5 ms·

This is a very interesting project. However, I think in order for something like this to succeed, it needs to be founded in a truly altruistic goal such as edu

by RBr 16y ago

This is a very interesting project. However, I think in order for something like this to succeed, it needs to be founded in a truly altruistic goal such as education, research, or some form of free information. "By creating a .p2p TLD that is totally decentralized and that does not rely on ICANN or any ISP’s DNS service" Sadly, the acronym p2p is tied with media piracy. If this alternate DNS system relies on the .p2p TLD, ISP's will have an easy way to filter this traffic. Beyond simple blacklist blocking, similar to what Comcast is doing to Level 3, it would make more sense for ISP's to simply charge extra (a lot extra) to access the .p2p side of the Internet. A similar conversation was had years ago around the .xxx TLD discussion. In the end, the Internet needs to be open and priced at a level where everyone can access the information contained within it. If the US, China, etc start to impose drastic, unresonable restrictions then we will have no other choice except to create alternate systems. Eventually, this will create a fragmented, disjointed Internet completely different from the one we are using now.

CWuestefeld 16y ago
This is only DNS, there's no ".p2p side of the Internet". It's only providing a lookup for IP addresses based on a name. One can easily set up a .com or what-have-you that's also got a .p2p equivalent, e.g. "ChrisWSite.com" and "ChrisWSite.p2p" have the same IP address.
- RBr 16y ago
  DNS queries can be filtered, categorized and reported just as easily as any other type of traffic. Regardless of the tech, it's the fragmentation that this sort of behavior causes that is the real problem.
  - jonknee 16y ago
    ... Only when using the ISP's DNS. The point of the project is to locally catch .p2p requests before they hit a DNS server and do the lookup locally. (So they can't be filtered, categorized and reported.) The local table would be provided by what appears to be force-encrypted BitTorrent traffic. "According to the project’s website, the goal is to “create an application that runs as a service and hooks into the hosts DNS system to catch all requests to the .p2p TLD while passing all other request cleanly through. Requests for the .p2p TLD will be redirected to a locally hosted DNS database.”"
    - RBr 16y ago
      The encryption part of this is perhaps the most interesting. However, even without breaking the encryption, I have to think that there will be ways to identify requests base on pre and post data. We know what encrypted Torrent traffic looks like. We don't need to know exactly what is being transmitted, only that an encrypted torrent session has been started. Similarly, I'm guessing that we would be able to draw conclusions based on size, timing and flow?
      - jonknee 16y ago
        Considering they haven't been able to successfully block the downloading of quite plainly illegal material, I seriously doubt they'll be able to block simple text files. When there's a will, there's a way.
      - RBr 16y ago
        ISP's don't want to block Torrent traffic. They want to figure out how to make more money from it.
njharman 16y ago
> Sadly, the acronym p2p is tied with media piracy In the music/movie industries wet dreams maybe.
woodrow 16y ago
This doesn't use $ISP's DNS resolver -- it's totally based on your own machine (essentially /etc/hosts shared by BitTorrent as trotsky notes below) and appears as encrypted BitTorrent traffic. Certainly, $ISP could block all BitTorrent traffic if they wanted to prevent this, but that would be a much different situation. It's also worth noting that there are a number of alternate roots [1] out there right now (that use DNS, not BitTorrent) and AFAIK ISPs aren't trying to block them, either. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root
- RBr 16y ago
  The encryption part of this whole thing is useful and very interesting. This line of thinking is very similar to what happened when the Gnutella network itself was formed. It was created as an alternate system to the FastTrack network. Nervous of the legal system, the decentralized network was built with a (still increasing) number of clients available. In the same way that the Gnutella network further fractured the web, alternate DNS systems have the same capability, on a much larger scale. In my mind, there is nothing wrong with creating alternate systems that work beyond the view of government agencies and the public in general. However, every time we do this, we create yet another fracture in the Internet that we know and love.
  - nym 16y ago
    > In my mind, there is nothing wrong with creating alternate systems that work beyond the view of government agencies and the public in general. However, every time we do this, we create yet another fracture in the Internet that we know and love. "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -John Gilmore
  - bkudria 16y ago
    What makes you think there's only one Internet now?
    - johngunderman 16y ago
      Internet2 is pretty damn big ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2 )

by RBr 16y ago

CWuestefeld 16y ago

This is only DNS, there's no ".p2p side of the Internet". It's only providing a lookup for IP addresses based on a name. One can easily set up a .com or what-have-you that's also got a .p2p equivalent, e.g. "ChrisWSite.com" and "ChrisWSite.p2p" have the same IP address.

RBr 16y ago
DNS queries can be filtered, categorized and reported just as easily as any other type of traffic. Regardless of the tech, it's the fragmentation that this sort of behavior causes that is the real problem.
- jonknee 16y ago
  ... Only when using the ISP's DNS. The point of the project is to locally catch .p2p requests before they hit a DNS server and do the lookup locally. (So they can't be filtered, categorized and reported.) The local table would be provided by what appears to be force-encrypted BitTorrent traffic. "According to the project’s website, the goal is to “create an application that runs as a service and hooks into the hosts DNS system to catch all requests to the .p2p TLD while passing all other request cleanly through. Requests for the .p2p TLD will be redirected to a locally hosted DNS database.”"
  - RBr 16y ago
    The encryption part of this is perhaps the most interesting. However, even without breaking the encryption, I have to think that there will be ways to identify requests base on pre and post data. We know what encrypted Torrent traffic looks like. We don't need to know exactly what is being transmitted, only that an encrypted torrent session has been started. Similarly, I'm guessing that we would be able to draw conclusions based on size, timing and flow?
    - jonknee 16y ago
      Considering they haven't been able to successfully block the downloading of quite plainly illegal material, I seriously doubt they'll be able to block simple text files. When there's a will, there's a way.
    - RBr 16y ago
      ISP's don't want to block Torrent traffic. They want to figure out how to make more money from it.

njharman 16y ago

> Sadly, the acronym p2p is tied with media piracy In the music/movie industries wet dreams maybe.

woodrow 16y ago

This doesn't use $ISP's DNS resolver -- it's totally based on your own machine (essentially /etc/hosts shared by BitTorrent as trotsky notes below) and appears as encrypted BitTorrent traffic. Certainly, $ISP could block all BitTorrent traffic if they wanted to prevent this, but that would be a much different situation. It's also worth noting that there are a number of alternate roots [1] out there right now (that use DNS, not BitTorrent) and AFAIK ISPs aren't trying to block them, either. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root

RBr 16y ago
The encryption part of this whole thing is useful and very interesting. This line of thinking is very similar to what happened when the Gnutella network itself was formed. It was created as an alternate system to the FastTrack network. Nervous of the legal system, the decentralized network was built with a (still increasing) number of clients available. In the same way that the Gnutella network further fractured the web, alternate DNS systems have the same capability, on a much larger scale. In my mind, there is nothing wrong with creating alternate systems that work beyond the view of government agencies and the public in general. However, every time we do this, we create yet another fracture in the Internet that we know and love.
- nym 16y ago
  > In my mind, there is nothing wrong with creating alternate systems that work beyond the view of government agencies and the public in general. However, every time we do this, we create yet another fracture in the Internet that we know and love. "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -John Gilmore
- bkudria 16y ago
  What makes you think there's only one Internet now?
  - johngunderman 16y ago
    Internet2 is pretty damn big ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet2 )