[p2p-hackers] In search of the Darknet....

[Duncan B. Cragg]

Michael:

Is 'Freenet 2' as I have been referring to it, 'Freenet 0.7' officially?
Sorry to Freenet if I missed that...

>> But, and this is where I may have misread the slides or there may
>> be more to it than I got from the slides: this /isn't/ about a Darknet
> 
> I think "darknet" can refer to the visibility of the network as well as 
> the visibility of content. Freenet 0.7 is a darknet in the sense that 
> only your friends know you're part of the network. Users can see all the 
> content in the network, but they can't see all the participants.
> 
>> limiting connections to trusted friends
>> in itself creates a small WASTE-like network - otherwise, how do you
>> prevent leakage, without adding the enforcement of ACLs (which was
>> not mentioned in the slides)?
>
> Sorry, what do you mean by leakage? Freenet's aim is to prevent
> publishers and readers from discovering one another's identities,
> not to restrict the propagation of files.
>

So - 'Darknet' (this reminds me of those endless arguments that boil
down to defining 'Object', by which time you've forgotten what you
were arguing about!).

Darknet privacy is:

  1. only your friends know you're in, content 100% public

..or..

  2. content restricted by some form of access control.

I was going for number 2., Freenet for number 1. It's all becoming
clearer, now!

Both are enabled by WASTE through limited physical topology, although
'content 100% public' is limited to the 'public' in the WASTE network.

 >> In other words, the goals of the Darknet (privacy for small groups)
 >> are opposite to those of both of Freenet and seemingly also
 >> 'Freenet 2'(anonymity, public publishing and querying).
 >
 > I don't agree that anonymity is the opposite of privacy. If only your
 > friends know you're part of the network, and even your friends don't
 > know which files you read and publish, then how does that undermine
 > the goal of privacy for small groups?
 >
I'm using 'privacy for small groups' to mean the ability to
publish freely within that group (with or without that group knowing
it was you), but (this is the difference) /not at all outside/ the
group.

Now, if something /were/ published in the name of the group,
the anonymity is proportional to the size of the group when its
members are known: perhaps an academic concept rather than a
practical one (OK, it was me that started it, with my 'private to
public continuum'!).

The purpose of my version of privacy is to allow social interaction
to oil the wheels of exchange:

-: we do know each other and know our common interests.
-: we can talk privately about them and exchange materials within our
    group without anyone else knowing anything at all about these
    activities.
-: we form part of many groups in the 'global darknet'
-: we can choose the diameter of our groups down to a file-by-file or
    chat-by-chat basis.
-: we can publish to a group, or to everyone (the biggest group), with
    or without identifying ourselves.
-: stuff can propagate out by jumping from group to group (as postulated
    in the MS Darknet paper).


Getting down to practical concerns, I'm looking for a starting
point for my application: I need an open protocol (or open research
on techniques) that support my number 2. above: privacy of content, not
of participation!

Glad we've got that cleared up (hopefully!)


Duncan


PS If you're the UCL Michael Rogers, thanks for the P2P links:

      http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/mrogers/bibliography.html

    And say hi to UCL for me: I did EE/CS there, 83-86!