5 ms·

The Pirate Bay Wants to Encrypt the Entire Internet

37 points by reazalun 18y ago

iamelgringo 18y ago
Well, we have to do something with all those extra cores we're getting courtesy of the hardware guys. We might as well encrypt/decrypt the data that we're using with the extra cores that we're going to have.
sebastian 18y ago
I love it ;)
michael_nielsen 18y ago
John Gilmore (employee number 5 at Sun, and co-founder of the EFF and cypherpunks) tried something similar in the late 1990s: http://www.toad.com/swan.html http://www.toad.com/swan.html
- reazalun 18y ago
  From the article, it seems his goal was not met yet. However he is very proactive in fighting the illegal net spying. Maybe the Pirate Bay guys should consult him too.
- huhtenberg 18y ago
  Just to add to the above - FreeS/WAN project was too heavy on an ideology and it had a major impact on their technical decisions. They refused to support DES, because it was weak, nor did they want to include X.509 (PKI) support, because it was a hierarchy "controlled by selected ones". This limited practical usefulness of the project and it was one of the primary causes of its demise. Others were the fact that it was hard to install (required patching and rebuilding the kernel from the source) and tricky to configure. It was officially shut down in April 2004 - http://www.freeswan.org/ending_letter.html http://www.freeswan.org/ending_letter.html There is a fork called strongSwan, which is still being developed even though it's Linux-specific and there is a native IPsec implementation in Linux 2.6.
martey 18y ago
I think the most useful part of this article is the last paragraph, where the author notes that none of The Pirate Bay's lofty projects have come to fruition yet. Until there is something that I can download and install on my computer, this is just vaporware.
- SCVirus 18y ago
  Except the biggest Bittorrent tracker one, and a few other finished projects.
  - bluelu 18y ago
    Their projects only succeed if they use illegal content to push them. This was also the reason youtube succeeded and right now they are only selling ads for about 4% of all content, because for the rest of the content, the original post doesn't own the copyright. (only have german source http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Zeitung-Google-von-YouTube-Werbeerloesen-enttaeuscht--/meldung/110665 http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Zeitung-Google-von-YouTube-We...)
    - josefresco 18y ago
      Yeah it definitely didn't workout for the YouTube founders. Better luck next time I guess.
    - mrtron 18y ago
      It is not 'illegal content'.
kaos 18y ago
I really love this guys!
j2d2 18y ago
I'm not sure how this problem isn't solved by onion routing already
- wmf 18y ago
  Onion routing solves a different problem: anonymizing traffic. This "project" doesn't aim to provide anonymity, just resistance against sniffing and some MITMs. Onion routing provides encryption as a side effect of anonymity, but it's massively inefficient compared to just encryption.
- aggieben 18y ago
  Yeah, onion routing will grind your data rates way, way down. It also very much works against the inertia of the internet as it stands, which it turns out to not be all that useful.
josefresco 18y ago
Too bad TorPark (aka xBrowser and a lot of other things) swayed too far from the Mozilla/Open Source path and into the hands of a semi shady privacy company. Was a cool project.
huhtenberg 18y ago
In short - they are trying to re-invent IPsec (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPsec http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPsec).
- aggieben 18y ago
  Or IPv6, right?
  - wmf 18y ago
    IPv6 and IPSec are orthogonal. Despite persistent myths to the contrary, IPv6 is not encrypted by default.
    - aggieben 18y ago
      I couldn't find a more authoritative source on very short order, but FWIW, here's the TLDP (http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+IPv6-HOWTO/chapter-encryption-authentication.html http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+IPv6-HOWTO/chapter-encryption-au...) Unlike in IPv4, encryption and authentication is a mandatory feature of IPv6. Those features are normally implemented using IPsec (which can be also used by IPv4). Seems to me that if support for encryption is mandatory for IPv6, even if it's not on by default, using that somehow would be a better route than writing your own New Thing.
      - huhtenberg 18y ago
        Their support in IPv6 is mandatory, while their use is not.
      - wmf 18y ago
        What does "mandatory" mean? What happens if you don't implement it? I agree that the Pirate Bay should join forces with the IETF BTNS effort that is already underway, but this is still orthogonal to IPv4/IPv6.
        aggieben 18y ago

