high latency low b/w ping circles: random vs clocked

[Zenaan Harkness]

Here's an obvious in hindsight thought:

Use case: A (hidden, encrypted etc) ping circle (some combo of star
or token ring yet to be designed) amongst a group of friends who may
at random points in time, wish to send wheat txt sms in the chaff of
the regular circle ping.

Usually the ping is chaff.

Any particular ping can be wheat (an sms/txt/email).

If the ping is clocked, and there is any leakage of the clocking,
then a GPA jamming my ISP link for say 5 seconds, right at the time
I'm about to send my regular ping, would expose the other node(s) I
am pinging.

If the ping is not clocked, but is timed (clocked) to a statistically
random time within a configured window, the GPA cannot know when to
conduct their latency injection attack, and any dropout by me, would
be seen by those who failed to receive my ping or received a delayed
ping, as nothing but white noise, since every ping is randomly timed
anyway.

[To state what ought be obvious, the pings, though high priority when
 they are sent at extreme high (compared to normal web traffic)
 latency intervals, are still sent through 'regular' chaff-filled
 links, and so except for my local links temporarily dropping out, a
 GPA stalker should not be able to determine destination nodes for my
 ping, with any latency injection attack.

 The reasons we can make such an assertion and believe this holds
 true:

  - active latency injection attacks operate on the principle of
    statistically modifying the distribution of packets across a
    route (in time (for latency) or some other metric e.g. size)

  - in the case of extremely high latency packets (say, 1 hour
    between packets) at least when sent between nodes trusting one
    another or via nodes which, if they introduce a few seconds or
    minutes of latency, cannot meaningfully impact the ping, the
    relevant statistical "distribution of packets across time" is in
    the order of (in this example) hours

  - the b/w consumed by such ping circles very low
    - those in my ping circle, have little incentive to close such
      low b/w "chaff filled links" on the outgoing side
    - and in fact, those who want to see freedom of anonymous speech,
      will actively support such links (again, due to their low
      network costs)
    - and so those nodes which do NOT maintain such links when
      requested, naturally increase their stalker score (as viewed by
      others).
]


  "Treat each use case for its unique snowflake characteristics,
   and we provide for the possibility to optimize that particular
   use case."