I Crypto U and your files

[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, 26 Dec 2002, Anonymous wrote:

> One leverage point for possibly encouraging this to happen is in P2P,
> methinks. A few power-users have been prosecuted recently, so imagine
> a nice little crypto-tunnel (and mp3 disc-encryptor) app that could
> easily be injected into the Kazaa or other Gnutella-centric browsers.

There's no point in trying to fix braindamaged designs by incremental 
patchwork. You know about <http://zgp.org/pipermail/p2p-hackers/>,
right? 

> The nice thing here is that if we could get a functioning app, the app
> itself could be shared and spread variola-like via the P2P networks
> themselves.

If the users didn't consent to auto-upgrade, you could as well write a 
worm with p2p node functionality. God knows some people in China could 
have used some plausible deniability.
 
> There's the technical difficulty that someone pointed out here that
> the IP address of both serv-ants is visible. One possible go-around is

Well, duh.

> to have an encrypted tunnel materialize through blacknet, but I
> strongly doubt this will scale to millions of users very well.

Instead of doubting, try creating a model that might work, and test drive 
it in the simulator with millions of nodes. 
 
> Another possibility includes allowing the user to make only a portion
> of their content visible to any single user (plus crypto of course),
> the logic being that 'they' won't come after the millions of regular
> file sharers.

The point is to not make content linkable to a specific node.

> Any thoughts? If we could develop such an app and roll it over into
> the file-sharing networks, then the amount of encrypted files being
> moved around could increase tremendously. ANd then, us law-abiding,

Instead of inventing a polygonal wheel, try joining any of the many 
efforts like MNet and Freenet, and start hacking.

> flag-saluting supporters of even this governments' insistence on world
> destabilisation will feel safer in using crypto on a daily basis,
> because crypto will no longer be the sole provence of cranks, kooks,
> and libertarians.