On Friday 16 November 2007 16:03, Robert Hailey wrote: > > 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"
It is simply not possible to make a secure noderef that short. We are talking about 40-60+ characters. Unless we don't mind people being able to port scan for nodes etc. Now, this isn't necessarily a problem for IM, at least in the short term (the short term matters!) But long term it will be a big problem unless the IM networks are encrypted with a meaningful PKI, which seems unlikely. I still say the most realistic thing here is to give somebody a USB key with both the node and a 1-time invite on it. > > 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. So you generate a few passwords in advance, and write them down. Put your IP:port on your business card, and write the password in a space below it. What's the big deal? > Therefore, the bulk of the convenience of using > a user-generated password (which is to say, generating a 'ref' without > the computer) That's not what it's about. It's about generating an invite that only needs to be exchanged one way (in the best case), and which can easily be exchanged out of band. > 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). We can worry about that later, IPv6 will come out at the same time as Freenet 1.0 i.e. January 25 2063. :) Seriously, we could use an email address in lieu of IP:port, but NOT in lieu of hash: the whole point of having the hash is preventing MITMs if the attacker can passively observe the invite (of course if it's exchanged over the internet, if he can see it at all he can probably MITM it, and you're screwed anyway; but if it's out of band, there's a good chance he can see it but not change it). -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/devl/attachments/20071116/43a88d2a/attachment.pgp>
