AnimeSuki Forums

grey_moon · 2008-03-17, 00:53

The recent news about ISPs in JP banning users for sharing has got me thinking about darknet P2P technologies.

I've already reviewed Waste P2P, with the aim of secure chat and file transfer for journalists, but that has several issues of it being not real P2P for file transfers and once on the network a user is able to spoof another user. Also an attacker can still can tell who you are talking to unless the network has a node in a neutral area. I didn't try to see if it combined with TOR. All in all, it feels like a very young network and it only scales to about 50 users and file transfer is point to point. Not very good for keeping the anime flowing at all.

Then I had a look at Freenet

http://freenetproject.org/

Now from what I gather an inserter creates a key to the content they wish to share and then once enough people have it and the key it becomes P2P in the same way as BT allowing for highspeed downloads.

I think it works a bit like TOR where everyone donates some space and BW and you actually have no control over what is cached on your PC, but since everything is encrypted you can't actually access the data on it. Which gives the user plausible deniability.

Now here is the legal ramifications bit. From what I can see the main issue of Free net is that you can't search for content, so basically people have lists of content the same way as ASF host the BT information of the anime with links to trackers. Also the same goes for finding friends.

If AS was to start hosting Freenet content keys and anime user friend keys what would the security and legal ramifications be?

I also tried to look for info about Perfect Dark, but didn't really find much apart from that it is Japanese.

Skyward · 2008-03-17, 19:30

For the record; Winny, Share, and Perfect Dark are all darknets. They all use the same basic idea of using other peers on the networks as proxys to transfer encrypted data from one client to another. While I know that the cache encryption scheme for Winny is rather weak, I don't know the strength of the other 2 clients. Winny's traffic encryption has been completely broken and is what is being targeted by the Japanese ISPs as far as I know. Share has been partially broken so far, and Perfect Dark is still uncracked.

Claies · 2008-03-18, 18:25

Winny's encryption is broken. If you're a smart filesharer in Japan, you won't be using it.

I've looked at Perfect Dark and Share, and the two work quite differently. I can't get a good connection, because I sit behind some pretty strong firewalls on campus.

grey_moon · 2008-03-18, 19:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Claies

Winny's encryption is broken. If you're a smart filesharer in Japan, you won't be using it.

I've looked at Perfect Dark and Share, and the two work quite differently. I can't get a good connection, because I sit behind some pretty strong firewalls on campus.

Are they the same as Freenet where you need to pass keys around? I think the problem with darknets is how to pass the keys around without the bad guys getting their hands on them. I guess the second part is if they do get the keys then to make it as difficult to trace to an actual user as possible.

I really need to sit down and have a good read of this tech.

Ledgem · 2008-03-19, 13:14

The way that the Japanese P2P programs worked was by utilizing peers as proxies while encrypting the data that was sent across them. Once your client successfully connected it'd receive node lists from other clients - in that sense there was no need to pass keys around (not in the sense that Waste requires, at least). The nice aspect of the design was that your machine would be acting as a man in the middle between two other machines, but due to the encryption you couldn't find out where the data originated from, where its final destination was, or what the data was.

2008-03-17, 00:53	Link #1
grey_moon Yummy, sweet and unyuu!!! Join Date: Dec 2004	Darknet Recommendations and Legal Ramifications for ASF The recent news about ISPs in JP banning users for sharing has got me thinking about darknet P2P technologies. I've already reviewed Waste P2P, with the aim of secure chat and file transfer for journalists, but that has several issues of it being not real P2P for file transfers and once on the network a user is able to spoof another user. Also an attacker can still can tell who you are talking to unless the network has a node in a neutral area. I didn't try to see if it combined with TOR. All in all, it feels like a very young network and it only scales to about 50 users and file transfer is point to point. Not very good for keeping the anime flowing at all. Then I had a look at Freenet http://freenetproject.org/ Now from what I gather an inserter creates a key to the content they wish to share and then once enough people have it and the key it becomes P2P in the same way as BT allowing for highspeed downloads. I think it works a bit like TOR where everyone donates some space and BW and you actually have no control over what is cached on your PC, but since everything is encrypted you can't actually access the data on it. Which gives the user plausible deniability. Now here is the legal ramifications bit. From what I can see the main issue of Free net is that you can't search for content, so basically people have lists of content the same way as ASF host the BT information of the anime with links to trackers. Also the same goes for finding friends. If AS was to start hosting Freenet content keys and anime user friend keys what would the security and legal ramifications be? I also tried to look for info about Perfect Dark, but didn't really find much apart from that it is Japanese. __________________

2008-03-19, 13:14	Link #5
Ledgem Love Yourself Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Northeast USA Age: 38	The way that the Japanese P2P programs worked was by utilizing peers as proxies while encrypting the data that was sent across them. Once your client successfully connected it'd receive node lists from other clients - in that sense there was no need to pass keys around (not in the sense that Waste requires, at least). The nice aspect of the design was that your machine would be acting as a man in the middle between two other machines, but due to the encryption you couldn't find out where the data originated from, where its final destination was, or what the data was. __________________

2008-03-17, 19:30	Link #2
Skyward Oblivious Fansubber Join Date: Jul 2007	For the record; Winny, Share, and Perfect Dark are all darknets. They all use the same basic idea of using other peers on the networks as proxys to transfer encrypted data from one client to another. While I know that the cache encryption scheme for Winny is rather weak, I don't know the strength of the other 2 clients. Winny's traffic encryption has been completely broken and is what is being targeted by the Japanese ISPs as far as I know. Share has been partially broken so far, and Perfect Dark is still uncracked.

2008-03-18, 18:25	Link #3
Claies Good-Natured Asshole. Join Date: May 2007 Age: 34	Winny's encryption is broken. If you're a smart filesharer in Japan, you won't be using it. I've looked at Perfect Dark and Share, and the two work quite differently. I can't get a good connection, because I sit behind some pretty strong firewalls on campus.