The GNUnet System

https://gnunet.org/grothoff2017habilitation

by summm • 9 years ago

123 38 9 years ago

GNUnet is an alternative network stack for building secure, decentralized and privacy-preserving distributed applications. Our goal is to replace the old insecure Internet protocol stack.

Sounds like a PhD thesis run amok.

This just isn't going to happen. Who are they kidding? Even the transition to IPv6 is proving agonisingly slow.

GNU really need to pick their battles more wisely.

jasonkostempski• 9 years ago

Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me. File sharers are willing to adopt anything.

pksadiq• 9 years ago

Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me.

True. We still don't have a good way of doing this[0].

[0] https://xkcd.com/949/

UncleEntity3• 9 years ago

They might not like that too much based on:

Bitcoin is unethical as it prevents the state from effectively extracting taxes from economic activity, or from enforcing basic rules on allowed economic activity.

Interesting how privacy in communication is ethical but privacy in economic activity isn't.

co0nsta• 9 years ago

The speed of IPv6 adoption doesn't seem relevant as this doesn't depend on IPv6 and appears to be solving very different problems.

smhenderson• 9 years ago

While I disagree with parent comment I think it was meant to draw a comparison between GNUnet and IPv6. As in "we can't get people to adopt IPv6 despite it's being backed by just about every large tech company, how is GNU going to get people to switch to this?".

At least that's how I read it. But as another poster pointed out I don't believe it's GNU's intention to get the whole world to switch, just make it available and if people can and want to use it they will. And then hopefully those people make it easier and easier for others to use it.

norswap• 9 years ago

You assume GNU is a top-down organization that selects where to invest its efforts. In reality, individuals do that, only under the auspices of the GNU organization that does provide some benefits.

JasonFruit• 9 years ago

What _are_ the benefits, other than you get to say you're a GNU project and surrounded by Saint IGNUcius's halo?

mikegerwitz2• 9 years ago

While some core projects are pillars of GNU and were created either to provide a fully free Unix replacement or out of one of their initiatives, many are projects offered by individuals.[0] There is no battle.

"Replace" doesn't mean global domination. It means that those who chose to use the replacement can do so, just as those who chose to use the GNU operating system as a replacement can do so.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.en.html

openfuture2• 9 years ago

Is anyone knowledgeable that can tell me the difference between

IPFS, GNUnet, Zeronet, freenet or even something like i2p, tor and urbit .. as well as probably others.

Actually I know this question is asked all the time and I do know how these differ, to some extent at least, but I just don't understand why there are all these competing standards since it's all driven by the same-ish vision.

Whenever someone accomplishes this vision though it'll be a huge game changer. IPFS feels closest to it as of now .

_3x96• 9 years ago

super tldr...

ipfs and zeronet (and dat project) are distributed file stores (think bittorrent), some have some special browsers n top that let you build applications

freenet is a distributed, secure content network.

i2p and tor are secure overlay neworks - run on top of the existing internet to provide secure connectivity - designed to obscure where traffic is going to and from.

gnunet and cjdns are also secure overlay networks but more like point to point vpns.

mxuribe• 9 years ago

This is quite a helpful tldr! Thanks!!

openfuture2• 9 years ago

Thanks for mentioning 'Dat Project', hadn't heard of it before. Do you know if any of these distributed file stores are making use of this[1] result like Pijul?

It'd be amazing if these projects converge on making version control, package management and any sort of information distribution (internet) into the same thing. Currently it feels like they are all working in separate corners on what they consider to be 'the abstraction that will eat the world' so to speak..

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.3903

UncleEntity3• 9 years ago

I'm actually reading the paper...

GNUnet is an overlay network, as it is initially supposed to primarily operate over the existing Internet network. However, GNUnet does not assume that this is always the case. For example, GNUnet can also operate directly over WLAN or Bluetooth to create an ad-hoc wireless mesh network, and with the GNUnet “PT/VPN” subsystems we can run TCP/IP over GNUnet. So in this configuration, GNUnet would be an underlay network, a bit like MPLS or B.A.T.M.A.N. [NAL07]. In reality, we in fact expect to see both at the same time: some peers will run over the existing Internet, while others may connect to GNUnet on Layer 2.

ezdiy4• 9 years ago

IPFS feels closest to it as of now.

