Routing in the Dark
p2pnet.net News:- Freenet founder Ian Clarke and long-time contributor Oskar Sandberg of the department of mathematical sciences, Chalmers Technical University, Sweden, were at Defcon 13. There, they delivered a talk headed up Routing in the Dark: Scalable Searches in Dark P2P Networks.
Routing in the Dark, eh? Guaranteed to inspire mainstream media interest ; )
On August 1, the New York Times ran an article intro’d, “Briefly buoyed by their Supreme Court victory on file sharing, Hollywood and the recording industry are on the verge of confronting more technically sophisticated opponents.
“At a computer security conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, an Irish software designer described a new version of a peer-to-peer file-sharing system that he says will make it easier to share digital information anonymously and make detection by corporations and governments far more difficult.”
At the time, p2pnet’s Jon Newton had a brief exchange with Clarke:
Newton: “I’m just reading the NYT item which has you saying you’re ‘taking a fresh approach’ and that your goal is now to ‘protect political opponents of repressive regimes’. Wasn’t that always one of your intents?
Clarke: Yes, the NYT article is misleading in that respect. We are ‘taking a fresh approach’, but the fresh approach is not the focus on free speech, that has always been there.
The article also failed to mention Oskar Sandberg, who collaborated with me on the talk.
Newton: It also says, ” ‘The classic use for Freenet would be for a group of political dissidents in China, or even in the United States … But he acknowledged that the software would also surely be used to circumvent copyright restrictions, adding, ‘It’s an inevitable consequence of our design’.”
Neither quote seems to say anything particularly new. However, it’s been a while so what’s happening these days? The last I recall, you were on your way to Finland.
Clarke: The new thing here, which isn’t all that clear from the NYT article, is that we have developed a way to create a globally scalable ‘invite only’ network. Think of Freenet meets Orkut. The idea is that not only will people not be able to know what you are doing with Freenet, but they won’t even have any way to find out that you are running Freenet at all. This is important if running Freenet itself becomes illegal.”
Enter Darth Vader
Under Darth Vader of the Net recruits programmers, South Africa’s Independent Online says, “Internet privacy activists at Freenet Project posted word on their website that they were looking for savvy programmers to test a refined version ‘darknet’ software designed to keep file swappers anonymous.”
That’s not quite what Freenet is about. But never mind.
“Freenet’s call for stealth software test pilots came slightly more than a month after the United States Supreme Court struck a blow for the entertainment industry by equating Internet sharing of music with ‘garden variety theft’,” the story declares
They’ve been trying to equate file sharing with theft that for a while, but the idea has taken hold only with those who treat entertainment and software cartel utterances as thought they come from credible sources.
And here’s what inspired the test pilots line:
“Coders will also be very welcome; there will be a steepish learning curve but we will be delighted to help you to contribute,” says a Freenet post, which also states:.
“We can now announce that we have a pre-alpha of 0.7 in early semi-public testing. This implements the new routing algorithm, but is neither user-friendly nor secure at this point. If you are keen to help test it (we don’t yet need massive numbers of testers; we will put out a public alpha when it is more feature complete and more tested), please contact Toad at toad at amphibian dot dyndns dot org or join #freenet on irc.freenode.net. All users should for now remain in personal contact with Toad (Matthew Toseland), the person doing most of the coding, so he can keep you up to date with new versions etc.”
With luck, we’ll bring you the full Defcon 13 presentation in the near future. But for now, the abstract reads:
“With peer to peer networks under fire by organizations using the legal system to attack participants, it seems that the only sustainable future is for dark, encrypted, networks where participants only talk to peers that they know and trust. Such networks, like WASTE, already exist to some extent, but they scale poorly and do not allow global communication.
“This does not need to be the case, however. The ‘small world’ observations, going back to Milgram’s famous experiments in the sixties, show that social networks have all the right characteristics for being easy and efficient to navigate and search. It stands to reason that, under the right circumstances, so should a Darknet. We present algorithms for making routing possible in such networks, based on the real mathematics of how small worlds function. The goal is to build peer to peer networks that are difficult for outsiders to detect and infiltrate, making the job of those who wish to shut them down much harder.”
Sandberg (we believe : ) has also posted a comment with a link to the Routing in the Dark Defcon slides.
Stay tuned.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
New York Times – New File-Sharing Techniques Are Likely to Test Court Decision, August 1, 2005
Freenet – New darknet routing algorithm, presentation, progress towards 0.7, August 2, 2007
Independent Online – Darth Vader of the Net recruits programmers, August 3, 2005
August 3rd, 2005 at 4:00 pm
I have tried FreeNet, and it seems like it does offer a great degree of anonyminity and freedom. I applaud Ian’s efforts. However, as long as the cartels and governments retain control over the transmission medium there will be vulnerablilties in tracing network communications.
