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

[Christian Huitema]

> 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.

-- Christian Huitema