RE: [Blocks-development] Future Direction For Blocks

[Spencer Jr., M. <sp...@ac...>]

I hope I'll have more to say on the WoT stuff soon also.

But I'm lazy.  Or at least...it's a bit depressing to see the network die
down because of the version incompatibilities and all that.  Hopefully when
0.16 comes out, we'll all be back to normal.  :)

Within a week or so after 0.16 and a healthy network and all that, you
should see some strange-looking crypto files (with long filenames with lots
of hex digits)...and a BLOCKS-Trust-Network-HOWTO out there somewhere.  That
file will be a follow-along description of the web of trust, with step by
step procedures on how to use the web of trust.

If you don't see that after a week or so...please email me and tell me to
get to work.  :)  I get like three emails a day anyway, not counting list
traffic...so your reminder will be appreciated.

--Michael Spencer
bl...@ms...

-----Original Message-----
From: Blat Froop [mailto:pet...@ho...]
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2000 1:04 PM
To: blo...@li...
Subject: Re: [Blocks-development] Future Direction For Blocks


>From: lu...@et...
>To: Erik Moeller <mo...@sc...>,        
>blo...@li...
>Subject: Re: [Blocks-development] Future Direction For Blocks
>Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 13:28:34 -0400
>
>* Erik Moeller wrote:
> > Before we go to ratings and authentication, we should clear the
> > scalability issue and possible routing/resuming problems.
>
>Hurm.  Given the mess that Gnutella has become, I think it's very important
>that we make sure that the blocks network is impervious (or at least
>tolerant of) to:
>
>- False announcements, advertising and other Bad data
>- Flooding and other DOS attacks
>- Bogus/incomplete data
>
>It doesn't matter how spiffy the technology is, if it can be abused, it 
>will
>be.  *sigh*

This is true, and Blocks suffers from all these classical problems :(

Possibly Michaels WoT idea might help eleviate some of these issues,
but in the meantime here are some other ideas (off the top of my
head... asbestos underpants are on :-) ...

1) Password lock servers/blocknets... so only 'authorised' people
   can join. This would allow private blocknets which is probably
   desirable anyway, but without WoT I cant see how it can be
   applied to the general anonymous blocknet.

2) Staticstical analysis can detect extreme flooding, but wont
   really help stop short burst flooders or slow flooding.

3) Spammers sending bogus ads are a real pain. Without strong
   authentication there is no way you can trust an advert.
   Explicitly checking the validity of the underlying file
   is infeasible (if not impossible). The only thing I can
   think of that might be appropriate here is some form
   of phyical violence... I wonder if there is a POSIX call
   to send an EM bust through the console like they always
   so in Startrek. I could equip block servers with a DDOS
   autotargetting facility, but that would get misused as
   well... still we can dream ;-)

Hmm... looking back at what Ive just written there doesnt
seem to be much content there :( But, hopefully, Michael
will have more to say on the WoT idea sometime soon.

ttfn

PG.




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