37 points by reazalun 18y ago

Well, we have to do something with all those extra cores we're getting courtesy of the hardware guys. We might as well encrypt/decrypt the data that we're using with the extra cores that we're going to have.

sebastian 18y ago

I love it ;)

michael_nielsen 18y ago

John Gilmore (employee number 5 at Sun, and co-founder of the EFF and cypherpunks) tried something similar in the late 1990s: http://www.toad.com/swan.html http://www.toad.com/swan.html

reazalun 18y ago
From the article, it seems his goal was not met yet. However he is very proactive in fighting the illegal net spying. Maybe the Pirate Bay guys should consult him too.
huhtenberg 18y ago
Just to add to the above - FreeS/WAN project was too heavy on an ideology and it had a major impact on their technical decisions. They refused to support DES, because it was weak, nor did they want to include X.509 (PKI) support, because it was a hierarchy "controlled by selected ones". This limited practical usefulness of the project and it was one of the primary causes of its demise. Others were the fact that it was hard to install (required patching and rebuilding the kernel from the source) and tricky to configure. It was officially shut down in April 2004 - http://www.freeswan.org/ending_letter.html http://www.freeswan.org/ending_letter.html There is a fork called strongSwan, which is still being developed even though it's Linux-specific and there is a native IPsec implementation in Linux 2.6.

martey 18y ago

I think the most useful part of this article is the last paragraph, where the author notes that none of The Pirate Bay's lofty projects have come to fruition yet. Until there is something that I can download and install on my computer, this is just vaporware.

SCVirus 18y ago
Except the biggest Bittorrent tracker one, and a few other finished projects.
- bluelu 18y ago
  Their projects only succeed if they use illegal content to push them. This was also the reason youtube succeeded and right now they are only selling ads for about 4% of all content, because for the rest of the content, the original post doesn't own the copyright. (only have german source http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Zeitung-Google-von-YouTube-Werbeerloesen-enttaeuscht--/meldung/110665 http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Zeitung-Google-von-YouTube-We...)
  - josefresco 18y ago
    Yeah it definitely didn't workout for the YouTube founders. Better luck next time I guess.
  - mrtron 18y ago
    It is not 'illegal content'.

kaos 18y ago

I really love this guys!

j2d2 18y ago

I'm not sure how this problem isn't solved by onion routing already

wmf 18y ago
Onion routing solves a different problem: anonymizing traffic. This "project" doesn't aim to provide anonymity, just resistance against sniffing and some MITMs. Onion routing provides encryption as a side effect of anonymity, but it's massively inefficient compared to just encryption.
aggieben 18y ago
Yeah, onion routing will grind your data rates way, way down. It also very much works against the inertia of the internet as it stands, which it turns out to not be all that useful.

josefresco 18y ago

Too bad TorPark (aka xBrowser and a lot of other things) swayed too far from the Mozilla/Open Source path and into the hands of a semi shady privacy company. Was a cool project.

huhtenberg 18y ago

In short - they are trying to re-invent IPsec (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPsec http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPsec).

aggieben 18y ago
Or IPv6, right?
- wmf 18y ago
  IPv6 and IPSec are orthogonal. Despite persistent myths to the contrary, IPv6 is not encrypted by default.
  - aggieben 18y ago
    I couldn't find a more authoritative source on very short order, but FWIW, here's the TLDP (http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+IPv6-HOWTO/chapter-encryption-authentication.html http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+IPv6-HOWTO/chapter-encryption-au...) Unlike in IPv4, encryption and authentication is a mandatory feature of IPv6. Those features are normally implemented using IPsec (which can be also used by IPv4). Seems to me that if support for encryption is mandatory for IPv6, even if it's not on by default, using that somehow would be a better route than writing your own New Thing.
    - huhtenberg 18y ago
      Their support in IPv6 is mandatory, while their use is not.
    - wmf 18y ago
      What does "mandatory" mean? What happens if you don't implement it? I agree that the Pirate Bay should join forces with the IETF BTNS effort that is already underway, but this is still orthogonal to IPv4/IPv6.
      - aggieben 18y ago