Author

Topic: Protecting: Deep packet inp, Anon vs Open switch, Decentral dev, other languages (Read 1913 times)

full member
Activity: 218
Merit: 101
It is way to early in the research timeline, but I recently read that "fully homomorphic encryption" has recently been shown to be possible.  Currently it's incredibly slow, but if I understand it correctly, in the future it would be possible to have a bitcoin-like network that is end-to-end encrypted.  By this I mean that the blockchain and such could be fully encrypted, and transactions verified/audited but only in a one-way manner.  See http://blogs.teamb.com/craigstuntz/2010/03/18/38566/

If you guys think this is applicable to bitcoin in the future, I'd enjoy having a new thread to discuss the possibilities. 
hero member
Activity: 900
Merit: 1000
Crypto Geek
re: Private vs non-private


 Part of my point was that perhaps people like Mark Zuckerberg should perhaps (and only perhaps) have the option to choose a non-anonymous form of payment.

 If there was something like Bitcoin, but was very much open by design and not anonymous, but used by everyone, I argue that would be a good thing.

 However, the crucial reason why we have to have privacy is that the world isn't perfect like that. In reality the rich would retain the privacy probably and the poor would lose it, and be taxed higher, just as they are now.

The only thing that might stop that would be economics - the system that is open is cheaper.

 I don't think it's an either/or thing but it's the privacy of BC that could be the risk. Hence, I propose, why not have the same thing but very much not private as well. So that way no matter which side of the fence you are, at least you will still have a network if the private one comes under attack by the most powerful people in the world.

 What if you could flag your payment as public by design? That would be something very different. There are arguments for this, and for the first time ever Bitcoin could go that route, but it does not, choosing not to take that opportunity. Are we sure that's the right thing to do? In a way perhaps you already can, if there's a email address that the results are displayed to on a website.

This is where I don't have the answers. Is it best to be open?

I also want to head this philosophical argument off before it starts. Privacy opponents, ignorant of the imperfect world reality will still say `what have you got to hide`, a non starter argument that has been disproved so many times before.
Bad idea?
I don't have the answers, I'm just trying to think ahead here, how governments could react.

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a hidden monotone repository inside the anonymous i2p network

I hope so. And I think that has to be defended. Don't forget there are many other things in favour of liberty. First, the number of countries in the world, with different laws and so on.
However, I'd take no chances and I think it good to plan in advance, now. Recently we've seen the DNS seizures, which shouldn't have happened, along with the dominance of the US generally throwing it's weight about again with cultural arrogance and disrespect for borders of empire. I don't expect something like that to happen yet. But I believe something like it could if Bitcoin got to where many people would want it to be - ubiquitous.

I agree the signal can't be stopped. But it can be slowed.

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re: Languages.

Finally, remember what I say about languages. The great thing about the Anglophone oligarchy reign is the language barrier. Thus, getting Bitcoin into other languages has to be a great start to that one, the more alien to English, the better. Time for a Russian i2p experimental site, or a Spanish freenet site explaining how it works.

I couldn't find a single site in Spanish or Chinese that has really heard of Bitcoin - great oppotunity.

Chinese migrant workers would find Bitcoin extremely handy for getting micropayments to folks back home, as would all the other migrant communities... if only they knew about it. Thus, that is a direction I recommend if you speak another language and want to see Bitcoin do well and survive.
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 2301
Chief Scientist
Anything we could/should do to prepare for deep packet inspection?

I don't think that belongs in Bitcoin-- I like solutions like i2p or ssh tunneling that put encryption down at the lower network layer (where it belongs, in my humble opinion).

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Decentralised development. Perhaps a mirror to freenet might be good. Also, getting into other languages in different countries is important; completely separate development there too. If USA gets shut down perhaps .ru continues because most English speakers are ignorant to Russian, for example.

Are you worried about SourceForge and GitHub (the two 'official' trees) being forced, or deciding, to drop bitcoin?  At this point lots of developers have their own copies of the source code, I'm sure if that happened another site (maybe a hidden monotone repository inside the anonymous i2p network) would spring up.

They can't stop the signal...
full member
Activity: 308
Merit: 100
some form of encryption of the actual network data that is sent over like this no on can tell what IP is sending bitcoin data compared to other types of data?
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1100
Or in other words, there is no need for everyone on the local coffee shop wifi to know that I'm buying crazy sex toys from MadHatter's new shop.

MadHatter's new sex shop should be generating unique addresses per user every few days.

That doesn't address the privacy problem described at all.  People may observe an outgoing transaction for a specified amount.
legendary
Activity: 1232
Merit: 1076
Or in other words, there is no need for everyone on the local coffee shop wifi to know that I'm buying crazy sex toys from MadHatter's new shop.

MadHatter's new sex shop should be generating unique addresses per user every few days.
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1100
The P2P network needs to support SSL, for enhanced privacy.

For what? As far as I understand all transactions are public anyway, how would you else validate that person x paid person y and prevent double spending. SSL can even be worse for privacy, one part of SSL is cryptography, the other part is verification of identity.

My point is, what piece of information do you want to protect?

All transactions are public... but their origin network nodes are private to all except the initial P2P transaction receive points.

Or in other words, there is no need for everyone on the local coffee shop wifi to know that I'm buying crazy sex toys from MadHatter's new shop.

Anonymous SSL on some random free wifi is far preferable to Tor.
legendary
Activity: 1658
Merit: 1001
The P2P network needs to support SSL, for enhanced privacy.

For what? As far as I understand all transactions are public anyway, how would you else validate that person x paid person y and prevent double spending. SSL can even be worse for privacy, one part of SSL is cryptography, the other part is verification of identity.

My point is, what piece of information do you want to protect?
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1100
The P2P network needs to support SSL, for enhanced privacy.
legendary
Activity: 1658
Merit: 1001
So, how would DPI be used, filtering? Throw the whole stuff in ssl/tsl and DPI does not work any more. And random ports don't help against DPI.
Else tor is your friend.
hero member
Activity: 900
Merit: 1000
Crypto Geek


Anything we could/should do to prepare for deep packet inspection? Random port? More? If it's to be done with a breaking feature that should really be done at the same time as making that bootstrapping thing smaller.

Perhaps there should be switch to make a Bitcoin payment anonymous or very open. I mean, imagine is all banking was open by design? Just a thought. That way, if you had, for example, a network similar to Bitcoin but where authorities can see what is happening quiet clearly then if the anon one gets shut down at least you still have the open one still going, but at least you still got rid of the bank problem.

Decentralised development. Perhaps a mirror to freenet might be good. Also, getting into other languages in different countries is important; completely separate development there too. If USA gets shut down perhaps .ru continues because most English speakers are ignorant to Russian, for example.

So, what languages do we have here in the house here?
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