On Wednesday 16 January 2008 11:26, Jusa Saari wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:57:47 +0000, Matthew Toseland wrote:
>
> > FCP API for Node to Node
> > Messages so Thaw etc can talk with Thaw on nearby darknet nodes.
>
> IMHO this is a bad idea. The only use I can imagine for this would be to
> create a "Thaw-net" to route around Freenet proper. If this Thaw-net turns
> out to have less security than Freenet, as it propably will, Freenet will
> get blamed for it.
Wouldn't work if it's only darknet nodes - there isn't a well connected
darknet. The primary use for this is friend-to-friend apps: non-anonymous
chat, file sharing, bookmark sharing, etc etc, with your peers, while reusing
the existing encrypted darknet connection. E.g. in Thaw we could have support
for publishing our favourite indexes to our Friends.
OTOH we might want to also include opennet nodes for exactly the reason you
give. Think Ripple (f2f currency) over Freenet, for example. Or prototyping
new routing algorithms at the client level. IMHO the benefits outweigh the
costs.
>
> There is also the issue that currently, a paranoid person could run Thaw
> in a computer with a non-public IP, and use a firewall to let it to
> connect only to the FCP port of a Freenet node in another computer, and
> nowhere else. A program so isolated would have no way of reporting what
> you're up- or donwloading to anyone, since it had no way of identifying
> you.
I'm not convinced how useful this is. Clearly a compromised client app could
access the local disk (or VM), report on what it could access, and report on
the user's downloading and uploading habits by inserting the data to a
private KSK queue. It can also profile the data in the local datastore and
work out what sites you browse, what Frost identities you use, etc etc. This
would be useful information as it is in many cases, and it doesn't require
the attacker to be connected to the target - he can distribute a bogus
executable and gets thousands of people using it, and investigate each one's
browsing, chatting, downloading and uploading habits until he finds the right
one.
> Add these FCP messages, however, and it becomes possible to
> circumvent this ("Fellow Thaw node, my operator is downloading
> counter-revolutionary political material. Please inform the proper
> authorities of the dark deeds of this enemy of the proletariat.").
>
> The only legitimate reason for node-to-node messages is so that the node
> operators can talk; there is no reason whatsoever why Thaw should be able
> to talk to anyone besides the operator of the node, at least non that
> wouldn't be either stupid or outright nefarious.
Humans ALWAYS talk through intermediaries when we are talking about computer
networks. Growing the darknet is the number one long term priority, and that
means we need some value add for adding your friends as Friends. Of course
you can turn it off if you want, but if you have compromised client apps you
have much bigger problems.
-------------- 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/20080116/97a357e6/attachment.pgp>
