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• Tor: Onion-based routing that acts as a proxy layer between the client computer and the Tor network. http://tor.eff.org/
• I2P: Also known as the Invisible Internet Project. The network is regarded as a message based system. http://www.i2p.net/
• FreeNet: is a distributed information and storage retrieval system designed to address the concerns of privacy. Freenet is designed to be anonymous and totally peer to peer. http://freenetproject.org/
• GNUnet: is a P2P network that can support many different forms of peer-to-peer applications. http://gnunet.org/
• Open VPN: is where one can use software that encrypts your traffic on a server created in another country instead of the one you are in. http://openvpn.net/

There are other programs and if you do not want others knowing what "traffic" you carry then you would be wise to use them.

I've been following I2P for a long time but progress is awfully slow. I2P is an encrypted, anonymous IP-layer on top of IP. This means that standard IP protocols like IRC, http and others can be ported to use I2P. The amount of work is similar to porting to IPv6. You can also tunnel IPv4 over I2P to connect your clients to anonymous servers. You can browse dynamic websites running PHP/RoR/etc and have absolutely no idea where the webserver is located, and the webserver have no idea where you are located.

I2P doesn't have a distributed storage area/cache though, Freenet's biggest feature. The developers also say that it would be outside the scope of I2P...

Would it be possible to have "live traffic" over Freenet like I2P? Would its architecture allow such a thing in a future version or would that require a complete redesign?

Interestingly enough, that's EXACTLY how I2P works.

http://www.i2p.net/

Hey Pirate Bay folks, here's my list of feature requests for the new version of your open source torrent protocol:

ONION ROUTING:
1) Implement Onion routing (aka: Tor / anonymize the sources) as a built in feature.
2) Onion Routing should, where possible, try to use exit points and middle points that have roughly the same amount of bandwidth as you, otherwise torrenting will not become a reality through Onion Routing. So some kind of peer bandwidth algorythm needs to be incorporated.
3) Onion routing should be on by default, and each user should also become an exit point and donate 30% of their bandwidth to this. This will greatly increase the number of exit routers & provide this as a defacto alternative, as opposed to just some obscure security feature for the 31337 (hackers & government homeland types).
4) Individual site upload ratios, should take into consideration that fact that you are an exit point and some portion of that 30% should be counted toward your uploaded bytes ratio (even if traffic is going to other sites)... in other words, help promote torrent security = get bonus points from private trackers.

SIMPLIFY ISP SHAPING BYPASS
Background: Forcing protocol encryption isn't enough these days; some ISPs are shaping or even blocking torrent traffic by methods such as sending TCP RST packets to close a session, or their infrastructure auto-analyzes your encrypted traffic patters and if they are high bandwidth, very encrypted and on for long amounts of time to the same destination you get flagged & shapped (regardless of the fact that you could indeed be doing something legal)

1) There's a page on Wikipedia that lists all the "BAD ISPs" (http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs). This is a list of ISPs internationally that in one way or another shape your bitorrent traffic (Comcast anyone?). We need to be one step ahead of these ISPs and render their multi-million dollars worth of shaping infrastructure useless - sooner rather than later - sooner so that they can't make up for the ROI on all that gear they purchased. If the ROI fails, the next time engineering dept approach CEO for X dozens of millions more, they will get declined and we (torrent community) will win.

2) This site breaks down "throttling" into 5 different categories or ways in which the ISP can throttle you... each listing the bypass method.
http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Avoid_traffic_shaping#Escalation_of_the_crypto_settings
Note that level 5 (the most aggressive shaping method known so far) is only bypassable by a single client today (Azeurus), utorrent to my understanding can not bypass this.

Anyway my point with these above 2 items is that these facts need to be considered:
1. The number of ISPs throttling internationally is already large and growing larger
2. Your new torrent client needs to simplify bypassing these various levels of encryption so that it can be adopted by the masses. If it is not adopted by the masses (rendering ISP throttling useless), the ISPs will have won.

I don't have time to type more, so please research what other clients out there (beyond just torrent) are doing and borrow ideas from them.
Here's a brief list of intelligent encryption/anonymous software out there to investigate:
RODI: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/01/1252232
MUTE: http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/
ANTS: http://antsp2p.sourceforge.net/
GNUnet: http://gnunet.org/
I2P: http://www.i2p.net/
FreeNet: http://freenetproject.org/
TOR: http://tor.eff.org/

THanks and good luck!

http://www.i2p.net/

seriously. how long have we had strong cryptography??? why have we not been using it?

