Greetings,
I wish to apply for a position in the Summer of Code initiative, working
for the free network project. Here is my third proposal.
Project Proposal
================
I'm interested in working on transport plugins. [1]
It's not a Summer job : I don't think that a proper transport plugin
architecture can be written during the summer. My proposal is to
dedicate my summer time to this task.
It is FAR more complex that it seems : supporting IP-only transports is
moderatly easy ; non-ip things is more tricky. The main problem I'll
have to face is the load detection algorithm. Indeed, on the current
network, we do use "answering time" to evaluate the load of our peers
and to trigger a backing off when needed. It won't be possible on slow
channels with high latencies.
I haven't submited it as my first proposal as it's not a self-contained
project.
Project Justification
=====================
Why would we want transport plugins ?
First I need to introduce what a transport plugin is : a transport
plugin would be an abstraction layer to access a shared media for
link-level communication in between two nodes.
Currently, nodes are communicating using random UDP port numbers.
An external attacker can't easily detect such a traffic as it's cyphered
: there is no known pattern to match such a traffic, but as we are using
almost fixed length packets, we "could" be matched.
People using freenet in China have experienced problems using the old,
stable freenet version. Firewalls are already blocking freenet packets there...
My proposal is about circumventing that : Now on freenet .7, we do use a
"darknet" topology, meaning that links in between nodes are static. We
don't establish "random" links anymore. That allows us to use a special
protocol to establish covert channels with our peers.
Wouldn't it be cool if nodes could communicate using steganographical [3]
transports ? faking beeing a VoIP application, ping packets or a MMRPG client ?
IMHO cloacked transports is the only viable option when you want to fight
against a powerfull opponent.
Please don't hesitate to contact me if you want more information about
me or my proposal.
Regards,
Florent Daigni?re
[1]
http://archives.freenetproject.org/message/20060503.172255.25effd70.en.html
[2]
http://archives.freenetproject.org/message/20051106.093325.0e12e761.en.html
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography
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