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

[Lars Juel Nielsen]

On 8/30/06, Matthew Toseland <toad at amphibian.dyndns.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 06:43:07PM +0200, - wrote:
> >
> > You stated that you believe computer based attacks on Freenet are much
> > easier than social engineering, and therefore support the fact that freenet
> > should be an invite only network.
> >
> > But, I don't think this model's going to work, for several reasons:
> >
> > First, the guiding principle behind freenet right now is anonymity in the
> > numbers of a large number of users doing all sorts of different things. They
> > may easily know you're using freenet, but it's extremely difficult to prove
> > WHAT you downloaded. In other word it's very difficult to get specific
> > evidence against a specific freenet user.
>
> It's not *that* difficult. There are correlation attacks, and there is
> the whole caching issue - either your peers can tell what you've
> requested for sure (don't cache locally), or your peers *and* anyone who
> seizes your store can tell (cache locally).

How about a theird option? For each chunk of data randomly select one
of the two other options.

Or would this screw things up?

> >
> > True, if freenet becomes illegal, the opennet may not work, but what's the
> > worse that's going to happen? They put up a national firewall making freenet
> > unusable, or freenet users will just get a message from their ISP saying
> > they better stop or they'll be kicked off. This may not happen until 3-5
> > years from now, even though it may be illegal on paper in France already.
>
> And if we aren't ready to switch to a pure darknet, what then?
> >
> > The darknet concept does not provide this sort of anonymity, you are exposed
> > to the people you "trust",
>
> Not significantly more than your exposure to people you _don't_ trust on
> opennet. It's pretty much the same thing, except on darknet you choose
> who to trust; on opennet you have no choice.
>
> > I haven't heard a single response to the
> > question: what happens if someone in your darknet gets busted or a spy
> > manages to infiltrate by joining? They instantly have reasonable grounds to
> > assume that you are engaged in the same activity, since you're part of the
> > same ring. This should be enough to bust you as well.
>
> Or they could just check who you've been emailing/SMSing/calling lately.
> Which is why they have data retention, wiretapping etc powers.
>
> > They also now have the ability to specifically monitor WHAT you downloaded.
>
> How so?
>
> > Plus your "trusted" friend could easily rat on you. And that's that.
>
> Sure, treachery is a big problem. Opennet is a bigger problem; treachery
> is more expensive than harvesting, it's more expensive even than
> harvesting+ubernodes+sybil etc attacks on an opennet.
> >
> > How can you underestimate the importance of this?
> >
> > In contrast in opennet if a user gets busted, yes they may get a seedfile of
> > hundreds of different users in many different countries all engaged in
> > different activities. That's nice, they know all these people are using
> > freenet, but it will not give them specific evidence against anyone, unless
> > they do some extremely complex traffic analysis, spanning multiple countries
> > and ISPs.
>
> The authorities don't need to bust anybody. All they need to do is
> download the node, harvest, and they can quickly get a picture of all
> nodes worldwide - including those within their jurisdiction.
> >
> > And your comment about social engineering being more difficult, that doesn't
> > really apply to today's situation, since right now all it takes is going on
> > IRC to join. When is freenet planning to go underground then?
>
> #freenet-refs is for bootstrapping and testing. It's a sort of
> pseudo-opennet. True darknet underground connections happen through
> other means.
> >
> > I guess the entire 0,7 testing group will have to break into groups of
> > darknets of 2-3-4 people that trust each other in real life.
>
> Why must darknets be so small? I see no reason at all to expect them to
> be that small. I see every reason to expect true darknets to grow and
> amalgamate.
>
> > If it goes
> > underground with a few hundred hard core enthusiasts, where's the fresh
> > content going to come from?
>
> Relies on the bogus assumption above.
> >
> > And half will be left outside without a darknet. I personally will have to
> > form a one person darknet then.
> >
> > Van
> --
> 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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