SSL, PGP... encrypted bandwidth is unfilterable untierable bandwidth. it solves "net neutrality" without involving the government / FCC. it solves AT&T et. al. spying for the NSA whether they like it or not.

an I2P encrypted gateway is super easy to install and get working with Azureus for fully anonymous torrenting.

The thing is, there is a problem here. A lot of people do hide behind anonymity using systems like BitTorrent and sites like TPB because what they're doing is immoral and/or illegal. ... The site has been used extensively in support of activities that are illegal, unethical and/or damaging to others, and the operators are well aware of this.

yes, damn those immoral abolitionists working in the illegal underground railroads stealing the legal "property" of slave-owning plantations. Think of how much they cost the cotton industry!

Maybe, if you're an idiot and don't take the proper steps. For example, if you go through Tor or I2P or some other anonymizing network you should be okay. Matter of fact, I predict a huge spike in the size of such networks. Mark my words, folks, the term Onion Router is about to become part of the popular lexicon.

Let's hope they scale well.

the program you are talking about exist under the name I2p Syndie. It is a distributed content engine which works with tor/freenet/no encryption. It is java, so you can run it everywhere.

When I used it, it hadn't much content, and the composition engine sucked. But give it a try, it is what you are looking for.

Yeah right
That'll work

I've posted my list back about a year ago, and I still use every single one of them every day... (I also describe how to get around a "bug" in FF that forbids non-standard port connections). Check it out here. I also spoke at my local LUG about the same thing in January.

Here's a list of the extensions I'm currently using in my Firefox build (you can see how I have it tricked out with all of my theming and extensions over here):

• Sage, a really slick and fast rss aggregator/reader for Firefox. It docks on the sidebar and is visible with a simple Alt-S keystroke. Very nice, and easy for me to catch up on some quick headlines when I need to.
• AdBlock Plus with the AdBlock Filterset G Updater to stop the flood of useless ads from coming at me. I did have to add one small rule for Google's ads, because I do actually like the recommendations they provide from time to time, and it helps out sites I visit with a little revenue. That regex looks like this: @@*.googlesyndication.com/*
• Web Developer, a very useful and slick toolbar/menu driven suite that allows me to do all kinds of things to websites I'm viewing, including validation, showing where their css classes are, manipulating forms, cookies, images, and dozens of other features. Hands-down, the most-useful extension I have as a developer/tweaker of web content.
• PrefBar, another powerful extension I use every single day. This one allows me to change the capabilities of my browser with a simple click of a checkbox. Want Java enabled? Click. Sick of popups? Click. I have Colors, Images, Javascript, Java, Flash, Popups, Proxies, Pipelining, Referers, Cache on my bar. Its completely customizable, and very well-done.
• SwitchProxy lets me manage and switch between multiple proxy configurations quickly and easily. I can also use it as an anonymizer to protect my system from prying eyes. I have Squid, Squid + Privoxy, Privoxy + Tor and i2p enabled in my configuration at the moment. Quick and easy, and one status-bar dropdown lets me change from one to another.
• FasterFox gives me a little boost by auto-configuring some parameters for faster browsing, such as link prefetching, pipelining, DNS cache, paint delay, and others.
• ForecastFox, weather.. in my status bar. I've changed the icons a bit with a separate icon pack called Lansing, which is nice adn small and out of the way. Minimal is the way to go on my toolbars and status bars.
• Linky lets me open or download all or selected links in a page, image links and even web addresses found in the text in separate or different tabs or windows. A simple right-click on any link or web address, and away I go.
• Google PageRank Status gives me a quick overview of the PR of a site in the current view. This is useful as I do a lot of web work, and knowing what kind of sites get a decent or poor PR is useful information.
• SearchStatus is another SEO toolbar fo

Personally I'd put it on the darknets, Tor and Freenet both have sites dedicated to preserving unpopular/threatened/censored information. I'd imagine that I2P would have similar resources although I'm not personally familiar with it.

While darknet sites aren't reachable by the average computer users, this allows the more technically-minded to repopulate the mainstream net with the content when torrents or public hosts are taken down.

Tor. JAP (www only). I2P.

I personally like JAP, though it only does WWW. The servers are in Germany, go to google.com and you get "Google Deutschland". It's the easiest of the three. Tor makes you set up something like Privoxy, not sure about I2P. For JAP, just start it (it's in Java and runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows) and point your browser's proxy settings to localhost:4001.

