Test message

Wei Dai weidai@eskimo.com
Thu, 8 Feb 2001 23:13:56 -0800


I've changed the list HELLO message to include the list address. 
Apparently the email server at ibiblio.org hasn't been set up to forward
bluesky@ibiblio.org to bluesky@franklin.oit.unc.edu, so please use the
latter address until we get that sorted out.

On Thu, Feb 08, 2001 at 03:34:41PM -0500, Hal Finney wrote:
> One of the issues which has been discussed on the Freenet mailing list is
> the difficulty of engineering a system suitable for use in a country where
> the government is restricting access to the net.  A good example today is
> China, but of course in the future more countries may have restrictions.

I believe the solution to this problem is regulatory arbitrage and
onion-routing type techniques. If we have a system where the owner of the
storage hardware can decide what to store, censored data will migrate
to nodes where they are not controlled. For people who are inside the
controlled areas, the question is how to communicate with nodes that are
blocked by the government firewalls. If the system is popular enough so
that the government cannot afford to block every single node that's part
of it, people inside can always reach any outside node by connecting to a
non-blocked node and tunnel to the target node through it.
So basicly we can present the censors with a binary choice:
either block the entire system or none of it.

You can consider this as an argument for building a general purpose
global-scale distributed storage system that happens to be censorship
resistant, rather than one that's designed to be censorship resistant at
the cost of efficiency. The latter will not become popular enough to make
it too expensive to block entirely.

From Ted Anderson <ota@transarc.com> Fri Feb 09 07:16:20 2001
Message-ID: <3A83DF8A.57674527@transarc.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Feb 2001 07:16:10 -0500
From: Ted Anderson <ota@transarc.com>
Organization: Transarc Corporation
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> Is this on?

The list is on.  The problem at the moment is that you always have to
translate ibiblio.org to franklin.oit.unc.edu when sending mail.

> I am sending from the web interface[1] but I don't know the address to
> use for sending email to the list.

The bluesky@franklin.oit.unc.edu address should work.  As Hal mentioned,
members can post messages using the mailing list maintenance webpage.
Posting via NNTP through the newsgroup also works.  Mailing list traffic
can be viewed by anyone in a web archive[2] and in netnews[3] format.

This is a *public* mailing list, though, posting is limited to
subscribers.  This limitation is to avoid spam, but I support anonymous
submissions, and unless the membership is opposed, I'll try to work
something out to accomodate such contributors.  Let me know.

I've set up a temporary webpage[4] for the list, which contains the
charter, the invitation you've all seen, and some of this administrivia.
I would like to expand the webpage with annotated links to projects
related Global-Scale Distributed Storage Systems and other resources for
those interested in the topic.  Let me know if you have suggestions.

I'll leave comments on Hal's technical points to another message.

Ted Anderson

[1] http://franklin.oit.unc.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=bluesky
[2] http://franklin.oit.unc.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?visit=bluesky
[3] news://franklin.oit.unc.edu/bluesky
[4] http://www.transarc.com/~ota/bluesky