Remove the cartels and government from the medium (copper lines, fiber optics, atc) and building an independent infrastructure will make it extremely difficult for the governments and cartels to track dissidents.
Add the likes of FreeNet on top of FreeWan, then you will have a might force that will be extremely difficult to defeat.
The RIAA, MPAA, and the government will have an extremely hard time tracing something to which they cannot connect. The FreeWan Cell in my area has NO STATIC connection to the Internet. And yes, this network can be used to save money on movie rentals without the **AA’s ever knowing if that is one’s desire.
August 3rd, 2005 at 5:01 pm
The previous comment was illuminating in that there will be weaknesses in the new implimentation as long as “they” have power over the “physical medium”.
Which is why it is so critical to be able to ‘intercept’ the cartels (which is illegal by definition) by the “games” they play. It is important to be able to recognize the games they play.
The cartels (BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc, etc, etc) are but “ONE” organization. Their ‘networks’ extend and reach into every nook and craney of our civilization, and have been doing so for centuries at least. These cartels have an extended history of overthrow and corruption — having infiltrated the highest levels of society and government.
These seamingly ’separate’ groups are actually a single entity through centuries of inter-breeding. Their tactics have been extensively and thoroughly documented. Being able to identity them and their acts in the key to preserving your rights.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>. A particular weapon of choice these Cartels employ is with mind games. The LAW, based on human language, is naturally subjected to “interpretation” and manipulation. You see, the law is in reality POWERLESS if it were not FOR ‘police’ enforcement supporting it. This is true of all nations. Enforcement is through COERCION (by physical, economic, psychological, and whatnot) and BRIBES (kickbacks, “mutual assistance”).
Hand in hand with the above methodology, the ‘cartels’ have also employed a “classic” technique often seen in “magical acts.” For those of your who know a magic trick or two — the key element is “Deception by Diverting the Audiences’ Attention Somewhere Else” why you do your ‘trick.’
And this is exactly what we HAD witnissed and ARE witnessing.
And this is the “Moral Abuse” on the people. The Western world, the entire world for that matter, holds in high regards for “doing the right thing” and shunning “acts of evil.”
As a result, by repeatedly POUNDING over and over and over, into peoples’ heads that file sharing, and ‘public showings’ of music/video, and P2P, etc — is STEALING — what the CARTEL has effectively archieved, is the weakening of the person’s moral fibre and their ability to defend themselves. So what we have is “guilty WITHOUT the need to be PROVEN guilty.” Henceforth, currently over 12,000 “lawsuits” and EXPONENTIALLY escalating WORLD-WIDE to rediculous numbers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> What the MPAA / RIAA “forget” to mention to address is the issue of whether or NOT they have the “right” (in its truest and purest form) to lay CLAIM to the “works of art” in question (whether music, literature, movies, or “ideas”).
Because when you look at history and precendent, you will see that EVERY SINGLE ‘work of art’ has precedent and DEPENDED on PRIOR ‘work of arts’. Not a single musician, produce, artist, intellectual, or any person for that matter, can claim they “created” it ALL ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT having learned and prospered from OTHER people’s prior works. Not a single person, not a single ground of people, nevertheless a superficial cartel can possible lay TOTAL CLAIM of a “work of art” as ONLY theirs alone — to do whatever they wish & to do persecute people with.
Even the instruments and tools used to ‘create these works of art’ are the DIRECT influence from DIVERSE AREAS of the world — with each nationality, each tribe, each person contributing, whether a lot or a little. Take for example the GUITAR and VIOLIN, which are the “classical” and “traditional” musical instruments in EUROPE — But, did you know that the Europeans BROUGHT THIS OVER FROM THE MIDDLE EAST during their centuries of religious conquest. Heck, many many words in English are Arabic in origin. The same is true with Science and Technology, with the West originally benefiting from the knowledge and experence of the East — only to later surpase the East, in which we are now witnessing a second major reversal of technological prowness…
So, is it suffice to say that people and organizations have the “right” to “copyright” COMMON words and phrases (which we are witnessing now)?!
If that is the case, then every ‘English’ (or if your American, ‘American’) utterance you make — you owe the Queen of England a royalty?! Then you might as well pay a royalty to the Queen of Sheeba and her royal descendents in Arabia!
>>>>>>>>> In essence what I have just described is the “skillful” art of HIJACKING — That is, the VIOLENT act of STEALING. Claiming something you have NO RIGHT to claim as totally yours and yours only.
And this is what we are witnessing with Intellectual Property, or IP (TM) for short.
August 3rd, 2005 at 6:49 pm
For the interested, I have put the slides up for those who are interested:
http://www.math.chalmers.se/~ossa/defcon13/