http://slashdot.org/yro/01/07/26/1553257.shtml
These are a bunch of people who want to make fundamental architectural
changes to the internet, to make it so they can prevent people from
getting services unless they are paid money.
Oddly enough, this comes at a time when I've been thinking very
seriously about some of the implications of "Plan D." Basically,
we need to think very hard about the infrastructure, if we intend
to build something that is truly censorship-proof (as opposed to
merely content-neutral). Mojo nation and freenet are current
appoximations, but they work over the Internet, and that may be
their downfall.
The problem with Plan D, if implemented over the current Internet,
is that the low levels of the internet are a tree rather than a
proper network. There are choke points and listening points at
which all of a particular person's traffic can be guaranteed to
be intercepted. Every packet that traverses the internet can be
queried to see where it's going, where it came from, how many hops
it has left to live, etc. Most are associated with particular
applications, and easily identifiable by a port number contained
in the packet headers. Encrypted traffic stands out. Mixes are
complicated by the absence of true broadcast (radio, ethernet in
promiscuous mode, anything...) anywhere in the infrastructure, with
the result that while you may not be able to tell which of the Mixers
are responsible for a particular packet, but you can damn sure tell
who the Mixers are, and if the Mix becomes enough of a problem
you can outlaw it and stomp anybody who traffics in its characteristic
packets.
Every "solution" to these problems requires identifiable nodes to
traffic in detectable types of packets over an increasingly monitored
and controlled infrastructure. And the business types, as well as
the pols, who haven't been able to cope with the internet's chaotic
nature, want the infrastructure *more* monitored and *more* controlled.
Since these are the groups that have the money and the power,
respectively, they *will* get their way. Most cypherpunkish "dream"
applications don't stand a chance of actually surviving full-out
censorship and the descendants of the DMCA, in this network or the
network that these people want to build.
So, while these guys want to make the Internet into some kind of
centrally-controlled monopoly, I've been wanting to create something
that goes completely the other direction -- a "chaos web" with its
own routing and switching and content-migration algorithms, designed
specifically to facilitate the desire of some or all nodes and operators
to remain impenetrable, uncensorable, and content-unlinkable to any
unauthorized listener or would-be spoofer, regardless of the resources
(including government) the would-be attacker has available.
Characteristics of a "chaos web" include mobile content -- an idea
already espoused by mojo nation and freenet -- but that means you
can't hook up the database servers on the other end of your website
and monitor where the people go, so mainstream businesses will probably
not use a chaos web. ultimately though, it comes down to some kind of
alternate infrastructure.
Bear
