Hamachi "mediated" peer-to-peer sounds interesting (fwd from meltsner at gmail.com)

[Alex Pankratov]

Hi guys,

I look at the thread and I'd like to comment on this -

 >I wonder why they didn't use IPSec.

I know IPsec/IKE reasonably well, and I just don't like IKE.
It's too generic, it's under-specified and it fairly big pain
in the ass to implement (I wrote libike a couple of years ago).

Except from being extensively peer-reviewed, the main benefit
of using IKE is a (supposed) interoperability with various vendors.
Since H doesn't need that I decided to go with a custom protocol,
which is nevertheless closely modeled after JFK and ESP.

Adam Back wrote:

> Ken Meltsner <meltsner at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>>Basically, a way to get around NAT and other router issues for a
>>peer-to-peer system, mostly seamlessly integrated as a special network
>>driver.  Systems connect to a back end server which relays traffic
>>between peers on named private networks.  Sort of P2P meets VPN -- if
>>they added HTTPS tunneling, it would run through nearly any corporate
>>firewall/proxy server.
> 
> 
> Well if they really relayed traffic between peers on their back end
> server their pipe would be saturated.  (Think kazaa or bit-torrent
> over hamachi).

Apparently there's a demand for this kind of service. I'm getting
at least couple of questions a day regarding proxy/socks support.
I very much doubt though that anyone in near future will be offering
a _free_ service of this kind.

> 
> I hope they actually use the server just for mediation, and send the
> traffic direct between peers.

Yes, that's exactly what we do. Server provides three core services -
* peer location
* tunnel mediation
* network management (ie peer grouping and group-level access control)

> 
> Unfortunately the documentation is rather light so it's difficult to
> tell what it does in this regard.

I'm severely lacking time for updating the website. I do try to answer
all technical questions via email though.

> 
> I've cc'd Alex Pankratov who is the author (I presume).

The presumption is correct.

> However maybe this beta version is not complete in that regard.  Some
> other things such as the server mediated key exchange are obviously
> not shipable grade (server knows all symmetric keys!)

That's obvious to paranoids like you and me :), but not to an average
consumer who just needs to play CS or AoE over a VPN.