Group Thinks Anonymity Should Be Baked Into the Internet Itself Using Tor

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "David Talbot writes at MIT Technology review that engineers on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), an informal organization of engineers that changes Internet code and operates by rough consensus, have asked the architects of Tor to consider turning the technology into an Internet standard. If widely adopted, such a standard would make it easy to include the technology in consumer and business products ranging from routers to apps and would allow far more people to browse the Web without being identified by anyone who might be spying on Internet traffic. The IETF is already working to make encryption standard in all web traffic. Stephen Farrell believes that forging Tor into a standard that interoperates with other parts of the Internet could be better than leaving Tor as a separate tool that requires people to take special action to implement. 'I think there are benefits that might flow in both directions,' says Farrell. 'I think other IETF participants could learn useful things about protocol design from the Tor people, who've faced interesting challenges that aren't often seen in practice. And the Tor people might well get interest and involvement from IETF folks who've got a lot of experience with large-scale systems.' Andrew Lewman, executive director of Tor, says the group is considering it. 'We're basically at the stage of 'Do we even want to go on a date together?' It's not clear we are going to do it, but it's worth exploring to see what is involved. It adds legitimacy, it adds validation of all the research we've done.'"

Comments

interesting

[ganjadude]

I like the concept, however If we are going to turn tor into a standard would it not make more sense to start from scratch and create a new standard based on tor instead? for all of tors advantages there are numerous disadvantages.

Re:interesting

[jones_supa]

Let's still not forget that even if they end up designing a system which has some disadvantages, it would still be zillion times better than the current system. I just don't want this plan to be discontinued because some perfectionist nerd found some theoretical flaw from it, which can only be exploited by milking a Mongolian horse under full moon. That being said, of course we should still try to make as robust system as possible.

Re:interesting

[jellomizer]

They are disadvantage on almost every thing out there.

You can pine on the disadvantages, or you can rate them and see how to fix them, without cutting into an other advantage, or increasing an other disadvantage.

Normally if a protocol is Fast, it is unsecured. if it is Secure, it is slow. If it is complex and full featured, there are a lot of failures in implementation, if it is solid, there is a lot less features.

Life is full of tradeoffs, Stop pining on the road you didn't take, and work on the road you took to make it better.

Re:interesting

[Catbeller]

Where was all this concern about the debt when Reagan and Bush W. were cutting taxes, emptying the Social Security trust fund, and spending madly on military and spy agencies? When Reagan took office, the debt was 3 trillion. When Bush took office, it was 6 trillion. Clinton actually paid the debt down a half trillion in his final year: Bush immediately declared the surplus the people's money and gave the surplus back - then raised spending until he left the country another extra six 6 trillion in debt, with obligations to pay for wars and refund the money stolen from the SS trust fund since 1984. Republicans cut taxes and raise spending, run up the debt, have a rich man's party, then step back and let Democrats take all the blame and make the spending cuts and tax increases to try to repair the damage. This has been a thirty+ year tax-cut-based robbery. And always, always an excuse to cut aid to the poor, never the rich.

Re:This is people mistaking "want" with "will"

[d33tah]

I'm under the impression that you're confusing things. Noone said that you'd be forced to run an exit node, or even a relay. I believe it's just about making the protocol a standard.

Re:True or False

[jellomizer]

True,
Group think is the Opposite of Synergy.
Well it is the opposite outcome.

Unlike most people I actually know what Synergy means, and see how it is greatly misused.
Synergy is the process where a group of people working on a problem come up with a solution which is greater then the sum of what any individual could make.
Group Think is where the a group of people working on a problem come up with a solution which is less then the sum of what any individual could make.

Obtaining Synergy in an environment is very hard to achieve, because you need to make sure you don't have strong personalities trying pushing bad ideas thew their own force of will, or intimating position. People getting tired out from the process and settling on lesser ideas, reserved personalities not giving their ideas, and a slew of other things going on as well.

Group think is what usually comes out of these events, where the strongly supported stupid idea is forced down the thought, with issues not properly evaluated, and blank assumptions made.