'Entropy', a "net inside the net" ?

Just tumbled upon this, maybe old news. Comments welcome (f/u grc.privacy) :

Entropy is a software, which creates a "net inside the net" (inside the
internet) for its users. This software can be used both by *nix- and
Windows-users.

Entropy is "Free Software" (under GPL) and can be downloaded here:
http://entropy.stop1984.com/


-- 
Ninho

On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:03:30 +0200, in grc.linkfarm,grc.privacy, Ninho
wrote:

> Just tumbled upon this, maybe old news. Comments welcome (f/u grc.privacy) :
> 
> Entropy is a software, which creates a "net inside the net" (inside the
> internet) for its users. This software can be used both by *nix- and
> Windows-users.
> 
> Entropy is "Free Software" (under GPL) and can be downloaded here:
> http://entropy.stop1984.com/

It seems to be a project going along the purposes of Free Haven 
(http://freehaven.net/) and Freenet (http://freenetproject.org/).
Are you using Entropy? Do you rely on it? I apologize now if this question 
is going too much into your personal/professional life, so please don't 
take it personnaly, I'm not trying to pry into your personal life, just to 
see if you have gone past the usual small annoyances that one experiences 
with new software. Do you know if there any independent tests that can 
assert that Entropy has already achieved a 'decent" level of anonymity, in 
a reliable, constant way?
From http://entropy.stop1984.com/en/home.html:

"(...)The contents is stored in a distributed manner across all available 
and reachable nodes and no one can find out about who put up what contents 
into the network [ 1 ].(...)
[1] This is only true if the network has reached a sufficient size and if 
there is enough traffic to hide the source and destination of specific 
packets travelling the network. Only then it will be impossible to guess 
the source of data from log files."

I went through their forum at http://f27.parsimony.net/forum66166/, but 
some of the posts are written in German and Google's translations are not 
very good.
Someone posted this 
(http://f27.parsimony.net/forum66166/messages/7148.htm):

Hi~ I am just starting to use ENTROPY. But I found that the author won't 
maintain this software anymore.(...)

From http://entropy.stop1984.com/en/downloads.html, one can see that the 
latest versions report to 2005. Nothing wrong with this, if the code is not 
subject to programming errors and if there are no exploits to it.
Assuming that the number of posts in their forum somehow reflects the 
installed user base, it seems to hint that Entropy's own requirements for 
'true' anonymity have not been achieved.

Best wishes.
-- 
on 2007-09-12 14:53:11, PT time
plain ole me,
gurkatoon

Hi, Gurkatoon! 

>> Entropy is "Free Software" (under GPL) and can be downloaded here:
>> http://entropy.stop1984.com/
 
> It seems to be a project going along the purposes of Free Haven
> (http://freehaven.net/) and Freenet (http://freenetproject.org/).
> Are you using Entropy?  ...

Not. I saw it mentionned at a forum in TOR-land with no details or comments.
After reading the projrct's presentation pages, I thought I'd pass the info
to the grc news community and ask for further opinions here.

/snip/

> Someone posted this
> (http://f27.parsimony.net/forum66166/messages/7148.htm):
> 
> Hi~ I am just starting to use ENTROPY. But I found that the author won't
> maintain this software anymore.(...)
> 
> From http://entropy.stop1984.com/en/downloads.html, one can see that the
> latest versions report to 2005. Nothing wrong with this, if the code is
> not subject to programming errors and if there are no exploits to it.
> Assuming that the number of posts in their forum somehow reflects the
> installed user base, it seems to hint that Entropy's own requirements for
> 'true' anonymity have not been achieved.

Oh. One more potentially interesting project failing to deliver for lack of
sufficient momentum and general awareness. A pity ! Let's hope it is asleep
rather than dead altogether.

Thank you for the pointer to forum.

-- 
Ninho

Ninho wrote:
> Just tumbled upon this, maybe old news. Comments welcome (f/u grc.privacy) :
> 
> Entropy is a software, which creates a "net inside the net" (inside the
> internet) for its users. This software can be used both by *nix- and
> Windows-users.
> 
> Entropy is "Free Software" (under GPL) and can be downloaded here:
> http://entropy.stop1984.com/
> 
> 

Interesting! - Especially given the increasing pressure on TOR endpoints 
in some EU locations (e.g. Germany).

FWICT, it is a faster, C implementation of freenet. I'm ....guessing.... 
that freenet has won the p2p anonymity design competition - beating out 
ants, and others!? I tried freenet 3 years ago and found it slow; surely 
it has improved.

Another alternative would be I2P - which seems contemporary and quick; 
but I don't know how its design would compare, in terms  of security, 
with freenet/entropy!?   hopefully someone who knows something will 
chime in.