Tor has the advantage of letting you route anything through it. If you use it, don't be an asshole by using it for Bittorrent or anything else high bandwidth or illegal.

I personally like using JAP when at public access points, though for anything other than casual browsing I use OpenVPN and browse through my home network.

Really, laws regulations and initiatives like this (and this and this and this) make it increasingly necessary for the Powers that Be(tm) to think about criminalizing online anonymity altogether, lest the bureaucracy be powerless to enforce their will.

And with so few people who even know they should care about this, who's to stop it? Unless Tor and I2P get encapsulated within programs that millions of people use (à la Torpark), well... if a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it...

While Herbivore sounds interesting, don't forget to mention its limitations as well.

In the Herbivore documentation, you will find this PDF: Eluding Carnivores: File Sharing with Strong Anonymity

From which we learn that: The system consists of approximately 27,000 lines of Java and C code, 2,000 of which comprise the GUI for anonymous filesharing and a helper application for k-anonymous chat while the rest form the core system. (Section 5: Performance)

So Herbivore provides anonymity for filesharing and chat. That is all it can do in its current implementation.

On the other hand, Tor works with any IP based protocol and can be integrated into the applications that a user currently uses.

The second weakness of Herbivore is that it is not ready for distribution yet. The only code available is if you request to be part of the initial rollout by non-anonymous email. Herbivore Download Page

Tor is not only available for download, it is in current use.

The third weakness of Herbivore is that it requires that a client application be run on the users system. If your system is ever confiscated and examined by the authorities, this can be judged to be evidence of potential wrong doing resulting in further examination (if you don't believe this is possible, just read: PGP Ruled as Relevant For Criminal Case). A secondary weakness of the client is that it will limit the operating systems that Herbivore will run on to those systems that support Java and that Herbivore has been developed for (I2P has the same problem).

On the other hand, Tor can be used by simply configuring the users application to use a known Tor entry point as a proxy server. This configuration can be removed when the user is done, leaving little or no tracks. In this way, Tor can be used by any system that supports TCP/IP and SSL.

And the fourth and last weakness I will mention is that since Herbivore has not been released yet, it has not undergone extensive peer review and testing. On the other hand, the reason we are aware of Tors weaknesses is because it has been released, tested and peer reviewed. As we've learned from many cryptographic systems, you should not trust them until this peer review is complete and any/all weaknesses are known (which is why Tor has the disclaimer that it should not be fully trusted yet).

While Herbivore may provide strong anonymity, in no way is it a replacement for a general anonymity tool like Tor. On the other hand the more tools we have, the better. So I look forward to testing Herbivore when it becomes available.

...and here are some more softwares and guides related to privacy, pseudo/ano-nymity and security:

tor.eff.orgonion routing anonymizer
www.i2p.netsecure/anonymous interactive network
freenetproject.orgsecure/anonymous distributed file system
www.turtle4privacy.orgf2f peer network
gnunet.orgsecure p2p infrastructure
www.cspace.insecure p2p infrastructure
www.openswan.orgVPN with opportunistic encryption
silcnet.orgsecure internet live chat
ihu.sourceforge.netp2p VoIP with crypto

wiki.noreply.orgHow to give anonymous talks
azureus.sourceforge.netazureus over p2p
cryptnet.netguerrilla software development how to

Maybe it's time to start using I2P or similar?

Downside is that if you've got Kazza or other stuff installed and sharing you're nailed...

So go off of public P2P altogether and get on I2P, TOR, or some other anonymous network. Sure, it's slower, but it will probably be too costly from a computing standpoint for the a given adversarial organization to nail you. The more they harass people, the more people will be driven underground to these "anonymous" networks. As of right now, it isn't illegal (in most places) to participate in one of these networks and hopefully it'll stay that way. The recent action on the TOR network in Germany (admittedly by mistake) shows that some nodes may get taken, though.

So, if you absolutely need that new episode of Lost, encrypt your "gray area" data appropriately with Truecrypt (or whatever software will give you plausible deniability) and get on an anonymous network. These anonymous networks are already being used for reasons that are much more important, but the more people that use them, the better off we'll all be. Personally, I recommend I2P.

Downside is that if you've got Kazza or other stuff installed and sharing you're nailed...

