On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 20:21:03 +0000 (UTC) jim bell <jdb10987@yahoo.com> wrote:
> some variables :
*) number of mixers/nodes a message goes through
Yes, I'm thinking that a user should be able to decide, for any individual message, how many nodes it will go through. He will still have a latency issue to deal with, but at least that tradeoff question will be decided by HIM, not the entire network as a group,.
As a side note, even the pentagon's 'onion router' aka Tor allows you to choose the number of hops in your paths/circuits, but increasing it is pointless because traffic gets correlated when it enters and leaves the network.
> *) all clients and nodes are exchanging fixed size packets all the time (chaff)
I consider chaff essential to increase the difficulty of tracing messages, especially when >traffic is low.
ok, so that's actually one of, or the most fundamental requirement. The connection between user and 'network' HAS to have a fixed rate. Let's check the archive... From: "Wei Dai" <weidai@eskimo.com> "Imagine a server that allows you to open a low bandwidth (let's say around 100 cps, in order to reduce costs) link-encrypted telnet session with it, and provides you with a number of services, for example a link-encrypted talk session with another user. You'll need to maintain the link 24 hours a day to defend against statistical analysis, and of course you can chain a number of these servers together in a way similiar to chaining remailers. This scheme seems to provide untracibility while getting around the latency cost problem of remailers, thus allowing users to talk to each other in real time, anonymously. " Date: Fri, 27 Jan 95 00:00:01 PST So that's it Jim. Users have to be connected 24/7 using a constant rate link. Today it can be more than 100 bytes/s 'bootstrapping' such a system is not then a matter of paying for some number of 'nodes', but promoting the software. Keywords to search for in the original cpunks archive : Pipe-Net, "Latency Costs of Anonymity", Wei Dai, link encryption.