Re: Proposal of a new hidden wiki

["Josh McFarlane" <josh.mcfarlane@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/8/07, Ringo Kamens <2600denver@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> I appreciate the concern, but I think that while freenet is a viable
> option and certainly there should be a backup on it, tor users need a
> central link cache (so they can use the tor hidden network). I think
> that tor is the right network for unbreakable hidden website,
> especially if we use redundant services (through RAID-over-network?).
> The reason we can do this on the "real internet" is that it would get
> censored. Really quickly. Many countries have laws banning such
> activities or linking to certain sites, like cryptography sites, which
> is why tor links must be linked to from a hidden wiki.

The problem is setting up a system that is easy to replicate, but at
the same time immune to attacks.

If we attempted to implement an automated distributed service
function, where you could have multiple sites under the same key,
you'd have to have some method to prevent an attacker from simply
launching a massive amount of sites under this key to destroy it. 1000
fake sites would cause probably cause the load balancer to refer to
the fake sites the majority of the time, effectively take it off line.

Perhaps the best way to do a distributed service like this would be to
allow it to have a list of sites that it allows to substitute for
itself.

So, if three people wanted to host the Wiki, they would first have to
set up a method to keep all 3 wikis current.

Then, all three could launch their wikis. After the service was
operational, they could update their service definition with 'links'
to the other 2 services. Anytime someone requested one of the
services, it would randomly choose between any of the listed.

This would require the least amount of change but allow a basic
multiple-backend service to go up without allowing it to be
compromised by an attacker.

One could argue that you could also put the replication into Tor, but
I think that may be too complex to integrate directly.

Any ideas / comments?

-- 
Thanks,
Josh McFarlane
http://www.joshmcfarlane.com