[Freedombox-discuss] Fwd: assigned numbers without ICANN

[Thomas Lord]

> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Pierre Fenoll <zmindster at gmail.com>

> Sorry if that was pointed out earlier, but what I don't understand is
> this very socio-economic situation between Admins & Users.

Ok.

> As I've understood:
> • you need people with higher privileges than others
> • you need "exit nodes" with sic: "preferably fixed IP addresse
> Are you asking for some kind of virtual network w/ exit nodes à la Tor
> and thus a client/server design?


Sort of.

The overlay network here allows nodes that are often
behind a firewall (like a freedombox installed at home)
to accept some kinds of connections anyway.

Think of something like PageKite.

So, "admins" operate machines on the net that have
no trouble accepting connections, and they tunnel
these to freedomboxes that do have trouble accepting
ordinary Internet connections.

Admins also help with things like allocating numbers and 
names for the overlay network.

If people want Tor-like onion routing in addition, 
it should be possible to just run the freedombox 
overlay network over Tor itself.


> I'm not a saying that what you've done is shitty and BTW I'm pretty
> impressed by this mastering of a design. I'm just a bit lost & can't
> see the decentralization. Thanks 


In the allocation of names and numbers, there is no
central authority.   A successful allocation occurs
when many admins (in a federation) agree that certain
encrypted messages were broadcast at certain times (within
a few hours) and later their verifiable decryption was 
broadcast -- and there were not (statistically unlikely)
"collisions" of multiple requests for the same name
or number.   If lots of admins sign off that those
objective observable facts occurred, the name / number
is assigned.

Admins don't exactly have extra "privilege" in name
allocation.   Successful admins have widely well regarded
cryptographic signatures, is all.

The system is also decentralized in that no user is 
"captive" to any one admin.   Users can always change 
admins, sign up with multiple admins, invest time and 
effort to be their own admin, etc.

Does that help?   I'm not too sure what details to 
make more explicit in trying to answer your question.


-t