the latter as an option), we need 
> a way to defend against a situation where the jar is compromized.  One 
> way would be to give a number of people "veto" rights over a jar. So lets 
> say I or Oskar noticed that the current jar was corrupt in some way - we 
> could veto it by inserting a message into our private veto-subspaces.  
> This message could possibly contain a new subspace which nodes should use 
> instead.  If multiple veto subspaces are disagreeing with each-other, 
> then the subspace given by the majority of those veto subspaces should be 
> used.
> 
The idea of veto subspaces corresponds closely to certificate
revokation; something that very few clients check.  Of course there's
a performance penalty to checking all veto subspaces, which should be
considered.  

> Thoughts?
> 
> Ian.

My main thought about veto subspaces is that if there's multiple
contradicting vetos, the user should be presented with all the
information and allowed to make a choice however they want; a simple
majority algorithm seems like a bad idea.

Thelema
-- 
E-mail: thelema314 at swbell.net                         Raabu and Piisu
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