[liberationtech] GNUnet 0.11.0pre66 released - Next Generation Internet Prototype

Thu Jun 7 20:09:24 PDT 2018

Divorcing GNUnet from GNU is pretty much a non-starter.

Stephen Michael Kellat

On Thu, Jun 07, 2018 at 07:03:21AM -0700, join at smartercleanup.org wrote:
> Looks like a fantastic project, but if they want it to catch on and get people to contribute, they will need a much better name than GNUnet.
> 
> 
> 
> GNU is an insider geek acronym that stinks of esoteric terminology. It feels very limiting to others who don't know the history of GNU. You will need a dynamic coalition of people with a variety of skills (marketing, design, business, etc) to change the internet from the ground up.
> 
> 
> 
> Also GNU is too closely affiliated with Richard Stallman, who struggles to reach mass audiences because of a similar issue. Regardless of his ideals, he is way too geeky and socially lacking. It is crucial to conquer ignorance when it comes to the power of diversity   ;)
> 
> 
> 
> I don't have a better name off the top of my head, but GNUnet will have to go IMHO. You need a name and marketing concept that is very foundational and has a clean recognizable metaphor (like Fabric).
> 
> 
> 
> Hopefully changing the name doesn't break the project (codewise, or politically for those invested in the name GNUnet) but I argue that it will be essential to realize true success of such an ambitious effort.
> 
> 
> 
> ---- On Thu, 07 Jun 2018 03:10:04 -0700 carlo von lynX <lynX at time.to.get.psyced.org> wrote ----
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Since it's been four years waiting, I forward this FYI.
> 
> To reduce the four year figure in the future, maybe more
> 
> people should work on this. File under: Next Generation
> 
> Internet, properly designed alternatives to current
> 
> blockchain codebases, foundational work for distributed,
> 
> not just decentralized networking. If you wonder why we'd
> 
> need a new Internet, https://secushare.org/broken-internet
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Christian Grothoff <grothoff at gnunet.org> -----
> 
> 
> 
> Dear all,
> 
> 
> 
> We are pleased to announce the release of GNUnet 0.11.0pre66. This is a
> 
> pre-release to assist developers and downstream packagers to test the
> 
> package before the final release after four years of development.
> 
> 
> 
> In terms of usability, users should be aware that there are still a very
> 
> large number of known open issues in particular with respect to ease of
> 
> use, but also some critical privacy issues especially for mobile users.
> 
> Also, the nascent network is tiny (~200 peers) and thus unlikely to
> 
> provide good anonymity or extensive amounts of interesting information.
> 
> As a result, the 0.11.0 release and especially this pre-release are only
> 
> suitable for early adopters with some reasonable pain tolerance.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> License change
> 
> ==============
> 
> 
> 
> GNUnet 0.11.0pre66 is the first release that will be made under the
> 
> GNU Affero General Public License v3+. After a significant amount of
> 
> internal discussion lead constructively by Lynx (thanks!), the
> 
> conclusion has been that the IPC and REST APIs should be extended with
> 
> support for an GNUNET_MESSAGE_TYPE_AGPL or /agpl request that enables
> 
> users of these client/service-style APIs to download the source code.
> 
> 
> 
> Naturally, the discussion on licensing may not necessarily end here, but
> 
> at this point we are not aware of any dissent in the community and this
> 
> release seems to be the right time to make such a change. While the
> 
> final decision was not subjected to a broad feedback round, this was
> 
> done simply on the grounds that this placement of the AGPL API seems to
> 
> addresses all concerns that were raised. Finally, thanks to the
> 
> copyright assignment all developers are participating in, the community
> 
> will be able to revise this decision later if necessary.
> 
> 
> 
> It should also be noted that this change does not impose additional
> 
> restrictions on the licensing models of GNU Taler or pEp: both projects
> 
> have agreements with GNUnet e.V. that ensure that they can make
> 
> decisions that fit these applications (not to mention significant parts
> 
> of GNU Taler are already AGPLv3+ already).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> About GNUnet
> 
> ============
> 
> 
> 
> GNUnet is a framework for secure peer-to-peer networking. GNUnet's
> 
> primary design goals are to protect the privacy of its users and to
> 
> guard itself against attacks or abuse. At this point, GNUnet offers four
> 
> primary applications on top of the framework:
> 
> 
> 
> The file-sharing service allows anonymous censorship-resistant
> 
> file-sharing. Files, searches and search results are encrypted to make
> 
> it hard to control, track or censor users. GNUnet's anonymity protocol
> 
> (gap) is designed to make it difficult to link users to their
> 
> file-sharing activities. Users can also individually trade-off between
> 
> performance and anonymity. Despite providing anonymity, GNUnet's
> 
> excess-based economy rewards contributing users with better performance.
> 
> 
> 
> The VPN service allows offering of services within GNUnet (using the
> 
> .gnu TLD) and can be used to tunnel IPv4 and IPv6 traffic over the P2P
> 
> network. The VPN can also be used for IP protocol translation (6-to-4,
> 
> 4-to-6) and it is possible to tunnel IP traffic over GNUnet (6-over-4,
> 
> 4-over-6). Note that at this stage, it is possible for peers to
> 
> determine the IP address at which services are hosted, so the VPN does
> 
> not offer anonymity.
> 
> 
> 
> The GNU Name System (GNS) provides a fully-decentralized and censorship
> 
> resistant replacement for DNS. GNS can be used alongside DNS and can be
> 
