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Tor: A JAP Replacement

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the trust-no-one dept.

kid_wonder writes "Wired is running an article describing an answer to this previous /. story. Packets are sent through a network of randomly selected servers each of which knows only its predecessor and successor. Packets are unwrapped by a symmetric encryption key at each server that peels off one layer and reveals instructions for the next downstream node. As a 'connection-based low-latency anonymous communication system,' Tor seems to be the answer to JAP to allow anonymous networking activities of all kinds."

3 of 266 comments (clear)

  1. Before you know it... by cytoman · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ... the RIAA and the MPAA will be all over this, denouncing it and crying foul!

    sigh...

  2. Not Like Freenet by gclef · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow. Lots of DefCon related stories.

    Anyway, for those asking, no, this isn't quite like Freenet. In TOR, you decide which points you want to send traffic through (and negotiate encryption keys with each one individually), and, unlike FreeNet, you can tunnel existing protocols over it (like, say http).

    There's a lot of promise here, but in his talk, he was looking for sites that had at least 1Mbps up & down speeds for nodes. This isn't quite like Peekabooty, in that right now they're not looking for everyone to run a middleman node.

  3. Re:Freenet? by HeghmoH · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What a crazy attitude to have. There are other reasons you'd need that much anonymity.

    First, your dismissal of people who live in China is incredibly inappropriate. Over a billion people live there, and you just dismissed them out of hand. And then there's the exile situation; what about somebody who's now living in the US who still can't speak out freely because of repercussions on friends/family back home? Do they simply not count?

    There are plenty of other reasons, though, all the way from "VP in Fortune 500 company wants to expose toxic waste problems without risking being found out as the source" to "I'm such an incredibly paranoid person that I don't want to risk the wrath of the US government for posting these funny pictures of Bush" all the way to the classic standby, "because I want to".

    I don't use Freenet, but I also don't simply assume that everybody who searches for perfect anonymity must be a reprehensible criminal.

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