Re: [GNUnet-developers] email-like service atop of GNUnet?

[Ivan Shmakov]

>>>>> Christian Grothoff <address@hidden> writes:
>>>>> On 10/21/2012 05:59 PM, Ivan Shmakov wrote:

[…]

 >> There may be a privacy issue to consider, BTW.  Namely, I've got an
 >> impression that keyword searches are, to an extent, “public”, in the
 >> sense that a node learns at least a part of the searches it takes
 >> part on behalf of the other nodes (and perhaps the results of such
 >> searches as well.)  And if such a search contains a public key
 >> (which corresponds to a particular identity), that may be a problem.

 > You might want to read

 > https://gnunet.org/bugs/view.php?id=2564

 > which still needs to be implemented.

        ACK, thanks for the pointer.  The proposal seems sensible,
        though I doubt that I'll be able to participate in its
        implementation.

[…]

 >> Conceptually, we already have a facility to transfer arbitrary
 >> binary data, and a symmetric key-encrypted message is certainly such
 >> a data.  What we'd need is the format for the “pointer” messages,
 >> containing a reference to the (encrypted) message, as well as
 >> linking public keys to public key-encrypted symmetric keys of the
 >> recipients (and, perhaps, the public key of the sender, and an
 >> encrypted digest of the original, unencrypted data, to form a
 >> digital signature), like (speaking X.680):

 > You've lost me here.  You've never fully explained what you're trying
 > to do.  Based on what you write below, I guess it is some variant of
 > pseudonymous E-mail?  If so, in what way does Mixminion not solve
 > your problem?

        Its documentation is somewhat scarce, but it doesn't seem to
        implement a routing scheme to get through restricted topologies'
        networks.  (Unlike GNUnet.)  Also to note is that I'm more
        interested in a solution that provides strong message integrity
        (authenticity) checking, rather than anonymity.

        I believe that contemporary e-mail has a few major issues,
        in particular:

        • inefficient routing and delivery — the routing is often
          “static”, and there doesn't seem to be a way to make it adapt
          to the location of the recipient (rather, the routing takes
          into account the location of the recipient's mailbox server);
          for delivery, even if the link used is 8 bit-clean, most of
          the ASCII “control” codes have to be escaped, thus increasing
          the overall message size (by ⅓, should Base64 be employed);
          delivery to multiple recipients is also inefficient;

        • spam — which forced e-mail, while initially simple, to evolve
          into a quite complex system, with various tricks to fight
          unsolicited mail traffic;

        • due to the aforementioned complexity, it becomes infeasible
          for individuals and small businesses to deploy their own
          e-mail infrastructure, and forces them to rely on major e-mail
          providers instead, raising privacy issues among others.

        Thus, the goal is simple: a complete replacement for e-mail.
        (And I suspect that the very same application could then replace
        netnews, mailing lists, Web fora, and even bug trackers and
        wikis.)

        The basic ideas to remedy the issues above are:

        • use public key-based identifiers as “mailbox addresses”, and
          allow the user to “publish” the list of preferred hosts for
          the senders to “post” the messages sent to him to; certainly,
          it should be possible for such lists to be maintained
          automatically, perhaps only requiring confirmation to use
          user's private key to publish them;

        • establish a loose web of trust, thus making spam largely
          infeasible; (eventually, one's web of trust will be large
          enough for the vast majority of incoming mail to possess a
          signature of a “friend of a friend”);

        • given that the routing can now largely be user-driven,
          switching to, from, or between major “new mail” providers
          would be a non-issue.

        My guess is that both Secure Share and FreeTalk (check, e. g.,
        [1]) are intended to solve roughly the same issues.  So,
        perhaps, working on a similar solution on top of GNUnet routing
        (or some other) would be a duplication of effort.  Or may be
        not, for there still may be a lot of room for exploration.

[…]

[1] http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.network.freenet.devel/28953

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