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Subject: Global-Scale Distributed Storage Systems

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  • From: Ted Anderson <ota AT transarc.com>
  • To: bluesky AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: User Anonymity
  • Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 09:59:08 -0500 (EST)


On 8 Feb 2001 15:34:41 EST "Hal Finney" <hal AT finney.org> said:
> There is a conflict between the need to make your system's address
> known to others in the system (so that files can be shared) and the
> need to keep it secret from government or private agencies who want to
> restrict what you read and publish.

The reading and publishing sides of this problem are quite different.

On 8 Feb 2001 23:13:56 PST Wei Dai <weidai AT eskimo.com> said:
> If the system is popular enough so that the government cannot afford
> to block every single node ... 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.

I agree with Wei Dai. This is the right approach to reader anonymity.
An efficient and robust system will be naturally censor-resistant
(though not censor-proof); count on its being pervasive and
indispensable to prevent any effective limits to what users can read.

On the publishing side, regulatory arbitrage is certainly going to be
important and it is one reason why a global system will be more robust
than a system operating at any smaller scale.

A key technical feature that is at least as important is the use of
content-hash based identifiers: FreeNet's CHK, OceanStore's GUID and
MojoNation's block ids. The use of such identifiers frees the reader
from having to trust the storage and transport components. Either they
are providing correct data in response to requests or they are broken
and the distribution system routes around them.

Ultimately, the namespace, which maps names to ids, must be
authenticated through a trusted path. Isolating the trust requirement
to this one fundamental component of the system will make it easier to
understand and verify.

For publishing, the use of CHKs means that data can be delivered to the
reader, or to a congenial jurisdiction, via any and all means available
without risk of compromising the data's integrity or utility to the
consumer. Email, CD-ROMs by mail, Tee-shirts, or carrier pigeon all can
be used in a pinch to avoid exposing the author's address. Once it
arrives, if it has the right hash it is the right data, no questions
asked.

Ted Anderson




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