On 14 Oct 2005, at 17:23, jrandom at i2p.net wrote:
>   You've also shown that you don't follow the DHT
> field either, as we discussed some pretty substantial theoretical
> research last time, none of which you were familiar with.  What
> efforts in the anonymity field do you follow?

I follow the ones that interest me, sorry to burst your bubble but  
I2P isn't really one of them.  I think Tor is much more likely to be  
the dominant application in your part of the design space.

As to my general understanding of the field, I get invited to most of  
the relevant conferences, and am often invited to sit on their  
program committees, which involves quiet a bit of paper reviewing,  
and that keeps me quite up to date - not that I really know why I  
should need to justify myself to you.

>> You are right, we didn't invent I2P here, because I2P doesn't meet
>> our requirements, nor does anything that relies on a DHT for its
>> operation.
>
> I thought relying upon a DHT was something redundant, in your eyes,
> as "Freenet is like a DHT", not something that failed to meet your
> requirements.

Then you misunderstood, or I misspoke.  Either way, I2P requires a  
DHT, and DHTs don't meet our requirements, because they invariably  
rely on choosing which peers are connected, and that precludes  
trusted links.

> Or are your requirements novelty?

When nothing currently available does what you need it to, then  
novelty is indeed a requirement.

>>> I don't care about technology, I care about results.  What will
>>> help real live people.
>>
>> Just not if they live in China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or maybe even
>> the UK several years from now...
>
> Of course I care about them, but I'm only one person.  I've written
> 95% of the I2P SDK and router, and probably a third of the LOC in
> the client apps, and I'm overwhelmed just doing what I do.  I can't
> do everything for everybody all at once.

I can respect the fact that I2P has different design goals to  
Freenet, why can't you?

> If Freenet were to run on top of I2P, the reuse made possible would
> free up substantial resources (aka hours) across both teams,
> allowing further improvement of the capacity to help those in
> hostile regimes.

As I have explained ad-tedium, we have concluded that a system that  
relies on a DHT can never reliably survive under a hostile regime as  
it is not possible to prevent it from being harvestable.

>> you have provided no evidence that your approach is better suited
>> to meeting the requirements we share.
>
> What better evidence can I offer beyond working code?

We have working code too, and an active user base, and have for quite  
some time.  I'm not sure exactly what makes you think that  
constitutes "evidence" of anything.

> You haven't even bothered to see what you're talking about.  This
> is why I dismiss any notions that you've "seriously considered"
> I2P, as you've never actually looked into it.  Have you actually
> run any of the I2P releases put out in the last 2 years?

I did try it a while ago, can't remember when.  I2P doesn't really  
interest me as an architecture for the reasons outlined above and in  
previous emails, so I don't apologise for not being a member of your  
fan club, nor do I expect you to be a member of ours.

> This, in turn, suggests to me that neither have you "seriously
> considered" running over Tor.  Last I heard, the complaints being
> stated about Tor were that "its centralized", without any regard
> to the work that the Tor folks are making on decentralization.

You should be wary of forming opinions based on the last thing you  
happened to hear.  The problem with Tor was its decentralisation, but  
the more fundamental problem with Tor that is the same problem that  
I2P has, namely that both are trivial to harvest.

> "Serious consideration" means doing some work.  We've discussed in
> this thread how I2P can offer the same level of operation that
> Freenet/dark can, unless you're either disconnected from the
> Internet or any notion of a free press is gone (as without the
> ability to communicate anonymously, there is no free press).

No, we have discussed how I2P is trivially harvestable for all but a  
very small subset of I2P nodes, making it useless for our needs.  Are  
you participating in the same conversation I am?  Your position is  
rather hard to pin down - first you were arguing that Freenet 0.7 is  
not sufficiently resilient, now you are arguing that it is too  
resilient?

> The Freenet/0.7 algorithm is neat, but it also isn't too different
> from the old CPA (only now there's a theoretical basis for it,
> instead of a purely heuristic basis).

We have kept what was good about the old algorithm, and are replacing  
what is bad.  Why are you so insistent that we do things your way  
when your way doesn't even meet our needs?  That is pretty arrogant.

>   Not to diminish Oskar's and
> your work on that research, from a practical point of view, it
> doesn't change Freenet/light too much (and Freenet/dark is just
> a different way of distributing references).

I am still waiting for a single credible critique of the 0.7 design,  
or a single credible advantage that I2P, as a messaging layer, has  
over what we have built for 0.7.

I actually recommend that you study our messaging layer for 0.7, you  
might find it useful in I2P (or does I2P only export code?).

Ian.


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