Re: [GNUnet-developers] question on how to enforce anonymity

[Christian Grothoff]

On Tuesday 13 April 2004 04:41, j-t muyl wrote:
> Hi,
> I'd like to know if gnuNET allows users to be in connection ONLY with
> trusted friends (only with IRL known people for example). Like this, we
> could make a very strong network, your IP adress will be known by your
> close friends, and that's all...You request, or a file transfert will be
> routed trough nodes between trusted links from the sender to the receiver,
> and no one else that your friends will know that you use gnunet...
>
> I don't know if gnunet implement this feature, it could be useful and I can
> help dev...

The simplest way would be to add an option that disables receiving new HELO 
advertisements (expiration-refresh should be allowed) from other peers and 
then just manually (IRL) exchanging the files from data/hosts.  That way, the 
respective peers would be limited to hosts that were explicitly added to 
their data/hosts file.  I've committed (and attached) a 2-line patch that 
adds the respective option (but read the comment: no NAT, change 
HOSTLISTURL).

But I would not call such a feature "enforcing anonymity" since you're now 
trusting a small circle of "friends" and possibly are making a traffic 
analysis easier since you are limited in your connections.

Christian

private-network.patch
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