OPT: How does one freenet (mobile) user find another (maybe freenet) user?

[Jim Choate]

One proposal is to build some complicated IP management network. Yuck!

A primary problem is one freenet user locating another freenet user and
keeping the connection live during AP changes. I believe that if this
problem can be resolved the other types of connections (ie fixed IP) go
away.

How about a 'rendevous server'. A well known address where two users can
present a 'key' to the server and when they click you open a connection.

(this might be a good place for e-cash micro-mints)

IP Anonymizers would be one place to start. You connect up and get your IP
washed. Then you present a key to the server. It looks for an identical
key(s) and build a bridge between those users. An end-to-end anonymous
connection. The anonymizing layer is a bell, it's not critical. A simple
IP proxy will work.

This is also a good place to demonstrate the utility of a 'wrapper' around
this connection with respect to moving from one node to another. As you
move out of one zone into another, your IP changes. So, your system would
re-connect to the above server, be anonymized and hence making it's real
IP irrelevant (even if it wasn't anonymized the next step makes the actual
IP moot) - all automatically. It presents a key, finds a waiting
connection open and gets connected back up. The rendevous server sits
patiently waiting (until some watchdog barks) for new connections and
holding the old half of your connection open and waiting. In particular it
looks at each half of a connection and asks (Did_they_drop_the_line? ||
Did_we_get_norm_close?) before it closes the resource. Otherwise it
attempts to keep the connection open and in a wait state until somebody
else connects up.

It would be reasonable to run such a server on the AP.

With respect to automation of finding other proxies and presenting keys,
this could be done by having it broadcast a Proxy_alive_kicking? packet.
It would then, at a users request, broadcast out to those proxies trying
to find out if they have a matching key as presented by the user. If so,
then the proxy servers could make a connection between themselves and
bridge the users logical connection request (ie presenting a key).


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