[freenet-chat] Freenet 0,5 or 0,7

[Matthew Toseland]

On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 11:15:54PM +0200, - wrote:
> Thanks for your response, you've convinced me on most points. I still have
> two questions:
>  
> So what you're saying is that if a single direct peer becomes a traitor, it
> would not necessarily lead to instant knowledge of what your are downloading
>  only if most of your direct peers become traitors and work together. So I
> imagine, this would mean that the more direct peers an individual has, the
> safer he is. 

Unfortunately this is not really the case at the moment. A clever
traitor can gather a great deal of information via correlation attacks
amongst other things. We will improve on this in 0.8. Note that these
attacks were generally also feasible on 0.5, but they are easier in 0.7
because it is more predictable.
>  
> But, most freenet users would probably not have more than 1 or 2 or 3 in
> real life.

Maybe. You need at least 3 to be much use to the network.

> First question: So once real life possibilities are exhausted, where can one
> find enough direct peers to be safe?

The border between "real life" and online is artificial. I have a number
of online acquaintances (including my real life boss, who I've met
once!) who I'd be happy to connect to.
>  
> What's going to happen is there's going to be a well integrated main darknet
> and a lot of these smaller darknets that aren't able to integrate because
> none of the members knows anyone in the main darknet. So they'll cease to
> exist. I might as well have 15 direct peers I trust, if none of us knows
> someone in the big darknet, there's nothing we can do.

No, each of the small darknets continues to expand, as does the big
darknet. Sooner or later (and probably sooner) they connect up. Or, in
the short term, they are linked by a chain of weak links from opennet or
pseudo-opennet.
>  
> Therefore only people already integrated into the main darknet will be able
> to invite new members, meaning the majority of new users will not be able to
> join the darknet, and be left out in the open(net).
> Second question: Is there a solution to this, or will most people in fact
> not be able to benefit from darknet?

New users who know nobody on the darknet will obviously have to use the
opennet, but they will be encouraged to get darknet connections as soon
as possible.
>  
> One possible idea:
> If someone has enough direct peers, then it would be safe for him to take on
> a few unknown newbies and make them 
> into direct peers, and this could be a way to allow unknown members (or
> unintegrated darknets) to join.

It's always a risk.
-- 
Matthew J Toseland - toad at amphibian.dyndns.org
Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/
ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.
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