#21 encryption and small private networks

[revjonnylove]

WASTE by nullsoft recently implimented encryption and
small private networks in its fisrt BETA release. Then
AOL shut them down. Read about it here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1011585.html?tag=fd_top

It would be a great feature to have small, private
networks users can set up along side the global network
which is currently free and available to all.

Encryption would be necessary to secure these private
networks and a buddy list (chat/IM) would be useful to
broadcast invites to a private network.

BTW, WASTE was using RSA and Blowfish encryption to
protect the PNs.

[AdderTheBlack]

Logged In: YES
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Encryption only protects against someone snooping what's
going over your connection. I think adding encryption to
such things is functionally useless. A marketing buzzword in
this context.

Forming a private network is fine but somewhere there needs
to be a rendezvous point. Some mini DNS that you can use to
relate a frend's name to a Myster node. How is this
implemented in WASTE? Hopefully they did not choose to use a
central server or expect one of the ones in this group of 50
freinds to actually maintain a server with their own Domain
Name and static IP?

It could also work using some sort of UDP broadcast similar
to how rendezvous works on the Mac... but that would only
allow sharing on a sub net aka a LAN or home network.

So if this feature is to be kept open I need to have some
specifics.