On Thu, Oct 13, 2005 at 11:59:57AM -0400, jrandom at i2p.net wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > > > Looking at it from a practical perspective, something is "scalable" if > > > it can grow and still work for its users, right? > > > > > > By this definition, Freenet/dark does not scale - when it grows, it > > > will not work for its users, since they will no longer be 'dark', as > > > you now seem to agree. > > > > No, I do not agree. It will scale. > > Ok, perhaps I'm confused. Do you disagree with the later part - that > Freenet/dark will no longer be dark if it grows? Or do you disagree with > the conclusion - that not providing the functionality for its users as > it grows means it "doesn't scale"?
It may have to provide slightly different functionality for larger numbers of users in hostile environments, if and as they become increasingly hostile. > > The later part we've discussed in pretty good detail, and you seem to > agree that if Freenet grows to the point of being a threat, it doesn't > offer any means to hide its users. The former seems a pretty reasonable > definition of scalability - whether it will work as the number of users > and activity of those users grows. No, I don't. I believe that it will offer means to hide its users. Initially by being unharvestable, and then by simple steganography over the internet (which can probably be detected by local traffic flow analysis), and then by dropping real time delivery and using safer steganography (which can probably be detected by semiglobal traffic flow analysis), and finally by using non-internet transports. It may well be possible for the state to defeat all of these mechanisms, but it will cost them significant resources and time, and the system will be highly useful in the meantime. And many semi-oppressive states (I would put China in this category) won't bother. They've only just got around to blocking freenet's session bytes this year! The techie civil servants running the firewall might well eventually harvest, but it would take political will to do anything beyond that. > > Now, why am I focusing on this question of scalability? Because, getting > back to where this whole thread started from, that seems to be the only > thing that Freenet/dark is trying to add to the field - the ability to > work scalably in hostile regimes. You've already agreed that both I2P > and Freenet/dark offer essentially the same functionality in hostile > regimes, including resistance to harvesting [1]. The only difference > is that you believe "Freenet/dark will scale better". > > [1] http://dev.i2p.net/pipermail/i2p/2005-October/000975.html No, I haven't. Freenet/dark will allow a large darknet inside china with a relatively number of external links. I2P/RR will allow a small darknet attached to each link. The former is preferable for various reasons, the obvious one being efficiency. The borders are by far the easiest areas to surveil, and generally the most surveilled, and channeling most traffic through them is bad, and is the likely result of I2P/RR's topology. Additionally, freenet/dark can function in the absence of _ANY_ external links. > > If you believe Freenet/light will actually perform better than I2P, > or if there's something fundamentally wrong with how I2P is proceeding, > then such a duplication of effort does make sense, though it might be > reasonable to share the basis of such an insight with us. If > Freenet/light (or Tor, or whatever) can achieve what needs to be done > in the west, I'll be quite happy to throw by weight behind it, as > there are things I'd much rather do instead of coding. I've studied > things quite a bit though, and am not convinced Freenet/light, Tor, > or any of the other PETs will. But thats a disussion for another > thread, as while I'm sure we'll be able to reasonably compare the > systems once you build it. > > > Freenet 0.7/Dark *is* a stego network. Perhaps it's not a very > > good stegonet, but it may just be the basis of something really > > cool. > > The only stego part of Freenet/dark is a sign asking people not to > look behind the curtain. There is, to my knowledge, no effort to > actually obscure the traffic patterns, but I may be wrong, that may > be in the works and I just don't know about it. Or do you consider > the lack of signature on the session bytes (which I2P deployed on the > live net months ago) "stego"? Freenet/dark is a stego *network*. It just doesn't have any real stego *transports* yet. I believe you made the distinction some time ago. Without Freenet/dark's defences against harvesting, stego transports are of little value. With them, stego transports become actually useful. Oh, and to a limited degree, yes. It is much easier to block a protocol which does have session bytes. But this is largely irrelevant. It just means that freenet/open will initially be usable in hostile regimes; it does not mean that it will be later on. > > =jr -- Matthew J Toseland - toad at amphibian.dyndns.org Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/ ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: Digital signature URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/tech/attachments/20051013/64c791e7/attachment.pgp>
