Talk:Anonymous P2P

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Contents 1 Prejudicial mentioning? 2 Section heading 3 WASTE and other information flow programs 4 How is Anon P2P possible? 5 Anonymous P2P Client discussion 5.1 Best client? 6 My reasons for reverting 7 Tehcnical drawbacks 8 Neutral POV regarding copyright protection? 9 Question 10 Additional (possibly defunct) software 11 It's a shame ! 12 Clearer distinction between anonP2P, F2F and private nets

[edit] Prejudicial mentioning?

Is it necessary to include the issue about child pornography in the general text? This mostly turns back people who want to use AnoP2P legitimately, but draws those people, who want child pornography towards them.

I especially have issues with it being discussed in the same paragraph as free information publishing.

It's the biggest complaint people have with anon P2P, and so should belong in the article. — Omegatron 03:32, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Wait, what? Omegatron, are you sure? I've heard a lot about P2P, and the only subcategory where I've heard any mention of child pornography was for Freenet, not p2p in general. Heck, even encryption (especially PGP) gets beat more with the child pornography stick than p2p does. --Maru (talk) 03:38, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, Freenet specifically. Was reading this and trying out freenet myself, encountering lots of "WARNING, yes this list of sites does include lists to "CP"" and "it's threatening to tear the freenet community apart" on people's "flogs". The ones that actually loaded, that is... — Omegatron 03:47, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

Again with the loading jokes! Ah Freenet, we tease because we love. Frankly, as far back as I can remember CP was threatening to tear apart Freenet. That's nothing new. I myself think freenet is an excellent example of why one makes tradeoffs between performance and anonymity. --Maru (talk) 03:55, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Section heading

What does "Counterarguements to the Consequences of P2P Anonymity" mean? How do you have counter arguments to consequences? They're either consequences or they're not. The person who originally wrote the consequences of p2p anonymity seems to hold the view that some of these consequences are inherently bad?!

[edit] WASTE and other information flow programs

What about including something like WASTE here? Isn't it technically close enough to this definition of Anon P2P? --Ilya 22:59, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

WASTE users are anonymous to the outside world, not each other. "Why WASTE requires a trusted group: Since the security in WASTE relies on encrypted links, and messages are not encrypted point to point, a node on the trusted network could easily sniff or spoof messages. So yes, your friends can spy on you. But you were not really worried about them, were you?" So, if a rogue element makes it into the WASTE network, everyone is compromised.

If a rogue element with a key that you don't trust (or an IP that your firewall does not allow for your node port) makes it into a WASTE network, this rogue can still not prove that you effectively share files using WASTE.

Waste should have its own section, aren't they called darknets? Perhaps an article about people trying to promote the free flow of information. --ShaunMacPherson 12:07, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How is Anon P2P possible?

How can a client download information without knowing the IP of the computer from which it is being downloaded?

For example, client can send request to two different nodes and receive reply from some other node.

This way only downloader exposes IP address. Seed can be hidden behind bouncer or spoof IP source address if network setup permits (google Rodi P2P for more details)

To cut a long story short: The client doesn't form a direct link with the host. Instead, the information is relayed over several intermediate clients. Each client only knows the IP of its immediate neighbours, however not the IP of the original host. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 137.222.40.132 (talk) 15:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Anonymous P2P Client discussion

XS is another anonymous P2P client. Methlabs Homepage

[edit] Best client?

What's the best client to use for Anonymous P2P? --• Thorpe • 18:23, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

I've used: MUTE, AntsP2P, I2p, Freenet, GNUNet. I2P is the best, then probably Freenet although when I used it AntsP2P and Mute were ok. I could not get GNUNet working after 5 hours of trying and talking to the developers. --ShaunMacPherson 12:07, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Can we get a Comparison of anonymous P2P applications, like the Comparison of web browsers or Comparison of Linux distributions? That would be great. Or at least a Comparison of P2P applications. — Omegatron 03:36, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My reasons for reverting

Lardo has made several edits recently, and I have reverted them. Here are my reasons, issue by issue:

• "Anonymous spam" is not unblockable. You can use any number of conventional blocking or filtering schemes.
• Child porn rings are almost never commercial, by definition of "ring" (a bunch of friends exchanging things)
• It is senseless to talk about anonymity in absolutes (as in "total anonymity") in practice, because it is always a cost-effect ratio (degrees of how hard it is to break the anonymity)

I don't know what POV Lardo was referring to in the edit comments, please point it out or NPOV it instead of removing things. Haakon 21:00, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

blocking annoynomous spam means blocking the entire anonymous network. People inside the network cannot block spam from other people in the network while still remain inside the network. Wikipedia itself blocks the Tor network to prevent spam.

anonymous p2p tries to achieve "total anonymity as close as possible.

Exchange things = barter system.

TugOfWar 13:01, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for finally showing some intent to discuss your edits.

What is "anonymous spam" exactly? Most spammers are already pretty anonymous. If some spam arrives from an anonymity network gateway, you can still block it by applying any number of well-established filtering or scoring schemes.

