RE: First go at directory server details

["Lucky Green" <shamrock@cypherpunks.to>]

Arma wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 12, 2003 at 04:18:24AM -0800, Lucky Green wrote:
> > Obviously, there will need to be more than 4 directory servers to 
> > ensure reliability and accessibility to the entire network.
> 
> How many are you thinking we'd need?

It depends on how long old clients that shipped with ancient directories
are anticipated to stay around. I happen to believe in the occasional
protocol up-rev to force out old, broken, software. Others may disagree.

If directory servers can, with sufficient consensus, update the
directory server hints maintained by the clients, less servers might be
required than would otherwise.

My intuition is that there should be about 8-10 directory servers for
redundancy.

[...]
> This appears to contradict what Len wants. He wants users to 
> be able to get directory information even when consensus 
> can't be reached. So they have something to work with, even 
> if it's not as certain.
> 
> (Am I reading this right?)

If preventing segmentation based on different information possessed by
different clients is the objective, then all clients need to have the
same information. What am I missing?

> > I suspect the search to the solution to this challenge may stand to 
> > benefit from examining the existing research in the field of secure 
> > multi-party computation, which attempts to address this 
> very problem.
> 
> Agreed. I haven't looked at DMPC lately. I glanced through 
> some papers a while ago, and they hadn't come up with any 
> more answers than we already have. Any pointers on where to look?

Trying to locate the list of papers to read... I got it somewhere...

--Lucky