I realise that Peer to Peer networks don't offer total anonominity yet but they can do and therefore will do one day.
Using a third party as a proxy and hiding the data from that third party using public key encryption, you can prevent the recipient from knowing the sender's IP address and vice-versa.
The only weakness in this system would be if $COPYRIGHT_CARTEL owned the recipient machine AND the third party machine. The chances of this are extremely low - and if we were really bothered about it we could add more proxies to lower the probability further.
It wouldn't slow the transfer down too much - the client would choose a third party which was willing to proxy the data and had optimal bandwidth to do it.
Maybe such a client could have an option in the preference menu for how many proxies you wanted to use giving the user an option between anonomity and speed.
If you take a look at the spec for the Gnutella Protocol, you will understand where all this "extra" traffic is coming from.
I've been messing about with gnutella on and off for about 3 months now, I hope to make an open source functional client eventually. It's quite an interesting area because there is so much work to be done on security and efficiency.
The only problem is that P2P networks are never going to be as efficient as centralised server networks and certainly never as fast. I suppose a cynic (like me!) could blame the entertainment industry for forcing out server based file sharing networks.
But I believe the death of server based file sharing is a good thing. The bad side of the server-client model is that it can (and usually is) controlled by an authority and its security is often obscurity based (the obsure bit being hiden on the server). Peer to Peer networks however, offer total anonominity as well as giving users access to the whole component.
Peer to Peer networks are the next step in securing freedom of information on the internet and preventing government control.
It's when Peer to Peer mobile phone networks are produced that things will really get interesting....
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I realise that Peer to Peer networks don't offer total anonominity yet but they can do and therefore will do one day.
Using a third party as a proxy and hiding the data from that third party using public key encryption, you can prevent the recipient from knowing the sender's IP address and vice-versa.
The only weakness in this system would be if $COPYRIGHT_CARTEL owned the recipient machine AND the third party machine. The chances of this are extremely low - and if we were really bothered about it we could add more proxies to lower the probability further.
It wouldn't slow the transfer down too much - the client would choose a third party which was willing to proxy the data and had optimal bandwidth to do it.
Maybe such a client could have an option in the preference menu for how many proxies you wanted to use giving the user an option between anonomity and speed.
I've been messing about with gnutella on and off for about 3 months now, I hope to make an open source functional client eventually. It's quite an interesting area because there is so much work to be done on security and efficiency.
The only problem is that P2P networks are never going to be as efficient as centralised server networks and certainly never as fast. I suppose a cynic (like me!) could blame the entertainment industry for forcing out server based file sharing networks.
But I believe the death of server based file sharing is a good thing. The bad side of the server-client model is that it can (and usually is) controlled by an authority and its security is often obscurity based (the obsure bit being hiden on the server). Peer to Peer networks however, offer total anonominity as well as giving users access to the whole component.
Peer to Peer networks are the next step in securing freedom of information on the internet and preventing government control.
It's when Peer to Peer mobile phone networks are produced that things will really get interesting....