So go off of public P2P altogether and get on I2P, TOR, or some other anonymous network. Sure, it's slower, but it will probably be too costly from a computing standpoint for the a given adversarial organization to nail you. The more they harass people, the more people will be driven underground to these "anonymous" networks. As of right now, it isn't illegal (in most places) to participate in one of these networks and hopefully it'll stay that way. The recent action on the TOR network in Germany (admittedly by mistake) shows that some nodes may get taken, though.

So, if you absolutely need that new episode of Lost, encrypt your "gray area" data appropriately with Truecrypt (or whatever software will give you plausible deniability) and get on an anonymous network. These anonymous networks are already being used for reasons that are much more important, but the more people that use them, the better off we'll all be. Personally, I recommend I2P.

As a libertarian, I am opposed to legislating FCC (the FCC for christsake!) regulation of the Internet, called Net Neutrality.

I am opposed to Net Neutrality because it violates the End-to-End Principle, which is the defining quality of the Internet as a network of peers (i.e. P2P).
Once you involve a centralized enforcement agency, such as the FCC, into the operation of the Internet, you have effectively destroyed the End-to-End Principle as much or worse than implementation of QoS by ISPs ever could.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_principle

(Yes, this centralization has already been a problem for DNS and spam RBL, but lets not add to that, mmmkay?)

One technical solution is for ISPs to try to make QoS happen, but everyone downloads and installs I2P so that QoS becomes unfeasible to implement.
http://www.i2p.net/

It is long past time to get off the RegulatedNet(c) and become active in anoNet. Hell for that matter there is i2p (I just happen to be more active on anoNet since it is a full ipv4/ipv6 network).

The fact of the matter is, EVERY day they add one more reason to hide and conceal everything you do.

Cat. Mouse. Cat. Mouse.

So now we just counter this illegal wiretapping (yes, its still illegal, even though they've passed a law that makes it "legal") with extra strong encryption and Civil Disobedience.

Use TrueCrypt with the AES-Twofish-Serpent algorithm on your PC (Linux, Mac or Windows). If you want to use something simliar on BSD, look into GELI encryption for those partitions.

For phones, you could look into encryption handsets or telephone scramblers. There's this one too, or the Cryptophone GSM Phone Encryption solution. Google around, there's quite a few hundred solutions in this space... stack them together for even more security.

Disclaimer: I don't personally know how strong these algorithms are on these handsets, so use at your own risk.

With VoIP, you could easily layer whatever encryption you want on top of it. Bounce your call through a few foreign routers, run it through Privoxy, Tor and i2p and you should be good to go. Yes, it will incur some latency.. but I'd rather sacrifice speed for security or privacy, wouldn't you? Here is an article on securing VoIP. Worthwhile reading if you're using it or considering it.

Cat. Mouse. Cat. Mouse.

Now its OUR turn.

You take from us, we take back.

You get to choose your licence: that's fundemental.

Okay, Communism isn't a slur, but I don't think that it's quite right. Certainly it's in the direction of Communism, in that it diminshes private intellectual 'property', but the nature of the GPL is closest to (say) antitrust law. Certainly the licence is viral, but its potency is limited to volentary interations, and doesn't appeal to anyone's sense of a superior society, except insofar as people generally follow the law. Certainly that appeal is an attraction, but it isn't necessary. The licence does not require ideology to work.

I lean towards anarchism myself, so I understand what you're saying; I think that acting for "the greatest freedom of the greatest number" is in fact a very balanced way to act, and only appears extreme when issues have been politicised with ulterior agendas (not necessarily of the part of the speaker; it's the frame of reference that has been shifted). In the limit, it may tend towards anarchism, but given our society, it implies law, IMO.

The GPL enhances third-person freedom: this was the point that I intended to mention, but got swallowed when I wrote "total freedom". If one acts in a social context, and wishes to give something to the world, it's a good licence for doing just that. I'm doing a spot of game level design at the moment, which I will be releasing under a creative commons licence, and when I get back into coding (I've been recovering from a breakdown), I intend to release code under the GPL version 3, unless I can enhance freedom more in some other way (example: I2P).

The first person freedom of the GPL is simply that you have held onto some leverage. This is power more than freedom, but the effect is that there is more choice in what you do with your code in future. One way of looking at this is that you were less generous in the first place, but I would argue that you were differently generous; rather than giving to the next coder, you gave to the user. Indeed since the code's value derives from its ultimate utility, I would rather give to the user, but I also understand your way of thinking.

I've been happily using Privoxy + Tor + i2p together for quite some time now to browse the web, Google and other sites of interest.

