
The GNUnet System - summm
https://gnunet.org/grothoff2017habilitation
======
openfuture
Is anyone knowledgeable that can tell me the difference between

IPFS, GNUnet, Zeronet, freenet or even something like i2p, tor and urbit .. as
well as probably others.

Actually I know this question is asked all the time and I do know how these
differ, to some extent at least, but I just don't understand why there are all
these competing standards since it's all driven by the same-ish vision.

Whenever someone accomplishes this vision though it'll be a huge game changer.
IPFS feels closest to it as of now .

~~~
_3x96
super tldr...

ipfs and zeronet (and dat project) are distributed file stores (think
bittorrent), some have some special browsers n top that let you build
applications

freenet is a distributed, secure content network.

i2p and tor are secure overlay neworks - run on top of the existing internet
to provide secure connectivity - designed to obscure where traffic is going to
and from.

gnunet and cjdns are also secure overlay networks but more like point to point
vpns.

~~~
UncleEntity
I'm actually reading the paper...

> GNUnet is an _overlay_ network, as it is initially supposed to primarily
> operate _over_ the existing Internet network. However, GNUnet does not
> assume that this is always the case. For example, GNUnet can also operate
> directly over WLAN or Bluetooth to create an ad-hoc wireless mesh network,
> and with the GNUnet “PT/VPN” subsystems we can run TCP/IP _over_ GNUnet. So
> in this configuration, GNUnet would be an _underlay_ network, a bit like
> MPLS or B.A.T.M.A.N. [NAL07]. In reality, we in fact expect to see both at
> the same time: some peers will run over the existing Internet, while others
> may connect to GNUnet on Layer 2.

~~~
jnagro
ah yeah, youre right. cjdns has that too, you can build mesh networks with it:

[https://tomesh.net/build-a-node/](https://tomesh.net/build-a-node/)

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jancsika
Ok, I'll bite.

Suppose I want to download a tarball of the GNUnet file sharing application.
(I chose file downloading because the GNUnet Wikipedia page says file sharing
is the primary application atm.)

What are the steps I need to follow in order to fire up GNUnet's filesharing
application and download that file?

To whomever responds: you make the file available, and I'll try to download
it.

Edit: it doesn't have to be a tarball of the app. It can be any file which I
can find a hash for on clearnet. But somebody has to vouch that they are
making it available over GNUnet while I try to download it.

------
larrydag
What is the biggest barrier or challenge for these network systems to succeed?
Hardware? Infrastructure? Users?

~~~
Slackwise
Adoption. Users want convenience. They want to click a thing and go, not
install a desktop app, configure it, learn about the networking model, etc.

Then when we've all sunk into all these convenient cloud services and "easy to
use" disposable devices, we'll have lost all of our privacy and power. The
corporations will get regulated, and then the government will have access and
control of the systems.

And yet we'll have people argue that these open source and
federated/distributed systems are "too confusing" and "not practical" and that
we shouldn't even try to avoid this future.

~~~
api
I don't buy that it's impossible to deliver decentralization and usability. It
just requires a lot of developer effort.

The real problem is that everything has to be free. That means there's no
money to pay developers to do the stuff that is not fun. UI/UX is a painful
slog through a long tail of tiny little issues, not to mention many iterations
on design. Developers don't do that unless they're getting paid.

~~~
larrydag
Coming up with new an innovative ways of doing things is reward in and of
itself. Examples are Wozniak with Apple I, Berners-Lee with HTTP server.
Breakthroughs lead to big things.

I think we are on the precipice of a decentralized network paradigm shift.

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UncleEntity
> We note that outside of TCP, the client-server relationship is often
> described using the terms “master” and “slave”. These terms more aptly
> describe the social roles the client-server paradigm produces.

Best quote I've seen in a while...

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MaxBarraclough
> GNUnet is an alternative network stack for building secure, decentralized
> and privacy-preserving distributed applications. Our goal is to replace the
> old insecure Internet protocol stack.

Sounds like a PhD thesis run amok.

This just isn't going to happen. Who are they kidding? Even the transition to
IPv6 is proving agonisingly slow.

GNU really need to pick their battles more wisely.

~~~
jasonkostempski
Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me.
File sharers are willing to adopt anything.

~~~
pksadiq
> Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me.

True. We still don't have a good way of doing this[0].

[0] [https://xkcd.com/949/](https://xkcd.com/949/)

~~~
oelmekki
Actually, there is: if both users are on gmail, you can attach big files to
your mail, and it's automatically uploaded on Drive (and retrieved seamlessly
by recipient from mail). If recipient is not using gmail, you can still use
Drive to upload your file and share it. And obviously, there are many Drive
competitors, like dropbox and Box, to name the biggest ones.

~~~
rtkwe
Unless something has changed each of those still require an existing account
on the senders side. With an account on an appropriate service or the right
program sending files has been a pretty solved problem for ages. Not sure this
really solves super well either since both people would have to download,
install and configure GNUnet.

~~~
oelmekki
Indeed, it requires auth. The xkcd page nor grandparent were mentioning not
requiring auth as a requirement :)

I didn't get this is something GNUnet would allow. I guess it could be a
thing... if using GNUnet is easier that registering a drive/dropbox/whatever
account.

