[Freedombox-discuss] finding each other. was: Re: I'm new here

[Jason]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 06:57:31PM -0500, James Vasile wrote:
> how FreedomBoxes find each other on the net across firewalls, NATs,
> meshes, dynamic addresses and the like.  And how can we make that
> anonymous when it needs to be?

I've been thinking about a small daemon listening on localhost.  A tor
hidden service would connect incoming requests to it.  It would then
do a Skype-like negotiation to create a point-to-point VPN outside of
the Tor cloud.  I'm thinking openvpn with UDP transport.  UDP is easier
to firewall-punch.

Obviously, the VPN connection would eliminate the anonymity.  I suppose
a config file could dictate classes of clients.  Some for direct
connections (friends, etc), and some forced to stay within the Tor
cloud (slower, but more anonymous).  The VPN connection through the Tor
cloud would have to be TCP transport.

thx,

Jason.