5 ms·

While this is a great solution for places without easy last-mile connections, it seems to me this would still be vulnerable, as one compromised connection would

by jurjenh 13y ago

While this is a great solution for places without easy last-mile connections, it seems to me this would still be vulnerable, as one compromised connection would essentially allow the same kind of snooping that we've got going on now. Does anyone know whether this is so, or how to protect against snooping, as I would assume there is some implicit level of trust required for a network like this to stay secure.

johnpmayer 13y ago
I think you'd need to add the following constraints. - Non-compromised endpoint hardware - In-person public key exchange - Onion routing
- dchichkov 13y ago
  Creating non-compromised endpoint hardware is a bit of a problem. I'm actually not sure if it is possible, even in principle. Maybe if there was an open source/open hardware router which contained a chip with secure boot, into which you yourself could burn the public key, and then it would only allow the code signed by that key... Sounds too complicated to be user friendly. Besides, there is no way to verify that the hardware router that somebody considers to be secure was not replaced by an identically looking box that had been compromised :( .
oscargrouch 13y ago
A sort of invitation only controlled by social relations? not perfect but at least, misbehaving people can be trackable.. should be based in social connections and trust.. the old school policy
- vidarh 13y ago
  That creates an active incentive to physically lean on people to roll up networks. cjdns works by requiring people to exchange keys with someone out of band to get access to their mesh, and to me that just seems as fundamentally defeating the purpose. Yes, that means you need to build a system where bad guys are hard to impossible to track down and throw off the mesh. The problem is if you create a system where misbehaving people are trackable, then good guys can be tracked too.
jamesjporter 13y ago
Meshnets don't scale well anyway so perhaps strength in numbers applies here: if there are so many small meshnets that getting a mole in each one is totally impractical, spying on meshers en masse becomes totally impractical.

by jurjenh 13y ago

johnpmayer 13y ago

I think you'd need to add the following constraints. - Non-compromised endpoint hardware - In-person public key exchange - Onion routing

dchichkov 13y ago
Creating non-compromised endpoint hardware is a bit of a problem. I'm actually not sure if it is possible, even in principle. Maybe if there was an open source/open hardware router which contained a chip with secure boot, into which you yourself could burn the public key, and then it would only allow the code signed by that key... Sounds too complicated to be user friendly. Besides, there is no way to verify that the hardware router that somebody considers to be secure was not replaced by an identically looking box that had been compromised :( .

oscargrouch 13y ago

A sort of invitation only controlled by social relations? not perfect but at least, misbehaving people can be trackable.. should be based in social connections and trust.. the old school policy

vidarh 13y ago
That creates an active incentive to physically lean on people to roll up networks. cjdns works by requiring people to exchange keys with someone out of band to get access to their mesh, and to me that just seems as fundamentally defeating the purpose. Yes, that means you need to build a system where bad guys are hard to impossible to track down and throw off the mesh. The problem is if you create a system where misbehaving people are trackable, then good guys can be tracked too.

jamesjporter 13y ago

Meshnets don't scale well anyway so perhaps strength in numbers applies here: if there are so many small meshnets that getting a mole in each one is totally impractical, spying on meshers en masse becomes totally impractical.