[p2p-hackers] part 2: proxying and introduction: the two fundamental operations of emergent networks

[Lucas Gonze]

I have been thinking about a seeding method that works by spreading
notifications across a bunch of public -- non-dedicated and unrelated -- forums.

There are a zillion archived and searchable publication nodes.  A node could
ship with knowledge of a Google search string, an Altavista search string, a
list of discussion group search URLs, etc.  Just a big list of URLs and some
prior knowledge of what to do with each.  These don't have to on the web, they
just have to be reachable in some way.  Newsgroups, ftp sites, DNS records,
online classifieds, IRC...   anything that can accept and publish data.

Some nodes would drop their contact data in these locations, others would pick
it up.

This is a flavor of LIPP, the Lossy Inefficient Paranoid Protocol:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/decentralization/message/3287

Gordon Mohr pointed out the relation of LIPP to:
   The Dining Cryptographers Problem: Unconditional Sender and Recipient
Untraceability
   David Chaum
   J. Cryptology (1988)
   http://komarios.net/crypt/diningcr.htm
   (Also http://komarios.net/crypt/dc.htm &
http://komarios.net/crypt/dc-demo.htm)

   Chaffing and Winnowing: Confidentiality without Encryption
   Ronald L. Rivest
   March 18, 1998 (rev. April 24, 1998)
   http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/chaffing.txt

I noticed the other day that dogs communicating via pee is LIPP-like in that it
is lossy and inefficient but not paranoid.

- Lucas