Anonymous P2P
From Academic Kids
An anonymous P2P computer network is a particular type of peer-to-peer network in which the users and their nodes are pseudonymous by default. The primary difference between regular and anonymous networks is in the routing method of their respective network architectures. These networks allow for unfettered free flow of information, legal or otherwise.
The P2P community's interest in anonymous P2P has increased rapidly in recent years for many reasons, including distrust of government (especially in undemocratic regimes), and digital imprimatur. Such a network may also appeal to those wishing to share copyrighted music files illegally - the Recording Industry Association of America has successfully tracked and threatened to sue some users on non-anonymous P2P networks.
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Anonymous P2P as a misnomer
The name anonymous P2P is somewhat of a misnomer. This is so since by design a network node must be pseudonymous since it must have an "address" at which it can be reached by other peer nodes in order to exchange data. However, usually this address, especially on anonymous networks, does not contain any directly identifiable information. Thus a user is highly, but not completely, anonymous. (in friend-to-friend networks, only your friends can know that your address is used to exchange files).
As well, when receiving data on any network it must come from somewhere and data must have been requested by someone. The anonymity comes from the idea that no one knows who requested the information as it is difficult—if not impossible—to tell if people requested the data for themselves or simply requested the data on behalf of another person. The end result is that everyone on an anonymous network acts as a universal sender and universal receiver to maintain anonymity.
If people are only universal receivers and do not send, then one would know that the information they were requesting was for themselves only, removing any plausible denability that they were the recipients (and consumers) of the information. Thus, in order to remain anonymous, one must ferry information for others on such a network.
Uses of P2P
There are many personal uses of anonymous P2P technology which include: anonymous websurfing to prevent the tracking of visitors; blocking governments from collecting lists of website visitors; circumvent censorship by employers, ISPs, schools and government; protecting whistleblowers.
Governments are also interested in anonymous P2P technology. The United States Navy is financing the development of Free Haven's Onion Routing "TOR" for politically sensitive negotiations and to aid in hiding the identity of government employees for intelligence gathering work.
The philosophy of anonymous P2P
There are several arguments made by individuals as to why they consider anonymous P2P applications desirable and in some cases necessary to freedom of speech and the free flow of information.
One argument is that true freedom of speech, especially on controversial subjects, is difficult or impossible unless individuals can speak anonymously. If anonymity was not offered, then they could be subject to threat or reprisal for voicing an unpopular view. This is one reason why voting is done by secret ballot in many democracies, to prevent this kind of intimidation.
Consequences of P2P anonymity
Pornography trading is common on anonymous P2P networks, and some believe that the networks aid terrorism. There are several responses to these criticisms, one being that information is neutral and that it is people acting on the information that is good or evil. A second is that these current issues are examples of moral panics, and that if anonymous peer-to-peer networks had been around in the 1950s or 1960s, they might have been targeted for carrying information about civil rights or anarchism.
Other issues include:
- Difficult or impossible to uphold laws that can be broken through P2P networks. This could lead to the breakdown of intellectual property. Copyright could be safely ignored (though see digital rights management)
- With anonymous money, it becomes possible to arrange anonymous markets where one can buy and sell just about anything anonymously. Assassination markets would be the dark side of this. The transfer of physical goods between buyer and seller may compromise anonymity, however.
- It is easy to publish any information you want without the possibility of having your physical identity revealed. This could be used to openly publish information that governments forbids, like child pornography, but also other controversial information which the government wants to keep hidden like details about corruption issues.
- Anonymous money could be used to avoid tax collection. That could lead to a movement towards anarcho-capitalism. It is highly unlikely that all necessary transactions could be done anonymously, however; if nothing else, a government could still rely on property taxes.
But some friend-to-friend networks allow you to control what kind of files your friends exchange with your node, in order to stop them from exchanging files that you disapprove of.
Overall, anonymous peer to peer networks make it impossible to hinder the spread of information. Digital money inside a banking computer system could be considered to be just information.
Drawbacks in current Anonymous P2P networks
There are a variety of drawbacks in the current design of many anonymous p2p applications and networks. The primary one being that it is difficult or impossible to hide the fact you are running such an application meaning that a government could simply outlaw its use to prevent the free flow of information.
Detection of the use of these applications could be done by a person's ISP through the use of nonstandard ports like https or pop-ssl by default (this solution, along with using a layer of standard ssl, would be a very simple form of steganography). Traffic analysis of all your links by your ISP could easily show that you automatically forward some documents. Solution: even when the links are inactive, send random padding bytes.
In countries where strong crypto is forbidden, serious steganography should be used.
Anonymous P2P clients
In Japan, the anonymous P2P clients Winny and its successor Share are the most popular filesharing clients in the country.
In the United States, Freenet is a mildly popular P2P network that is used as an anonymous, P2P version of the World Wide Web. Other, lesser known filesharing clients include:
- Azureus was the first Java BitTorrent client that made it possible to switch to anonymous mode on the I2P and Tor (anonymous network).
- ANts P2P is a software that improves fast. Allows P2P file sharing and HTTP publishing/consulting. The chat feature is not anonymous.
- Entropy was written in response to Freenet. It accomplishes the same task, and has the same interface, but the internal implementation is very different, it's written in C, it claims to be much faster, and easy on the computer's resources. However, entropy is no longer in development.
- Free Haven
- GNUnet
- I2P
- JetiAnts (http://www.jetiants.tk)
- MFC Mute ,written in C,
- Napshare ,written in wxWidgets, is a client of the MUTE and so called KEY network.
- Mnet
- Mojo nation
- MUTE
- Nodezilla
See also
- F2F networks
External links
- Anonymous-p2p.org (http://www.anonymous-p2p.org/)
- Planet Peer Portal (http://www.planetpeer.de/)
- Planet Peer Board (http://board.planetpeer.de/)
- Planet Peer Wiki (http://www.planetpeer.de/wiki/)