"Total anonymity" is not achievable, and is meaningless to talk about ("total" in relation to what?). Sufficient anonymity against some adversary, yes.

I'm not sure what you refer to by "exchange things".

Haakon 13:06, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

These filtering or scoring schemes are useless in an anonymous network, the only effective blockin method is to block the entire network.

It is achievable through schemes like Quantum tunneling.

"(a bunch of friends exchanging things)" TugOfWar 13:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

How are they useless? Bayesian spam filtering does not care about where the mails come from. You may not be able to trace them back to the perpetrator, but you can certainly block them. Haakon 13:15, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

algorithm based spam filter has never been very realiable and usully can be easily defeated. This algorithm seems to just look for certain words that has a high probibility of occuring in spam e-mails. From the same article "Recent spammer tactics include insertion of random words that are not normally associated with spam, thereby decreasing the email's spam score and increasing its ham score, making it more likely to slip past a Bayesian spam filter." TugOfWar 13:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tehcnical drawbacks

Are these networks slower than regular p2p since there's no direct connection? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.132.186.45 (talk • contribs) .

Isn't that mentioned in the article? --maru (talk) contribs 23:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's mentioned, and certainly not in the Technical Drawbacks section. The drawbacks focus entirely on maintaining anonymity. MarkTAW 6:57AM, September 30, 2006 (EST)

[edit] Neutral POV regarding copyright protection?

The text author considers that protecting copyright laws is necessarely desirable. That idea is contraversial - see, for instance Richard Stallmans comments how so called 'pirating' is ethically a better choice than buying non-free software (though of course is still just the lesser of two evils, and using free software is better), and also Lawrence Lessing's arguments how the current interpretation of copyright laws, as something that should regulate the behaviour of general population, and not just the behaviour of the companies, is historically unfounded and outside of the intent of the original lawmaker.

So, breaking copyright could be seen as a feature of a freedom-advocating technology like this one, not a bug, on principal grounds, not just cuz someone wants to break laws.. --Aryah 16:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Okay, so I go to a university that apparently tracks when any user is using excessive bandwidth on their network, in order to target people sharing files and downloading lots of files and such. Would using an anonymous p2p program shield me from this? Currently I just use other people's unsecured wireless networks to avoid scrutiny but I'd like to just safely use the university's ethernet network.. [I know this is not directly related to the article but maybe the fact that the article didn't answer my question makes it permissible :P] --Tothebarricades 00:49, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Additional (possibly defunct) software

Not sure how widely this was ever deployed or tested. --fonetikli 04:25, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

• http://grapevine.sf.net/

[edit] It's a shame !

Why "Rshare" a good anonymous p2p was deleted in the wiki by "Haakon" ???

(15:50, 6 July 2006)

Why ????

---

there's also a good new anon p2p: OFF. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.216.33.112 (talk • contribs).

I refactored the list of applications into the "See also" section, and removed the dead links from it, since dead links (links to non-existing articles) do not belong there. The RShare article did and does not exist. You are welcome to translate your German Wikipedia article. Haakon 15:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Rshare exist:

http://rshare.de/?title=Hauptseite

and OFF too ! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.216.33.112 (talk • contribs).

I said the RShare article does not exist, which means it does not belong in "See also". Haakon 15:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

and why you deltte ""off"" (http://offsystem.sourceforge.net/wordpress/ ) too ?

if you delete this until i wrote something about this ....

tss tss tss .... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.216.33.112 (talk • contribs).

I deleted your link "OFF" because OFF redirects to Oil-for-Food Programme, and not to "Owner-Free Filing system". Haakon 16:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

86.216.33.112, 1. Unter "See Also" Sie mussen ein wikipedia artikel haben. 2. "the new Star on the anonymous Filesharing Sky" ist uberhaupt nicht neutral. Sie durfen Rshare schreiben, aber es zu den Regeln konformiren mussen. Rearden9 14:11, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clearer distinction between anonP2P, F2F and private nets

While all three normally provide encryption and do not allow traffic to be monitored by third partys, the distinction should be made clear in Wikipedia. Private nets do not provide anonymity if you have one traitor. F2F nets often do not scale well, if people are not willing to trust enough people. Also I believe in some implementations there is a larger risk of being able to isolate the node sending the illegal data by being able to conduct traffic analysis on some nodes. For example Rodi is not an anonymous network for me. --134.93.44.90 12:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be interested in provably anonymous P2P. Regarding provably secure encryption like the One-time pad and MITM problems, it appears that only F2F networks are provably secure. There are good research articles at the end of the F2F article.

Besides F2F, the rest are private networks or pseudonymous networks.

F2F networks do scale, that is what is proven in the "darknet" paper provided in the Freenet article. In practice Freenet 0.7 , which is a F2F; is faster than Freenet 0.5 which was pseudonymous (see the official Freenet download page that talks about this phenomenon).

My proposition is to divide anonymous P2P networks in 3 categories: Pseudonymous, Private, F2F. Touisiau