Mark Shepard: > In the current Freenet implementation, is a node's data-store encrypted and > if so, how? Where is the key stored? > > My understanding of Freenet was that data stored at a node was encrypted so > that node operators could neither censor nor be held accountable for the > data. Yet I was just reading > http://freenetproject.org/twiki/Main/Papers/ieee-final.pdf and the paper > seems to say that data encryption _in_the_store_ is something the user does > before inserting data, and is not part of Freenet itself. True? So, with > the current implementation, if I run a Freenet node, I could end up with a > bunch of "illegal" material on my hard drive, since the decision to encrypt > is up to the inserter. Is this the case? Will this always be the case, or > is there a plan to change this behavior? Thanks. > Mark
Encrypting the store was an afterthought; a node operator might, in some exceptional case, desire to quickly destroy the contents of his store, and it's easier to destroy a symmetric key than actual data. This feature does not prevent a node operator from examining, and censoring, the contents of his store - no feature can, unless perhaps we discovered a powerful store-obfuscating spell in some book of witchcraft. Technically, a node might examine the randomness of inserted data in order to guess whether or not it's encrypted; however, that feature isn't currently implemented, and furthermore it's probably possible to construct illegal documents, such as child pornography in image form, which satisfy the randomness test yet are still identifiable as contraband. Anyway, your fear is justified but misguided. The fact that nodes must know what keys they cache and the ease of refusing to cache a subset of keys make node operators responsible for the contents of their datastores. No amount of encryption will change that. _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hawk.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech
