Quote:
Originally posted by lurker701
1) Proxies aren't modifications to the protocol. They simply forward packets to and from appropriate machines and ports. Using a proxy as an attempt to mask your identity is an old trick, and predates gnutella, napster, et al.
2) (and more importantly), If you're using a SOCKS proxy, chances are it's run by your isp, or some other place you have an account. While it would be difficult (and probably illegal) to trace you immediately, you are still traceable. Simply put, if someone sees copyrighted material being shared up through the proxy, and they've gone through the trouble of tracking it that far, they could just as easily register a complaint to the isp that provides access to the proxy machine. They, in turn, would be forced to kill your access to the proxy or face disconnection themselves. If the proxy is being run by your isp, then you're back where you started in the first place.
|
Sorry, I should have made more explicit what I meant. Proxying is actually something very simple to implement (I once wrote a proxy server in Java in about 20 minutes). By proxy I didn't mean a proxy server, but some kind of proxy feature that could be implemented directly into every client (or just some clients) on the gnutella network. (A SOCKS is just a proxy that decouples protocol from software and has nothing inherently to do with ISPs.) The way that might work is by issuing a search for "prxy79" (or something singular like that) over gnutella from the computer that desires a proxy connection; establishing a proxy connection with one high bandwidth / high up-time host that responds. That's actually not hard to implement, and a SOCKS proxy could even support other protocols (such as http) and is pretty good anonimity, especially since (although not with gnutella) the proxying could use public key encryption.
For example, a host might issue an anonymous query through one computer, get back a result + a public key, and request an encrypted download through a second proxy. The serving computer has no idea who the downloader is, and the proxy has no idea what the content is. Imagine now that every client on this network supports at least one proxy connection and you have thousands of computers working for anonymity versus a small number of policing computers working against it. To even get significant enforcement results there would need to be more policing than contributing computers (because you would have to be so lucky as to own at least two computers participating in that transaction, and *then* have to deal with the encryption). Connect to a second proxy through the first, and it is so close to impossible to identify both the person and the content that we may just as well call it impossible. Furthermore, those users with no proxy connection even get some additional anonymity because it can't be proved (at least to the satisifaction of the courts) that they are the ones making the transaction and not someone else proxying through them.
I think the reason someone might say internet anonymity is impossible is because we're used to thinking about the internet in terms of a client and server. P2P changes all that, and it will change a lot more. Remember, if 30 years ago you tried to argue that public key encryption was possible, even intelligently, you would have been laughed right out of the cafeteria.