I also have 2 transparent Squid proxies in front of my LAN here (on my side) running with squid-prefetch, and they too use the same privoxy and tor and i2p setups for prefetching. This way, duplicate requests from anyone inside my network don't HAVE TO go to the live site, if it already exists in the Squid cache. Since its transparent (done at the router with iptables), the users don't have to configure anything at all on their end.

And I much prefer SwitchProxy over FoxyProxy any day.

"Pirate Bay will reappear in Ukraine, Russia, The Netherlands and three other countries."

Warez sites are moving about to other countries, and some are even popping up on Freenet now. I think anonymous p2p will be the next main phase.

The first phase was napster (centralized in many respects), then second generation p2p was gnutella and emule, and now the third generation has Freenet, I2P, GNUnet, Rodi, AntsP2P, Mute, etc. Even if you're not interested in the issue the back and forth conflict between the media companies and programmers is interesting - I wonder who'll win out in the end.

You're absolutely right. We, as informed citizens more able to grasp the implications of technology than Joe Sixpack, are the only ones who will be able to bring this problem to light. We are also the only ones that will be able to solve this problem, if it hasn't gone too far already. It's very clear that the government has become very well practiced at spinning their stories and power-plays so that they appeal to anyone who doesn't look past the surface. There are very frightening implications behind the fact that the NSA wiretapping dropped off the public radar (mainstream news and conversation) so quickly. I am not one to quickly don my tinfoil hat, but damn it, it sure does look like the government is inching closer and closer to the point that it will become too good at steering the uninformed majority, and as a member of the informed minority, that is unacceptable to me.

I no longer feel comfortable with the level of privacy that is afforded to a citizen. The fact that we're moving from "default private" to "default public" is horrific. The public internet is no longer a place where we can communicate ideas freely. If you feel the same, join me on http://www.i2p.net/, on the truly anonymous IRC network, in the channel #privacy

The government needs to be checked by the people. If the government becomes too drunk with control before the people try to fix it, the conflict will be a violent one, and the people will lose. We need to regain control before it's too late.

I'm not a member or involved in the freenet project but if you have paypal or whatever, drop by the freenet project website and donate a few dollars. Mathew Toseland (toad_ on freenode irc) has been slaving away on the project for a long time now, he's poured so much energy into making freenet a reality, kudos to him and a few of the other coders that have spent a lot of energy on the next generation freenet (nextgens/cyberdo/etc.)

Not related to freenet but in the definitely in the same sphere of anonymous networking is I2P. For anybody that interested in that kind of technology should check that out... it's a fairly well functioning network ATM but the main coder is putting off any big announcements until he's sure it's ready.

You're absolutely right. We, as informed citizens more able to grasp the implications of technology than Joe Sixpack, are the only ones who will be able to bring this problem to light. We are also the only ones that will be able to solve this problem, if it hasn't gone too far already. It's very clear that the government has become very well practiced at spinning their stories and power-plays so that they appeal to anyone who doesn't look past the surface. There are very frightening implications behind the fact that the NSA wiretapping dropped off the public radar (mainstream news and conversation) so quickly. I am not one to quickly don my tinfoil hat, but damn it, it sure does look like the government is inching closer and closer to the point that it will become too good at steering the uninformed majority, and as a member of the informed minority, that is unacceptable to me.

I no longer feel comfortable with the level of privacy that is afforded to a citizen. The public internet is no longer a place where we can communicate ideas freely. If you feel the same, join me on http://www.i2p.net/, on the truly anonymous IRC network, in the channel #privacy

The government needs to be checked by the people. If the government becomes too drunk with control before the people try to fix it, the conflict will be a violent one, and the people will lose. We need to regain control before it's too late.

You're absolutely right. We, as informed citizens more able to grasp the implications of technology than Joe Sixpack, are the only ones who will be able to bring this problem to light. We are also the only ones that will be able to solve this problem, if it hasn't gone too far already. It's very clear that the government has become very well practiced at spinning their stories and power-plays so that they appeal to anyone who doesn't look past the surface. There are very frightening implications behind the fact that the NSA wiretapping dropped off the public radar (mainstream news and conversation) so quickly. I am not one to quickly don my tinfoil hat, but damn it, it sure does look like the government is inching closer and closer to the point that it will become too good at steering the uninformed majority, and as a member of the informed minority, that is unacceptable to me.

