Matthew Toseland <toad at amphibian.dyndns.org> wrote: On Tue, Aug 08, 2006 at 06:29:28PM -0000, anonymous freenet user wrote: > > When will 'Open-net' be deployed? > > I would like very much to migrate to 0.7, but I cannot condone doing so > until 'open-net' is active and making a wider anonymity set operational.
Opennet might increase the total number of nodes on the network by making it easier to join it. In that sense it would increase your anonymity set. However, it does not improve your anonymity in any other way. 100 opennet connections is probably less anonymous in practice than 10 true darknet connections. Because most of those 100 connections may well be to your enemy, whereas treachery is less likely. What treachery? Even if you are on an open-net and connect to a 'bad' node the only time that would be a problem, if Freenet is working properly, is if running Freenet would get you into trouble. You're plausible deniability would be intact - it would be exactly as Freenet 0.5 is now. Of course when you are on a dark-net and connect to a 'bad' node, as is currently possible given the ugly hack that is #freenet-refs, it is far more worse as they both know you are running Freenet and given that there are fewer darknet connections out that leaves you and your other peers more open to analysis. However, most people don't have many true darknet connections, so in that sense it is better than #freenet-refs or ifreed.net. > > As it is, 0.7 is not sufficiently anonymous, 0.7 opennet will not be any more anonymous than 0.7 darknet. People don't seem to understand this, I don't know why, but I will say so again: On opennet you have no control (unless you are evil) over who you connect to. That means you are probably connected to an ubernode run by the bad guys pretending to be about 5000 nodes. On darknet you have to trust your friends; on opennet you have to trust total strangers who may well be colluding because they may be the same person. In version 0.8 we will implement premix routing and some other measures which should improve your anonymity even against untrusted direct connections, but it is quite possible that these will only work on darknet. Open-net is more anonymous, as was said above, because it increases the anonymity set. If Freenet is ever to amount to anything then it will have to be used - that is the goal isn't it, for Freenet to actually be used? If it is to be used then it will need to be easy (easier) to use. If Freenet isn't easy to use and continues to devolve into a GNUnet style 'academic network' with 5 (50 or even 500?) people on it, that is likely not a sufficient pool to continue to fund Freenet though donations (or perhaps it is hoped those left are millionaires?). > If I start a node, get some > refs and start inserting content, it doesn't take a whole lot of rocket > science to figure out that new content is probably coming from the new > node. Unfortunately this is exactly the same on opennet. Except that it's worse, because it's not just the people who you know, (or even the people you found from #freenet-refs) who can attack you. Attack me how? Freenet 0.5 has been up for years without anyone, to my knowledge and do correct me if I am wrong because I'd like to know, being arrested for using it. That speaks pretty highly of Freenet. The only think darknet offers is protection if it is illegal to run Freenet. That is quite useful, but should not be a replacement for an open-net. If Freenet does become illegal to run for a user in their country then they can migrate to darknet, or already be participating in darknet as well and simply withdraw from open-net. > Better by far to have open-net active, this makes it a LOT easier > for lots more people to join the 0.7 network and create a larger crowd to > get lost in. It does make it easier for people to join the network. That's its sole redeeming feature in fact, and why we will implement opennet - but not yet; adding more chaos to the current utter chaos would not help matters. Not only does open-net make it easier to connect to, it will be the clue that holds the different dark-nets together. Or do you expect that darknet dissidents in China will some how be able to magically meet and connect to darknet dissidents in other countries? That would be easier to do given an open-net where different dissident groups could talk to, and perhaps exchange connections, though the open-net. The hope is that people on opennet will gradually get darknet connections as well - for security reasons, and probably for other reasons e.g. web of trust file index sharing etc. I agree totally. Although I don't think a Freenet without an open-net will last in the long run, or even the medium run - without usability there won't be enough people to create enough content (pages, chat) criticle mass. Matthew J Toseland - toad at amphibian.dyndns.org Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/ ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so. _______________________________________________ Tech mailing list Tech at freenetproject.org http://emu.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tech --------------------------------- Get your email and more, right on the new Yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/tech/attachments/20060812/6b8a9976/attachment.html>
