On Nov 16, 2007, at 7:55 AM, Matthew Toseland wrote:
> What exactly are we trying to make easier here?
It is much easier to exchange a short URL. In fact, if you can get the
short-ref short enough, or use SRP, it would amount to the same thing,
right? A user IM's to his friend:
'Oh you use freenet? Connect to me: freenet://192.168.1.123:1321/
XcFeHudTHUB"
The only functional difference in usability that I see is that (with
the one-time-password/SRP) the last bit of the URL might be user-
supplied, and thus more pen-and-paper compatible.
Concerning the SRP/password... while I concur with Matthew that this
would be a great thing to have (in the out-of-band/theoretical sense),
I would suspect that 90% of that benefit would go unrealized for the
simple fact that in a 'social' setting when one might (discover
another freenet'er/converse about the greatness of freenet/exchange
node refs) one would not generally have their computer at hand to
generate a reference. Therefore, the bulk of the convenience of using
a user-generated password (which is to say, generating a 'ref' without
the computer) is limited to those who would also have memorized their
ip address and port number (which will become much more complicated
with IPv6).
Indeed, for cause of IPv6 addresses alone, it may be more satiable to
exchange only the 'password' out of band, and have a clickable
'mailto:' link from fred which would fill in the (IP/Port/Hash)-URL in
the subject of an email; although this would be technically more
complicated (SRP & short ref).
--
Robert Hailey
