Routing in the Dark

Architecture and Background

Ian Clarke & Oskar Sandberg, Routing in the Dark: Scalable Searches in Dark P2P Networks Ian Clarke, Project Coordinator, FreenetProject Inc. Oskar Sandberg, Department of Mathematical Sciences, Chalmers Technical University, Sweden With peer to peer networks under fire by organizations using the legal system to attack participants, it seems that the only sustainable future is for dark, encrypted, networks where participants only talk to peers that they know and trust. Such networks, like WASTE, already exist to some extent, but they scale poorly and do not allow global communication. This does not need to be the case, however.

Vulnerability Analysis

The "small world" observations, going back to Milgram"s famous experiments in the sixties, show that social networks have all the right characteristics for being easy and efficient to navigate and search. It stands to reason that, under the right circumstances, so should a Darknet. We present algorithms for making routing possible in such networks, based on the real mathematics of how small worlds function. The goal is to build peer to peer networks that are difficult for outsiders to detect and infiltrate, making the job of those who wish to shut them down much harder.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

Ian Clarke is the architect and coordinator of The Freenet Project, and the Chief Executive Officer of Cematics Ltd, a company he founded to realise commercial applications for the Freenet technology. Ian is the co-founder and formerly the Chief Technology Officer of Uprizer Inc., which was successful in raising $4 million in A-round venture capital from investors including Intel Capital. In October 2003, Ian was selected as one of the top 100 innovators under the age of 35 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review magazine . Ian holds a degree in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science from Edinburgh University, Scotland.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

He has also worked as a consultant for a number of companies including 3Com, and Logica UK's Space Division. He is originally from County Meath, Ireland, and currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland. Oskar Sandberg is a post graduate student at the Chalmers Technical University in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is working on a PhD about the mathematics of complex networks, especially with regard to the small world phenomenon. Besides this he has an active interest in distributed computer networks and network security, and has been an active contributor to The Freenet Project since 1999.