> integrated with legacy applications (such as traditional browsers) with
> 
> moderate effort. GNS provides censorship-resistance, memorable names and
> 
> cryptographic integrity protection for the records. Note that at this
> 
> stage, it is possible for a strong adversary to determine which peer is
> 
> responsible for a particular zone, GNS does not offer strong anonymity.
> 
> However, GNS offers query privacy, that is other participants can
> 
> typically not decrypt queries or replies.
> 
> 
> 
> Conversation allows voice calls to be made over GNUnet. Users are
> 
> identified using GNS and voice data is encrypted. However, Conversation
> 
> does not provide anonymity at this stage --- other peers may observe a
> 
> connection between the two endpoints and it is possible to determine the
> 
> IP address associated with a phone.
> 
> 
> 
> Other applications, including in particular the SecuShare social
> 
> networking application, are still strictly experimental.
> 
> 
> 
> For developers, GNUnet offers:
> 
> 
> 
>  Access to all subsystems via clean C APIs
> 
>  Mostly written in C, but extensions possible in other languages
> 
>  Multi-process architecture for fault-isolation between components
> 
>  Use of event loop and processes instead of threads for ease of
> 
>  development
> 
>  Extensive logging and statistics facilities
> 
>  Integrated testing library for automatic deployment of large-scale
> 
>  experiments with tens of thousands of peers
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Noteworthy improvements in 0.11.0pre66:
> 
> ========================================
> 
> 
> 
>  Improved documentation, converting Drupal handbook
> 
>  to Texinfo (thanks ng0!)
> 
>  GNU Name System now can take over arbitrary TLDs, and
> 
>  support for conversion from DNS zones to GNS exists
> 
>  Critical bugfixes in CORE, DHT and CADET subsystems
> 
> 
> 
> The above is just the short list, our bugtracker lists over 350
> 
> individual issues that were resolved
> 
> (see https://gnunet.org/bugs/changelog_page.php).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Known Issues
> 
> ============
> 
> 
> 
> We have a few issues that are most likely not resolved in the final
> 
> release. Users should be aware of these issues, which we hope to address
> 
> shortly.
> 
> 
> 
>  There are known major design issues in TRANSPORT, ATS and CORE
> 
>  which will need to be addressed for usability, performance
> 
>  and security.
> 
>  There are known moderate implementation limitations in CADET that
> 
>  impact performance.
> 
>  There are known moderate design issues in FS that also impact
> 
>  usability and performance.
> 
>  There are minor implementation limitations in SET that create
> 
>  unnecessary attack surface for availability.
> 
>  The Web site and manuals still need significant rework.
> 
>  Subsystems related to SecuShare and RPS remain experimental.
> 
> 
> 
> In addition to this list, you may also want to consult our bug tracker
> 
> at https://gnunet.org/bugs/ which lists about 200 more specific issues.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Availability
> 
> ============
> 
> 
> 
> The GNUnet 0.11.0pre66 source code is available from all GNU FTP
> 
> mirrors. The GTK frontends (which includes the gnunet-setup tool) are a
> 
> separate download. Please note that some mirrors might still be
> 
> synchronizing.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> GNUnet on a FTP mirror near you
> 
>  http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-0.11.0pre66.tar.gz
> 
> GNUnet GTK on an FTP mirror near you
> 
>  http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-gtk-0.11.0pre66.tar.gz
> 
> GNUnet FUSE on an FTP mirror near you
> 
>  http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-fuse-0.11.0pre66.tar.gz
> 
> GNUnet on the primary GNU FTP server
> 
>  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gnunet/gnunet-0.11.0pre66.tar.gz
> 
> GNUnet GTK on the primary GNU FTP server
> 
>  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gnunet/gnunet-gtk-0.11.0pre66.tar.gz
> 
> GNUnet FUSE on the primary GNU FTP server
> 
>  ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gnunet/gnunet-fuse-0.11.0pre66.tar.gz
> 
> 
> 
> Note that GNUnet is now started using "gnunet-arm -s". GNUnet should be
> 
> stopped using "gnunet-arm -e".
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks
> 
> ======
> 
> 
> 
> This release was the work of many people. The following people
> 
> contributed code and were thus easily identified:
> 
> Christian Grothoff, Matthias Wachs, Bart Polot, Sree Harsha Totakura,
> 
> Nathan S. Evans, Martin Schanzenbach, Julius Bünger, Nils Gillmann,
> 
> Philipp Tölke, Florian Dold, Руслан Ижбулатов, tg(x), David Barksdale,
> 
> Christian Fuchs, Nils Durner, Omar Tarabai, Maximilian Szengel, Supriti
> 
> Singh, lurchi, David Brodski, xrs, Fabian Oehlmann, Carlo von lynX,
> 
> Christophe Genevey Metat, Jeffrey Burdges, Safey A.Halim, Daniel Golle,
> 
> Phil, Bruno Cabral, Ji Lu, Heikki Lindholm, Markus Teich, t3sserakt,
> 
> Claudiu Olteanu, Marcello Stanisci, Moon, anryko, Arthur Dewarumez,
> 
> Julien Morvan, Adnan H, Lin Tong, Andreas Fuchs, Christian Rupp, jah,
> 
> Alejandra Morales, Matthias Kolja Miehl, Andrew Cann, Antonio Ojea,
> 
> Pascal Mainini, amirouche and hark.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Further Information
> 
> ===================
> 
> 
> 
> GNUnet Homepage
> 
>  https://gnunet.org/
> 
> GNUnet Bug tracker
> 
>  https://gnunet.org/bugs/
> 
> IRC
> 
>  irc://irc.freenode.net/#gnunet
> 
> 
> 
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> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 
> GNUnet-developers mailing list
> 
> GNUnet-developers at gnu.org
> 
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnunet-developers
> 
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