>> From http://entropy.stop1984.com/en/downloads.html, one can see that the
>> latest versions report to 2005. Nothing wrong with this, if the code is
>> not subject to programming errors and if there are no exploits to it.
>> Assuming that the number of posts in their forum somehow reflects the
>> installed user base, it seems to hint that Entropy's own requirements for
>> 'true' anonymity have not been achieved.
> 
> Oh. One more potentially interesting project failing to deliver for lack of
> sufficient momentum and general awareness. A pity ! Let's hope it is asleep
> rather than dead altogether.
>

Indeed!

As far as the user base is concerned, there might be hope..... Freenet 
seems alive and well, and presumably Entropy is a transparent node on 
Freenet?

However, Freenet is also implementing security tweaks as we speak - 
which entropy is not. :-(

"Ninho"  wrote in message 
news:[email protected]...

> Just tumbled upon this, maybe old news. Comments welcome (f/u grc.privacy) 
> :
>
> Entropy is a software, which creates a "net inside the net" (inside the
> internet) for its users. This software can be used both by *nix- and
> Windows-users.
>
> Entropy is "Free Software" (under GPL) and can be downloaded here:
> http://entropy.stop1984.com/
> -- 
> Ninho

Sounds very similar to the original InterNet's design,
a design that allowed for each connected unit to become
an integral part of the InterNet and not just ISP's.

I suppose turning the 0 to 1 in registry key allowing
redirection and passthroughs for local network cards
and possibly enabling the alternate MS protocol stack
instead of legacy one we are using currently (all right
there on 2k/XP standard Windows installation) available
with a few registry tweaks and a bit of manual host
file ip inclusions. Although enabling alternate protocols
can cut off most of public internet and make it very
difficult for others to find your computer in a domain.
There never was much actual interest in this at the
time...but times are changing and so are IPv standards.

NT Canuck
'Seek and ye shall find'

"NT Canuck"  wrote in message 
news:[email protected]...

Hey, NT, good to e-see you!!  What have you been doing?

Follow-ups set to grc.test.

-- 
Robert
GRC Newsgroups/Guidelines/No Regrets
http://12078.net/grcnews/article.php?group=grc.test&id=53400

"Ninho"  wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Just tumbled upon this, maybe old news. Comments welcome (f/u grc.privacy) :
>
> Entropy is a software, which creates a "net inside the net" (inside the
> internet) for its users. This software can be used both by *nix- and
> Windows-users.
>
> Entropy is "Free Software" (under GPL) and can be downloaded here:
> http://entropy.stop1984.com/
>
>

Yes and no to "old news."
Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP

and then consider that every computer has the ability to communicate between,
65535 different ports:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers

and just about anything is possible.

;-)

-- 

Steve
95isalive

"Ninho"  wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Just tumbled upon this, maybe old news. Comments welcome (f/u grc.privacy) :
>
> Entropy is a software, which creates a "net inside the net" (inside the
> internet) for its users. This software can be used both by *nix- and
> Windows-users.
>
> Entropy is "Free Software" (under GPL) and can be downloaded here:
> http://entropy.stop1984.com/
>
>

Yes and no to "old news."
Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP

and then consider that every computer has the ability to communicate between,
65535 different ports:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers

and just about anything is possible.

;-)

-- 

Steve
95isalive

Hello, glad to e-see you !

95isalive a �crit :
>> Entropy is a software, which creates a "net inside the net" (inside the
>> internet) for its users.

> Yes and no to "old news."
> Read this:> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCP/IP
> 
> and then consider that every computer has the ability to communicate between,
> 65535 different ports:> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers

Uh, I fail to see the connection (pun intended). AIUI from the summary
, Entropy aims at
distributing encrypted chunks of documents among a number of hosts and
with added redundancy. Looks like this operates mostly at higher than
the transport layer, e.g. TCP or UDP . Surely I overlooked something
from their description. Or maybe you'll be willing to clarify what you
mean while dispensing with pointers to wikipedia entries which are
certainly too general to be of use in understanding the point you want
to make ...

> and just about anything is possible.

Cheers,

-- 
Ninho

"Ninho"  wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> Hello, glad to e-see you !
> Uh, I fail to see the connection (pun intended). AIUI from the summary
> , Entropy aims at
> distributing encrypted chunks of documents among a number of hosts and
> with added redundancy. Looks like this operates mostly at higher than
> the transport layer, e.g. TCP or UDP . Surely I overlooked something
> from their description. Or maybe you'll be willing to clarify what you
> mean while dispensing with pointers to wikipedia entries which are
> certainly too general to be of use in understanding the point you want
> to make ...
>

My point is that just about any capable programmer can create a P2P
program that (s)he and another can use to communicate privately with each
other using any of the "non-standard" ports on their machines.

-- 

Steve
95isalive 

95isalive wrote:
 
> My point is that just about any capable programmer can create a P2P
> program that (s)he and another can use to communicate privately with each
> other using any of the "non-standard" ports on their machines.

Oh, well, now I see what you mean. Keep in mind the devil often hides in the
details! While "just about any capable programmer"... perhaps, could have
designed a similar protocol and programmed it, doesn't seem to me a reason
for dissing this particular system;  even less, for shooting the
messenger ;=)


-- 
Ninho