Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet • Hacker News Board

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#181

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 8:00 PM UTC

yyzhero wrote: post #114

kodablah wrote: post #74

I understand the plan is to be open source, but can someone help me understand why it's not developed in the open? I mean, you can tell people you're not accepting external input at this stage, but why not let people watch it being developed? I can't think of any reason that doesn't make me think that the goal may be openness/transparency but not the practice. Or did I miss the link to the repo?

There is no code. This is a cash grab. The author politely states they needed review of white paper concepts, so no they are not sure it will even be worth writing. The idealology of decentralization also reforms the patent system, so this project will fall like other over hyped icos, will get normalized on listing. Probably a huge discount for "seed".

[deleted]

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#182

Post by woodandsteel » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 8:18 PM UTC

forapurpose wrote: post #37

saurik wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is absolutely our intention! While users who run nodes can choose to forward content to anywhere on the Internet, we want to provide people a feeling of control over the usage of their bandwidth, as we believe that (along with being paid to forward traffic!) will increase the number of people who are willing to provide bandwidth to the service. Being able to say "I am only willing to help users get to Wikipedia,…

> While users who run nodes can choose to forward content to anywhere on the Internet, we want to provide people a feeling of control ... Are you concerned that, 1. If node operators have the power to control content, they will be held responsible for the content by authorities? For example, consider a node operator in mainland China who allows access to criticism of President Xi. 2. Unpopular content will be censore…

There are only two options. One is all or nothing like tor: if you become a node you have to pass through everything. The other option is node operators can decide what they pass through.

With the tor model you get very few nodes, because most potential operators are afraid of being arrested and/or object to a lot of content. You don't get remotely as many nodes as you need to make the internet free and more safe.

With selection, you get many more nodes and, as saurik points out below, you still will have a few for material that some governments censor. So it seems to me a model with selection is the way to go.

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#183

Post by woodandsteel » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 8:24 PM UTC

kirillseva wrote: post #25

throwawaysml wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that purpose I would think optional whitelisting would make more sense. Instead of spyware lists you subscribe to in uBlock Origin, you would subscribe to a vetted, whitelist of known to be generally acceptable Orchid content. Others might want to have empty filter list to be a complete transit/peer. Therefore I don't think there's much room for users who want to blacklist but are not rather looking for a whiteli…

If you're only using a "stable whitelist" of websites on the internet then you're not the target audience

I may be wrong, but my impression is they have more than one target audience. They want to hit the whole public, but also smaller groups who are having problems like government internet censorship.

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#184

Post by QAPereo » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 8:27 PM UTC

g_simonsson wrote: post #116

confounded wrote: post #76

Why were venture capitalists interested in funding this? What do they get out of it? How and when do you intend to ‘exit’? (Apologies for the skeptical tone, I think this seems like a cool idea.)

Good question, especially since we made it clear to them that we have no business model and no plans to ever have one. There is a fixed number of Orchid Tokens that are used for payments within the network of relayed traffic (source nodes pay relay and exit nodes). The only way for anyone to gain financially is for these tokens to appreciate in value, which is tied to the utility of the network. So there's no exit, r…

The only way for anyone to gain financially is for these tokens to appreciate in value...

Sounds like a security.

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#185

Post by tribler » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 9:06 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #53

Ao7bei3s wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Based on the paper, it seems ORCHID by itself (without bandwidth burning. not sure if this is trivial to get right. is there tooling?) is as vulnerable to traffic correlation attacks as one might expect. Are there any other known weaknesses? I would expect a "limitations" section in red letters on the front page, instead of the nebulous and likely wrong "the NSA can't hack it either" claim. 2. Given that todays se…

1) First off, as a fast apology and as mentioned lower in this thread, that FAQ answer about the NSA was rewritten two nights ago and failed to end up on the website; the updated answers have now been pushed (to say "Yes", actually, as the first sentence, instead of "No" with a qualification that essentially changes the answer to "well, yes"). That said, you are absolutely correct, and my colleague and long-time frie…

please note that we at Delft University of Technology have been working on a similar bandwidth-as-a-currency system since August 2007.