I no longer feel comfortable with the level of privacy that is afforded to a citizen. The fact that we're moving from "default private" to "default public" is horrific. The public internet is no longer a place where we can communicate ideas freely. If you feel the same, join me on http://www.i2p.net/, on the truly anonymous IRC network, in the channel #privacy

The government needs to be checked by the people. If the government becomes too drunk with control before the people try to fix it, the conflict will be a violent one, and the people will lose. We need to regain control before it's too late.

No offence, but if all the people who posted comments like this were helping with / donating to projects like Freenet 0.7 and i2p we would probably have fairly robust and usable strong anonymity / censorship resistance networks by now.

Fight against this authoritarian bullshit sure, but we badly need to prepare for the preservation of freedom in a 'soft' police state, because that's where we're heading right now.

There is no such thing as anonymous file sharing.

These guys don't agree.

Which one of the current anonymous methods of p2p is the best at the moment? I know that i2p does not claim complete anonymity at the moment but at least to me it seems like the best alternative.

• Tor: Onion-based routing that acts as a proxy layer between the client computer and the Tor network. http://tor.eff.org/

• I2P: Also known as the Invisible Internet Project. The network is regarded as a message based system. http://www.i2p.net/

• FreeNet: is a distributed information and storage retrieval system designed to address the concerns of privacy. Freenet is designed to be anonymous and totally peer to peer. http://freenetproject.org/

• GNUnet: is a P2P network that can support many different forms of peer-to-peer applications. http://gnunet.org/

There are other programs and if you do not want your "private details" known then you would be wise to use them. In addition, anyone who thinks their private data that is held by organisations and government departments is safe whether there is a "Data Protection Act" or not then they should think twice for example the "National Security Agency eavesdropping on Americans incident". This is not the first time nor will it be the last time that such incidents will occur. Without being anonymous, we can never have true freedom of speech.

Ever heard of i2p?

[ Amendment IV ]
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Want to read my stuff? Go ahead and crack it - no warrant necessary.

Get the rabbit installed on a machine behind your firewall
==> http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
Faster than freenet
==> http://www.i2p.net/
Encrypt Jabber
==> http://www.vanemery.com/Linux/Jabber/jabberd.html
Onion Routing
==> http://tor.eff.org/
Emerging Network To Reduce Orwellian Potency Yield
==> http://entropy.stop1984.com/
Free Internet telephony
==> http://skype.com/
GNU-ified P2p
==> http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/


DO NOT DENY yourself about 2 hours @ InfoAnarchy.org
OMG! ==> http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Pag e
LearnLearnLearnLearn ==> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptography

=================EMAIL ENCRYPTION===============
GPG (Free PGP)
==> http://gnupg.org/
Integrated with Thunderbird
==> http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
Mutt can't be beat as a mailreader and integrates GPG wonderfully.
==> http://mutt.blackfish.org.uk/
==> http://www.mutt.org/links.html
==> http://wiki.mutt.org/index.cgi?UserPages

!!! Please do not immediately send newly created keys to the keyservers (as many HOWTOs instruct new users to). They are already overflowing with "test keys" and other people's experiments from over the years THAT HAVE NO EXPIRATION and will never be deleted. These keys are "orphans" and most will never be used. As keyservers sync together, and most keys are never deleted once submitted - GET YOUR KEY SETUP CORRECTLY AND HAVE PRACTICE WITH IT BEFORE SENDING IT OFF TO THE KEYSERVERS!!! Otherwise storage requirements will continue to grow and using these in the future will become more difficult FOR ALL. Please, if you are just starting out with PGP or GPG or GnuPG or anything similar (the last two are in fact the same thing) use manual key distribution to begin (ascii armor your public key with


$ gpg --export --armor my@email.address.org

and copy and paste it into an email body or attach it to an email


$ gpg --export --armor my@email.address.org > myPubKey.txt

to gain practice with GPG before uploading your key. This way if you need to create another you won't have uploaded your mistakes. Many choices need to be made and it's worth getting things right before "going public" with your new digital ID. Experiment with yourself and a few different email accounts or with some friends first.)

SET AN EXPIRATION OF 2-5 YEARS OR SO AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR PREFERENCES THE WAY YOU LIKE THEM BEFORE SENDING TO A KEYSERVER! Better yet is to HOST YOUR

tor completely anonymizes web traffic, and azureus supports it: http://tor.eff.org/ http://azureus.sourceforge.net/doc/AnonBT/Tor/howt o_0.5.htm http://archives.seul.org/or/talk/Jun-2005/msg00075 .html And i2p anonymous network: http://www.i2p.net/ http://azureus.sourceforge.net/plugin_details.php? plugin=azneti2p&docu=1#1 Please note that you really should only use it for the tracker and http traffic. Or just keep using encrypted headers.

