[p2p-hackers] [i2p] I2P Consumer Caveat (fwd from david@rebirthing.co.nz)

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from David McNab <david at rebirthing.co.nz> -----

From: David McNab <david at rebirthing.co.nz>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 15:28:35 +1200
To: i2p at i2p.net
Subject: [i2p] I2P Consumer Caveat
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041206)

Hi,

Following from discussions with smeghead et al on irc, I've realised 
there's a critical need for a 'System Requirements' section on the 
website, linked from the 'Documentation' heading in the left column of 
the main page.

In particular, I refer to I2P's relatively voracious traffic requirements.

IMHO, users need to be very clearly informed that I2P in its present 
state of development appears to be incapable of functioning effectively 
long-term with the consumer internet connection packages available in 
many countries. As such, it sits alongside Freenet in the 
ultra-heavy-duty end of the p2p programs' traffic usage spectrum.

I humbly tender some serious counsel about making incorrect assumptions 
about consumer bandwidth availability in different parts of the world.

In high-density populated regions like USA, Europe and parts of Asia, 
bandwidth is high and cheap, and traffic is abundant. Many ISPs are 
unfazed by people using 30, 50 or more GB/month.

But in countries like Au, NZ etc, with (1) geographical isolation,
(2) low population density and (3) monopolistic backbone owners, 
bandwidth and traffic are much scarcer.

Here in NZ, typical traffic caps range from 3GB/mo to 15GB/mo. Users who 
exceed these are either throttled or hit with surprise bills ranging 
from several hundreds to several thousands of dollars.

So what I propose is a 'System Requirements' link under the 
'Documentation' link, and for the System Requirements page to contain 
wording such as:

"Please note that in order for I2P to work effectively on your computer, 
you will need a broadband connection with available bandwidth of at 
least 128kbits/sec inbound and outbound.

"Also please note - an I2P router can generate considerable volumes of 
traffic, upwards of 30 gigabytes/month or more.

"If your internet service provider account does not comfortably allow 
for your traffic to increase by 30GB/month, then the wisdom of 
installing I2P on your system at this time might be questionable.

"If this is your situation, running an I2P router may lead to unexpected 
exorbitant excess usage charges, or may lead to your bandwidth being 
throttled to a level at which your I2P router fails to function effectively.

(end of 'System Requirements' text)
---

Next - a case study:

After leaving my router throttles set to 3kB/s in/out, I got up this 
morning to find my router had a grand total of 1 active peers :(

Obviously 3kB/s in/out (== 15GB/mo) is not enough.

smeghead suggested that 30GB/month traffic generated by an I2P router is 
about the norm.

My current router throttle is now set to 8kB/s in/out over 60secs, my 
router's been up for over an hour with now 50 peers, but nobody (except 
one) can reach my eepSite.

---

Lastly - a strong motivation for me writing Q is to provide a way for 
bandwidth/traffic-users such as myself to host websites (qSites, like 
freenet freesites) without needing a 24/7 router.

I'm just now building the Q web interface, which listens exclusively 
within I2P (ie, no TCP connections from browsers).

Q URLs will look a lot like:

 - http://q.i2p/3hfye48ghw3hh39F~74HHew/aum/downloads.html

In mandating through-eeproxy access for Q's web interface, anonymity 
worries like 'gif bugs' are largely solved, since non-I2P HTTP hits will 
either die in the butt or go sans-IP through one of the outproxies, 
thanks to eeproxy's strict blocking when it's not configured in the 
browser as a proxy.

(reason for the 'http://q.i2p/...' instead of 'http://q/...' is that 
eepproxy presently refuses to hit hosts.txt unless the 'domain' ends 
with '.i2p' - any chance of repealing this, or making an exception on 
the part of Q?)

-- 
Cheers
aum

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----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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