I'm rather skeptic. IMO, IPFS is just overengineered bittorrent. At the lowest layer, the semantics are the same, except with really bad ideas thrown into the mix - wantlist instead of bitmaps, forcing DAG in places where there's no use for it, all driving overall performance of the network into the ground.

nerdponx2• 9 years ago

AFAIK you can't get sued because you accidentally are hosting a fragment of copyrighted material over IPFS, whereas seeding coyprighted material over Bittorrent is a crime in the USA.

UncleEntity3• 9 years ago

We note that outside of TCP, the client-server relationship is often described using the terms “master” and “slave”. These terms more aptly describe the social roles the client-server paradigm produces.

Best quote I've seen in a while...

larrydag2• 9 years ago

What is the biggest barrier or challenge for these network systems to succeed? Hardware? Infrastructure? Users?

Slackwise• 9 years ago

Adoption. Users want convenience. They want to click a thing and go, not install a desktop app, configure it, learn about the networking model, etc.

Then when we've all sunk into all these convenient cloud services and "easy to use" disposable devices, we'll have lost all of our privacy and power. The corporations will get regulated, and then the government will have access and control of the systems.

And yet we'll have people argue that these open source and federated/distributed systems are "too confusing" and "not practical" and that we shouldn't even try to avoid this future.

nine_k• 9 years ago

«In technology, I believe it comes down to the power dynamics of convenience. To create convenience—particularly the automated convenience technology trades in—someone else must make our choices for us. In other words: the less you have to do, the less say you have.»

(From https://www.frankchimero.com/writing/the-webs-grain/)

ezdiy4• 9 years ago

Then when we've all sunk into all these convenient cloud services and "easy to use" disposable devices, we'll have lost all of our privacy and power.

Convenience can be engineered into P2P, too.

With Bitcoin, people definitely get the convenience of unregulated speculative asset they wanted (presumably because real estate is even more obtuse than bitcoin).

With Bittorrent, people definitely get the convenience of having access to obscure content (though netflix is great counterexample to it).

And yet we'll have people argue that these open source and federated/distributed systems are "too confusing" and "not practical" and that we shouldn't even try to avoid this future.

I think best route would be that of Linux vs Android. Which has already happened to a certain degree with Mastodon for instance - someone "privatizes" the underlying open fabric and puts a nice "convenience trap" on top of it to "attract adoption".

The issue here is mostly that investors in such an endeavor are seeking total control of the userbase, an engineered artificial "inconvenience of switching platform".

Internet behemoths should not be called out on "dangers of getting regulated and handing control to the government" (frankly, anything can happen, not just that), but on keeping their platforms un-interoperable on purpose in a bid to attain a monopoly through networking effects, burdening the entrapped users with "inconvenience of limited frontend choice". They should be called out the same way we called out Microsoft back then, or say, Comcast now.

api• 9 years ago

I don't buy that it's impossible to deliver decentralization and usability. It just requires a lot of developer effort.

The real problem is that everything has to be free. That means there's no money to pay developers to do the stuff that is not fun. UI/UX is a painful slog through a long tail of tiny little issues, not to mention many iterations on design. Developers don't do that unless they're getting paid.

jancsika• 9 years ago

Ok, I'll bite.

Suppose I want to download a tarball of the GNUnet file sharing application. (I chose file downloading because the GNUnet Wikipedia page says file sharing is the primary application atm.)

What are the steps I need to follow in order to fire up GNUnet's filesharing application and download that file?

To whomever responds: you make the file available, and I'll try to download it.

Edit: it doesn't have to be a tarball of the app. It can be any file which I can find a hash for on clearnet. But somebody has to vouch that they are making it available over GNUnet while I try to download it.

The GNUnet System

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