1. Parents are presently concerned about kids accessing unwholesome stuff - in the absence of government/isp-level censoring, many parents are actually doing the unthinkable - Spending Time With Their Kids
2. Kids love breaking rules, so the possibility of accessing illicit material will become more attractive
3. Two new words will be added to kids' vocabularies: CGI and proxy
4. For every cgi web proxy the ISPs detect and block, two more will spring up in its place.
5. Meanwhile, parents and teachers will doze off in a false sense of security that Big Nanny State is keeping their kids safe, while the kids meanwhile are actually seeing stuff that's as bad as ever, maybe worse, with much less parental oversight and guidance than before.

Don't forget i2p.

http://tor.eff.org
http://www.i2p.net
Set up a server in tor or i2p, log nothing.

You wouldn't be talking about i2p, the site linked in your sig, now would you? I hope the lead dev doesn't bite your head off...

The goal is not to take all our freedoms and privacies all at once. They just want to get the ball rolling. They will ask the ISPs to log a totally unreasonable amount of data knowing they will settle for a lesser but still privacy killing amount.

Well, I guess I'll have to stick to sending all everything throughOnion Routing proxies like i2p and tor.

That'll be a real shame.
--
Need Referals? The ref stops here

And the problem with onion routing is that it is neither high-bandwidth or low-latency - just anonymous. Sharing files over Tor is a blatant misuse - but tracker comm over it is perfectly valid (Azureus already has a plugin - though I like dht better).

And the problem with onion routing is that it is neither high-bandwidth or low-latency - just anonymous. Sharing files over Tor is a blatant misuse - but tracker comm over it is perfectly valid (Azureus already has a plugin - though I like dht better).

Sure, you can never get absolute anonymity, but that's not a problem. All you need is "good enough" anonymity, and that most certainly IS achievable.
If the cost of breaking anonymity, either in processing time or in required resources is high enough as to make it basically impractical, then your anonymity is probably good enough.
I2P is close to that stage already, and is expected to be quite a bit stronger by the next major release

Oops... never mind.

http://www.i2p.net/how_networkcomparisons

Yea, and the design seems a bit like it is on a shaky foundation. It is not anonymous as it claims, but seems to be more targeted towards plausible deniability. If you read their little explanation you'll see that they don't say that one peer will never know the ip of another peer, but rather they simply claim that lets say for instance the publisher can always claim the bouncer spoofed his IP. Technically I guess it makes sense, but in court who knows how it would hold up. I can send you a file right now with a spoofed IP, that doesn't mean I won't get caught. In my oppinion there are better networks out there already for true anonymous file trading such as Mute and Ants. Quite honestly, I'd be weary of using this program as it is, especially if you really need to be anonymous. I'm waiting for the next generation of bit torrent to be built on something like i2p which would imho be awesome. If I misinterpreted Rodi's explanation please let me know.
Regards,
Steve

This would be the first step in the evolution to anonymous p2p, it's a good compromise, and way better than the current method, where everything is done in plain view. If (or more likely, when) the thought police starts attacking this, _then_ we can move to the fully paranoid networks.

Other anonymous filesharing systems currently avaliable/in development

MUTE
ANTS p2p
GNUNet

and not specifically filesharing, but the I2P anonymity layer allows for anonymous bittorrent amongst other things.

Of these, I've found I2P is excellent, although requires a little time investment in setup, and MUTE seems quite promising - speeds are reasonable for an anonymous p2p system, but the user base is currently tiny. I've not had too much luck with ANTS, and haven't tried GNUNet

More info on the I2P (anonymous internet) at www.i2p.net

What's needed is some kind of distributed HTTP overnet that works; that can handle dynamic content semi-intelligently, and MUCH faster than freenet/frost sites.

Something like i2p?

1. O(1) scheduler
2. Freenet, TOR, I2P
3. Bittorrent
4. Kademlia (as applied in Azureus)
5. Plugger
6. Autocorrelated music downloads (iRate radio)
7. TiVo (Code is GPLed)
8. "Mindstorms" (less earthshattering, but a good example)
9. The concept of the Wiki
10. The Scientific Method