Disguising a Tor node?

[rayservers]

coderman wrote:
>
> see http://tor.eff.org/svn/trunk/doc/design-paper/blocking.pdf

Excellent paper, I've not read it in detail yet, but I do have a comment
about this from the paper:

> Fifth, Tor is sustainable. Zero-Knowledge Systems offered the
> commercial but now defunct Freedom Network [2], a design with
> security comparable to Tors, but its funding model relied on
> collecting money from users to pay relay operators. Modern commercial
> proxy systems similarly need to keep collecting money to support
> their infrastructure. On the other hand, Tor has built a
> selfsustaining community of volunteers who donate their time and
> resources. This community trust is rooted in Tors open design: we
> tell the world exactly how Tor works, and we provide all the source
> code. Users can decide for themselves, or pay any security expert to
> decide, whether it is safe to use. Further, Tors modularity as
> described above, along with its open license, mean that its impact
> will continue to grow.

I think that this is Tor's strong point, but there is nothing from
preventing an open source system from also allowing node operators to
recover their cost of operation and to make a profit.

The insight I wish to convey is that each node can operate its own
currency - denominated in what it provides - i.e. *bandwidth* as a
currency, and it is free to set its own price and what it will trade
that bandwidth for. Paid bandwidth might, for example enjoy a better
QoS, than that enjoyed by leaches.

Other nodes might specialize in currencies denominated in gold or
peanuts... A peanut farmer that operates a node denominated in peanuts,
for example, could sell peanut futures - tonnes of peanuts for delivery
in June 2007, for example. He could use the proceeds of sale to finance
the purchase of equipment (tractors, fertilizer) now in terms of a
currency that he can issue - i.e. peanuts for delivery at a given
date... this solves the micro credit problem, creates a Universal
Trading Platform, makes that trading avoid trade barriers imposed by
zealots and creates a free Internet.

How to make money in this system is not by the creator of the code
"licensing" it out (unlike the Freedom network by ZKS), but by operating
nodes and performing useful economic activity - be it providing
bandwidth, peanuts or another item of trade.

Any such system can be built to interface with existing systems. Open
source patches can be written to provide a trading interface with
existing protocols, such as SMTP - a Qmail patch would be easily
achieved for example. Wallets could be written to integrate into
existing applications - such as into an email client like Mozilla
Thunderbird. If combined with Mixmaster or Mixminon code, you would
achieve spam secure untraceable email. I will leave the tor example to
your imagination.

By integrating a robust network that is impervious to censorship with
the possibility of open trade that is impervious to diktat from
bureaucrats, we might yet avoid Armageddon caused by the impending
inevitable collapse of ponzi fiat currencies**.

"When goods don't cross borders, armies will." Frederic Bastiat

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/bastiat.html

Cheers,

---Venkat.

** This is exactly what current foreign policy is directly aimed at
achieving. By *forcing* Iran to not have access to USD (and laughably,
e-gold), inevitably they will use Euros or "whatever" to trade.

Naturally, as value shifts to Euro and artificially raises its
purchasing power, it will strangle European producers, raise the cost of
goods in USA and create the tensions necessary to incite the West into war.

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From: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/bastiat.html

The typical political dissident in China wants more contact with the
outside world, more economic opportunity that trade brings. Commerce
opens up societies and gives the powerless greater opportunities to have
control over their destinies. Besides, if it were possible to use
embargoes and sanctions to shape up foreign countries, Cuba and North
Korea would have become paradises of human rights long ago.

Bastiat had a radical goal. In addition to the protection of private
property, he wanted the "the abolition of war, or rather (what amounts
to the same thing), the fostering of the spirit of peace in public
opinion, which decides the question of war or peace. War is always the
greatest of the upheavals that a people can suffer in its industry, the
conduct of its business, the investment of its capital, and even its
tastes."

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