[Author Prev][Author Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Thread Index]

Re: [tor-talk] Full integration with bitcoin (suggestion / feature request)



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Check out OpenLibernet (http://openlibernet.org) They suggest a design
for a fee-based mesh network. It's worth some studying, just to grasp
the complexity of the problem.

Also, you will probably find little enthusiasm from Tor community
for this.

What actual problem does the fee-based network solve? Free market is
the best mechanism* to allocate scarce resources. Bandwidth is not
that scarce, while private and pseudonymous or anonymous Internet
access is not that desired (which is demonstrated clearly by how
almost anyone who knows about benefits of Tor, GNU or PGP doesn't even
bother trying). The lack of demand leads to the fact that Tor works
fine even without being terribly efficient. Nobody cares about
effective free market solution, and it may be that nobody will until
it's too late.

Thus, with a fee-based network, you target a rather narrow initial
audience---which is not bad at all in itself, but, it hence requires a
design far elaborate than something that can fit into a short
plain-text email message. And a *very* clear understanding why** you'd
want something better than Tor in its present state---not just
"because free market makes things better". Sure it does but 1) lots of
engineers currently in the distributed networking will disagree; 2) a
better thing will not necessarily survive unless it's so much better
that even a blind (which in our case would be a casual user)
will see it.

- ----

* A thermodynamic term would fit better but I'm close to being
ignorant in thermodynamics.

** Some examples: a) Tor is less secure than it could be because it is
not attractive enough for users to run its exit nodes; b) it is at
mild risk of extinction, for the same reason; c) running a BitTorrent
client via Tor is still regarded a bad idea; d) setting up an onion
server and advertising it is more difficult than it should be.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2.0.21 (MingW32)

iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJVQnFJAAoJEFrbru/Rghxvpd8H/3TJm8kxDHhkR9ezRs+glRv7
N4QNT/lsp510kjj6ygEY62orXd41yO9BcpIBUNUFCu3iM7kurd9OpW9swqn8HG2P
mY7X9Czg9oWsaXDmhZ9S/utjPk6X5FGOEZBiB8+jRiNoVq1BenYuFm5BWUtFe9Rd
UjO0QWm0WoquS9+eV3iBpMBYWGn6RReyw3sO5YcVmF5g5t9euhERpv2NRn4LEFU8
8fjGMrxY0VvEIEU08bdrafYJy1eLwM8ZHFuNFVxWmUnvRMyAspPTimRX8Uq/0FMf
jBbTkfND1uDTdZDtWBnYaxBag23djGFuhKE55L5AMe7oYQuoMCuhehdkKQfJfuw=
=0GHv
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
-- 
tor-talk mailing list - tor-talk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe or change other settings go to
https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-talk