The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work • Hacker News Board

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#91

Post by mangeletti » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 2:23 AM UTC

pcl wrote: post #90

PhaseMage wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you arbitrarily define any large wire on a pole as being "centralized", then sure, but I wouldn't agree with that definition. For example, I can lease long distance point to point dark fiber for my personal use, and run whatever combination of wavelengths and protocols that I want on it. In the case where there is only one link between two towns, then the owner(s) of the switches at either end of that link will be…

I think mesh doesn't scale is a pretty valid network assumption, in the general case. So. Maybe an interesting question is: What sorts of applications and protocols will work in a mesh topology? That set might be interesting. For example, you could imagine big chunks of Nextdoor working well in a mesh topology, since it's already a geo-limited social graph by design.

I think the answer to your question is here today, if not that popular yet. Lambda.

After that, the next step might something as open and decentralized as Ethereum.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#92

Post by mangeletti » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 2:24 AM UTC

PhaseMage wrote: post #89

mangeletti wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a quick thought experiment (because my networking expertise is limited): Take a single computer at the edge of town A. It's the only machine in town A that can connect to the next town B, because of the distance between town A and town B. All traffic in town A now has to route through this machine to reach town B. How will a single machine achieve this? Even worse, what if the two towns are too far for any conne…

If you arbitrarily define any large wire on a pole as being "centralized", then sure, but I wouldn't agree with that definition. For example, I can lease long distance point to point dark fiber for my personal use, and run whatever combination of wavelengths and protocols that I want on it. In the case where there is only one link between two towns, then the owner(s) of the switches at either end of that link will be…

You mentioned a tunnel. That's exactly what I mean. If the Internet itself wants to constrain and control us, we can just create a new Internet inside of it, at their (e.g., ISPs, backbones) expense. The result is a system of protocols in communication standards that can be distributed across on trusted hardware, which lens itself well to a future, more open and distributed Internet, at a point when these types of things become illegal on the existing Internet. In other words, work with what we have for now, building up the necessary tools and infrastructure from the inside.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#93

Post by PhaseMage » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 4:48 AM UTC

arghnoname wrote: post #87

PhaseMage wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> private unless an eavesdropper was physically nearby. I completely agree with your post. I have an idea for how to resolve this via networking topology. Right now, TCP/IP seems to me to be an engine for centralizing power: Limited hop count and hierarchical address assignment leads to star topologies, leading to economies of scale that again support centralization. I propose a network protocol stack that encourages…

I think the typical approach to the bottleneck issue with regard to traffic analysis attacks is that the machines on the edges can act as mixes. They can essentially launder traffic from within their respective meshes so that any intermediary between them can't do attribution. Of course, you have to trust the mix! So what then? Then communication to them has to be encrypted and onion routed, and moreover, continuousl…

Thanks for the pointers, I'll look them up!

> The question is what benefits does the meshnet provide over the mixnet style schemes?

My Isochronous grid/mesh protocol is designed to operate at the network layer. The TCP/IP Internet has: * High and Unbounded Latency * Wasteful, Underused Links * Low Redundancy * A Tendency to Centralize Power * Choke-point Surveillance and Censorship * Disaster Vulnerabilities * Tragedy of the Commons

I think a mesh network with non-centralized per-byte pricing can make a big dent in all of these.

A meshnet built on top of a starnet is like trying to build a road network on top of a train network: It's not economically feasible and ultimately pointless.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#94

Post by PhaseMage » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 5:16 AM UTC

mangeletti wrote: post #92

PhaseMage wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you arbitrarily define any large wire on a pole as being "centralized", then sure, but I wouldn't agree with that definition. For example, I can lease long distance point to point dark fiber for my personal use, and run whatever combination of wavelengths and protocols that I want on it. In the case where there is only one link between two towns, then the owner(s) of the switches at either end of that link will be…

You mentioned a tunnel. That's exactly what I mean. If the Internet itself wants to constrain and control us, we can just create a new Internet inside of it, at their (e.g., ISPs, backbones) expense. The result is a system of protocols in communication standards that can be distributed across on trusted hardware, which lens itself well to a future, more open and distributed Internet, at a point when these types of th…

I want a mesh network that does to the TCP/IP Internet what the road network has done to the train network. The road networks reduced the barriers to entry in so many industries.

I only have Comcast as an option for broadband Internet. This is the direct result of the protocol's topology. This is power and control that no amount of protocols written on top of TCP/IP can break. We can keep wanting to have decentralized or non-centralized services, but I don't see it actually happening on the TCP/IP Internet: The economies of scale are too powerful too compete against.

If we tried to layer a road network exclusively on top of a rail network, we'd just have a less efficient rail network.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#95

Post by arghnoname » Sat, Dec 05, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

PhaseMage wrote: post #93

arghnoname wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the typical approach to the bottleneck issue with regard to traffic analysis attacks is that the machines on the edges can act as mixes. They can essentially launder traffic from within their respective meshes so that any intermediary between them can't do attribution. Of course, you have to trust the mix! So what then? Then communication to them has to be encrypted and onion routed, and moreover, continuousl…

Thanks for the pointers, I'll look them up! > The question is what benefits does the meshnet provide over the mixnet style schemes? My Isochronous grid/mesh protocol is designed to operate at the network layer. The TCP/IP Internet has: * High and Unbounded Latency * Wasteful, Underused Links * Low Redundancy * A Tendency to Centralize Power * Choke-point Surveillance and Censorship * Disaster Vulnerabilities * Traged…

I see. I'm not sure if all of these things are fundamental to TCP itself, but instead are economic and regulatory results. Something to think about. It's not my area so I don't have specific cites, but data centers are effectively meshes. I know there has been work on different ways to transit data within them other than stock TCP/IP. Network coding, for instance, is a pretty cool way to splat data among a whole bunch of interconnected people and UDP to all your peers is a good medium to do it over. There's also work on multipath TCP (MCTCP, others) to help utilize other idle links.

I'd check the literature on that, typically under the data center track at networking conferences.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#96

Post by nickpsecurity » Sun, Dec 13, 2015, 2:29 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #3

For anyone here who doesn't know who the author is, Phil Rogaway is one of the most important academic cryptographers; he's responsible for OAEP, PSS, OCB, UMAC, FPE, and the constructions behind XTS, the universal standard for disk encryption. The meat of the paper is in Sections 2 (where the unintended power dynamics of some modern academic crypto research projects is discussed) and 4 (where he provides suggestions…

It's a nice paper. Turns out, he grudgingly believes what I've been saying all along:

"I am not optimistic. The gure of the heroic cryptographer sweeping in to save the world from totalitarian surveillance is ludicrous. And in a world where intelligence agencies stockpile and exploit countless vulnerabilities, obtain CA secret keys, subvert software-update mechanisms, infltrate private companies with moles, redirect online discussions in favored directions, and exert enormous in uence on standards bodies, cryptography alone will be an ineectual response. At best, cryptography might be a tool for creating possibilities within contours circumscribed by other forces."

Exactly. Gotta deal with those "other forces," which are social and legal. Otherwise, the opponents vast resources work around the few that try to resist with the crypto. Doesn't stop many technical people from thinking crypto will magically save the day.