Possible Internet Split (plan D)

[Ray Dillinger]

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