On 08-Nov-08 18:46, Darren New wrote:
> Overview and code:
> http://code.google.com/p/phantom/
> 
> Actual useful descriptive paper:
> http://www.fortego.se/phantom-paper.pdf
> 
> Very well-written paper. How to have a completely anonymous overlay 
> network on the internet. Some very interesting techniques in there, even 
> if the project per se never takes off.
> 
I read parts of i.e. I skipped the implementation part. Some comments 
about the issues and motivations:

- IP owners try to restrict the use of any technology that *could* be 
used to transmit content that they own.

This seems to be the major motivation of this paper. It is yet another 
scheme to circumvent the financial consequences of IP. There are two 
sides to this. Like most of us here I do admit that especially in the US 
some established industries seem to have bought legislation to postpone 
innovation with all the associated risks that somebody else may get a 
piece of the cake. Yet, like all of us here I do know that there are 
also legitimate IP cash flows. I am not yet prepared to give up the 
latter because I sometimes disagree with the former. The author OTOH 
takes a dogmatic point of view that any exchange is allowed irrespective 
of content.

- The internet is used for SPAM, viruses, trojans, identity theft etc.

No mention of that as far as I can see, apart from his reassurance that 
it has been taken care of. But I don't see any substantiation of that.

- Content on the internet may contain child porn, attack plans from 
terrorist groups and other things that any government wants to block.

No mention of that as far as I can see, apart from his reassurance that 
it has been taken care of. But I don't see any substantiation of that.

- Content on the internet may contain information that some governments 
might want to block.

Claimed to be solved by this protocol, however page 19: '(remember, it 
is not a secret that you are connected to the anonymous network, only 
who you are communicating with on this network, and what you are 
communicating!). Unless this protocol is used in a myriad of other ways, 
if you live in a country that restricts the internet to sites that they 
agree with, being connected to this network will be a problem. Besides 
you can be pretty sure that cross border anonymous communication will be 
impossible too.

- Companies try to restrict bandwidth use by restricting traffic to work 
related activities.

This is an on going problem. I think companies have a point if the block 
e.g. youtube. If you can use another protocol to circumvent that at the 
extra expense of a bit more overhead, I would not be happy as a company. 
There is also the related problem of leaking of IP (trade secrets) and 
privacy information. The firewall of my hospital is already leaky 
enough, I don't need another tunnel, thank you very much.

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