$250 Bounty Offered (Was $2000-$2500) - page 3.

gene

sr. member

Activity: 252

Merit: 250

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: gene on January 29, 2011, 04:51:32 AM

OT: I am interested to know how you can claim "20+ years of experience with Linux and FreeBSD," since Torvalds didn't even begin to work on Linux until 1991 and FreeBSD wasn't released until late 1993.

LOL, I've been wondering when someone would spot this one.

There was minix and xenix around in 1990-1991 as well as bunch of other unixes, I kind of counted them in. Some FreeBSD testing code was floating around well before the original release. If you search some old email archives and FIDO 'echos' around 1991 you might be able to spot a few posts of mine here and there, particularly if you can read Russian. Keyword 5010/47 might fetch some hits too.

Fair enough. I haven't heard of fidonet for a long, long time.

Mike Hearn

legendary

Activity: 1526

Merit: 1134

Bear in mind that quite a few oppressive regimes actually own or can probably obtain SSL root certificates. I don't think of SSL as protecting me from governments and I'd suggest nobody else does either.

I understand and agree with what you're trying to do here. I also give you massive credit for being willing to put money where your mouth is. But beating an adversary with DPI isn't going to be easy - at the very least, somebody should put together a design doc or paper explaining their threat model and solution before you pay for it.

UPnP support on the other hand is a no brainer. I'd also be willing to contribute some coin (dollars/bits) towards implementation of that in the official client. The P2P network needs to be as dense as possible and using UPnP to reconfigure WiFi NATs is the best way to achieve a quick boost.

gene

sr. member

Activity: 252

Merit: 250

Quote from: ?? on ??

Quote from: jgarzik on January 29, 2011, 02:28:17 AM

Quote from: theymos on January 29, 2011, 02:23:25 AM

Quote from: The Madhatter on January 28, 2011, 10:00:11 PM

2. On first run Bitcoin should select a random high TCP port (>1024) and save it to the bitcoin.conf. (something like "listenerport=8972"). This port should contain the new SSL-only listener. Do we need to keep the old port 8333 listener running for compatibility for a while?

The official client won't make outgoing connections to non-standard ports, so this would not be good for the network.

This is a deficiency in the official client, and should be fixed.

Agree. However, that random port stuff you are proposing with all the windows specific UPnP BS is probably not such a great idea. I, personally would prefer that client simply takes on command line IP address and port to listen. Simple, easy and portable solution.

We should identify what core functionality bitcoin needs and use existing tools to extend how we use it, the way Unix tools do.

OT: I am interested to know how you can claim "20+ years of experience with Linux and FreeBSD," since Torvalds didn't even begin to work on Linux until 1991 and FreeBSD wasn't released until late 1993.

jgarzik

legendary

Activity: 1596

Merit: 1100

Quote from: theymos on January 29, 2011, 02:23:25 AM

Quote from: The Madhatter on January 28, 2011, 10:00:11 PM

2. On first run Bitcoin should select a random high TCP port (>1024) and save it to the bitcoin.conf. (something like "listenerport=8972"). This port should contain the new SSL-only listener. Do we need to keep the old port 8333 listener running for compatibility for a while?

The official client won't make outgoing connections to non-standard ports, so this would not be good for the network.

This is a deficiency in the official client, and should be fixed.

theymos

administrator

Activity: 5222

Merit: 13032

Quote from: The Madhatter on January 28, 2011, 10:00:11 PM

1. Bitcoin should run its P2P operations in straight SSL. It should look like FF talking to Apache to any DPI. See the Tor source code. Most of the work is done already.

Bitcoin is entirely different. Tor has a few centralized servers that can distribute certificates, but Bitcoin does not. You could use encryption without authentication, but this would not prevent men-in-the-middle from intercepting your traffic: it would just be obfuscation. Including secure encryption might be impossible without some sort of friend-to-friend system.

Quote

2. On first run Bitcoin should select a random high TCP port (>1024) and save it to the bitcoin.conf. (something like "listenerport=8972"). This port should contain the new SSL-only listener. Do we need to keep the old port 8333 listener running for compatibility for a while?

The official client won't make outgoing connections to non-standard ports, so this would not be good for the network.

Quote

I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel here (Tor).

Just use Tor with Bitcoin, then. They've already got this stuff solved.

tcatm

sr. member

Activity: 337

Merit: 285

1) SSL would require all clients to upgrade.

2) Random TCP ports could be annoying for users running other services on their computers on certain ports when Bitcoin decides to use them.

3) UPnP would really be useful with all those NAT gateways.

The Madhatter

hero member

Activity: 490

Merit: 511

My avatar pic says it all

Hello all,

I am offering a personal bounty of ~~$2K USD~~ $250 USD for the following features to be added into Bitcoin. I'd code them myself, but time restraints won't permit me to. Let me hire you.

~~1. Bitcoin should run its P2P operations in straight SSL. It should look like FF talking to Apache to any DPI. See the Tor source code. Most of the work is done already.~~ REPEALED - See discussion.

2. On first run Bitcoin should select a random high TCP port (>1024) and save it to the bitcoin.conf. (something like "listenerport=8972"). This port should contain the new SSL-only listener. Do we need to keep the old port 8333 listener running for compatibility for a while? REPEALED - The port number should be selectable by the user; not random. See discussion.

3. UPnP support. Bitcoin should port forward the chosen high TCP port automatically. ~~(Possibly port 8333/tcp too, if the answer to the question above is "Yes").~~ The GUI/command line should have a UPnP off/on toggle. It should be "on" by default. $250 Bounty still offered. UPnP should be off by default on the Linux build.

It's just a matter of time before Bitcoin is blocked in all of "those" countries that have oppressive regimes. We need to resist stuff now before Bitcoin gains traction. I'm not looking to reinvent the wheel here (Tor). I just want to make it more resistant to DPI blocking-related attacks. Better off with a distribution of Bitcoin with Tor included. Hopefully those under repressive regimes already know about/use Tor. Having Tor installed offers other benefits besides Bitcoin.

~~If these 3 features are implemented in the next 30 days, I'll throw in an additional $500 USD. Payable in Bitcoin or in pre-loaded VISA cards from Bitcoin2CC - your choice.~~

The Madhatter

Topic: $250 Bounty Offered (Was $2000-$2500) - page 3. (Read 6656 times)