[Cryptography] Implementations, attacks on DHTs, Mix Nets?

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Sun, Aug 25, 2013 at 7:42 PM, Christian Huitema <huitema at huitema.net>wrote:

> > My knowledge of the field is pretty spotty in general as I've never paid
> much
> > attention up until now -- mostly I know about how people have built DHTs
> in
> > non-hostile environments. I'm close enough to starting from scratch that
> I
> don't
> > know yet what I don't know.
>
> I studied such systems intensely, and designed some
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_Name_Resolution_Protocol). Using a
> distributed hash table securely is really hard. The basic idea of DHT is
> that information is spread on the network based on matches between the hash
> of a resource identifier and the hash of a node identifier. All nodes are
> effectively relying on every other node. In an open network, that is pretty
> much equivalent to "relying on the goodness of strangers." You can be sure
> that if our buddies at the NSA set up to watch the content of a DHT, they
> will succeed.
>

I am doing a history of the Web. I came to the conclusion that the clever
part is the problems it decides not to solve. Ted Nelson was absolutely
right on what was desirable, but what he considered 'essential' turned out
to be easily added as layers (search for example).

A confidentiality solution that tells the user 'you can't send mail right
now because you may be subject to an intercept' is more than acceptable.


-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/
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