BBC New article from 2007: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6971904.stm Running decentral market code and tech portfolio: https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki

Notes after reading your whitepaper, latency and complexity matter. We copied the Tor packet layout and deployed a simple NAT puncture method to avoid difficulties. Your proposed approach looks like many years of work.

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#186

Post by woodandsteel » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 9:08 PM UTC

g_simonsson wrote: post #173

tlrobinson wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A token seems to solve the supply side (relay and exit nodes) but what about the demand side? Why would anyone who doesn't care about subverting censorship or surveillance pay for this?

Because people currently pay for VPNs, and Orchid effectively provides some of the features of VPNs, with the added benefit that there is no central VPN provider who logs your (meta) data and sells it for profit. And as Orchid is a P2P market place with no middlemen or fees, it should find a market equilibrium that is more efficient than VPNs, with a lower price per data relayed.

>people currently pay for VPNs, and Orchid effectively provides some of the features of VPNs, with the added benefit that there is no central VPN provider who logs your (meta) data and sells it for profit.

When you roll Orchid for use, I think this should be stated prominently on the web page as a way of selling it. Something like "If you are like millions of people, you use a vpn. But vpns have some problems" and so on.

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#187

Post by woodandsteel » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 9:14 PM UTC

zzalpha wrote: post #11

How is this different from Freenet or Tor?

Differences from Tor include, from what I understand, it is fully decentralized, there are tokens to incentivize people to run nodes, and node operators can choose to use a whitelist.

Also, at least for now, it is not a darknet, it is only for connecting the clearnet.

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#188

Post by woodandsteel » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 9:16 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #88

woodandsteel wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like you are thinking of maybe adding hidden services in the future, am I reading you correctly?

There is active discussion of this, which means I am not prepared to say it won't happen or that it can't happen, but I am also not prepared to guarantee it will happen (as then you will ask when ;P).

But given that it is open source, if you decide not to, someone else still could.

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#189

Post by woodandsteel » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 9:21 PM UTC

g_simonsson wrote: post #175

tlrobinson wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the reasons she might use it are: * you install it on her computer * it has a simple user interface * it has a non-technical sounding name Is that correct? What if you reinterpret "my mother" to be "average internet user, in a country with average internet freedoms, who doesn't read HN etc"?

I'll bite: such users are more likely to want to run an Orchid relay or exit node, with default settings, than actually use Orchid to access the Internet (source node). Internet users who may be less technical and may not care about surveillance or Internet freedom would still be interested when they hear "hey if you install this app you get a few $ (worth of tokens) per month just for sharing your bandwidth"

Ok, so we have two groups of people who could do it

People who are concerned about surveillance or internet freedom. The latter includes people who are in a country that is censoring the internet.

People who want to earn a little money.

That's good. The more different types of people who are motivated to adopt something, the more widely it will be adopted.

Re: Orchid: a new surveillance-free layer on top of the existing Internet

#190

Post by twistypencil » Sun, Oct 29, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #64

twelvechairs wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite with the simple one - How is this different from Tor? (IMO this and the 'how do you plan to make money for investors' should be in the FAQ)

There are a number of differences (which one might say would take an entire whitepaper to describe ;P), but as one high-level and in my mind very interesting example, Tor actually is a centralized service where nine directory servers are able to decide the state of the network; we are accepting nothing less than a fully-decentralized system.

That isn't very precise.

Tor's nine directory servers are not run by tor itself. One employee runs one of the nine, the rest are different people from around the world, with different affiliations who are not under the control of Tor. You must get a majority of the directory servers to block something from the network, before it will be blocked. Its not any one of the nine that can do it, they need to convince five other people, none of whom they control, to also block before it is actually accepted.

How do you plan on dealing with abuse? Sybil attacks, or bad actors on the network?