[tahoe-dev] P2P file-sharing protocol ideas

[Thomas Dixon]

news.gmane.org wrote:
> Hi,
>
>   
>> so I am unaware if Freenet's security has improved
>> since Dhamija's analysis of it [1].
>>     
>
> A newer (Freenet 0.7) attack is described here:
> 	http://gnunet.org/papers/pitchblack.pdf
>   
Thanks!
>> My only problem with GNUnet would be on account of its lack of usability
>>     
>
> This asks for a (more or less) talented GUI developer, not for yet
> another P2P protocol.
>   
In a way, yes. It calls for a web interface in my opinion and easy
content distribution through the web. Can the web be utilized for GNUnet
content discovery and distribution? (i.e. finding files, not just
webpages, etc) If so, why hasn't this been done yet?
>> (my opinion) and apparent complexity (about 100,000 lines of C, 5 times
>> more than libtorrent).
>>     
>
> That's right (at least for code written in C/C++). However, this number
> includes two graphical frontends (gnunet-gtk and gnunet-qt), a
> configuration manager with its frontends (gnunet-setup; GTK, Qt, curses
> and text based) and a few modules that exist for testing purposes
> (tbench, testing, tracekit) or are completely unrelated to distributed
> storage (chat, vpn).
> Since GNUnet is really a framework for secure P2P applications, the
> functionality it provides is divided into several modules which can be
> loaded or unloaded at will.
>   
How large is the library providing core functionality? (e.g. content
discovery, obtaining content, publishing content)
>> Provided ACTIVE_MIGRATION is set to YES, it can
>> behave in a manner similar to Freenet, caching encrypted DBlocks on your
>> machine to help propagate them through the network.
>>     
>
> Right, and local content is pushed out into the network over time. The
> difference between GNUnet and Freenet in this regard is that GNUnet does
> not rely on this mechanism. In GNUnet FS, the primary storage of
> anonymously published content is the local PC. Active migration is only
> there to increase availability and provide deniability.
>   
Yes, which is definitely one-up over FreeNet. (the ability to leave
ACTIVE_MIGRATION disabled)

> Best,
>
> Nils Durner
> GNUnet developer
>   

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. I honestly appreciate it.

Regards,

Tom