-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

> > Looking at it from a practical perspective, something is "scalable" if
> > it can grow and still work for its users, right?
> >
> > By this definition, Freenet/dark does not scale - when it grows, it
> > will not work for its users, since they will no longer be 'dark', as
> > you now seem to agree.
> 
> No, I do not agree. It will scale.

Ok, perhaps I'm confused.  Do you disagree with the later part - that
Freenet/dark will no longer be dark if it grows?  Or do you disagree with
the conclusion - that not providing the functionality for its users as
it grows means it "doesn't scale"?

The later part we've discussed in pretty good detail, and you seem to
agree that if Freenet grows to the point of being a threat, it doesn't
offer any means to hide its users.  The former seems a pretty reasonable
definition of scalability - whether it will work as the number of users
and activity of those users grows.

Now, why am I focusing on this question of scalability?  Because, getting
back to where this whole thread started from, that seems to be the only
thing that Freenet/dark is trying to add to the field - the ability to
work scalably in hostile regimes.  You've already agreed that both I2P
and Freenet/dark offer essentially the same functionality in hostile
regimes, including resistance to harvesting [1].  The only difference
is that you believe "Freenet/dark will scale better".

[1] http://dev.i2p.net/pipermail/i2p/2005-October/000975.html

If you believe Freenet/light will actually perform better than I2P,
or if there's something fundamentally wrong with how I2P is proceeding,
then such a duplication of effort does make sense, though it might be
reasonable to share the basis of such an insight with us.  If
Freenet/light (or Tor, or whatever) can achieve what needs to be done
in the west, I'll be quite happy to throw by weight behind it, as
there are things I'd much rather do instead of coding.  I've studied
things quite a bit though, and am not convinced Freenet/light, Tor,
or any of the other PETs will.  But thats a disussion for another
thread, as while I'm sure we'll be able to reasonably compare the
systems once you build it.

> Freenet 0.7/Dark *is* a stego network.  Perhaps it's not a very
> good stegonet, but it may just be the basis of something really
> cool.

The only stego part of Freenet/dark is a sign asking people not to
look behind the curtain.  There is, to my knowledge, no effort to
actually obscure the traffic patterns, but I may be wrong, that may
be in the works and I just don't know about it.  Or do you consider
the lack of signature on the session bytes (which I2P deployed on the
live net months ago) "stego"?

=jr
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFDToJyWYfZ3rPnHH0RAoHDAJ4hcINesARBAhDuwQl4qlQKJtMLCwCeMxp2
0qgTgqWiZJx/3YKY6oJ85tw=
=gZlh
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Reply via email to