Echt Dezentrales Netz/en
- In times of growing surveillance we, who contribute
- want to give an adequate technical answer and create by ourselves
- what we have been waiting for.
Welcome
This is the main page from the research and software project EDN (Echt Dezentrales Netz - really decentralized network).
The goal of EDN is to verify the applicability of existing technologies and solutions (see Recherche), and to integrate them in a comprehensive product.
- An encrypted network as Freifunk, whose complete communication is anonymised against third-parties and can also include smartphones.
Questions and suggestions are very welcome! Please write them down in the discussion page (Add a section to the discussion page).
News
New tasks
We have a project diary.
Background
Today's communication infrastructure is predominantly centralised.
However, this makes surveillance and manipulation of arbitrary digital communications easier.
These means can be abused - and were abused - not only by dictatorships but also by democratic countries and international companies.Moreover, this infrastructure does not protect its users from such abuse and breach of privilege.
- There are indeed solutions like Tor or PGP which can partially patch the shortcomings of the infrastructure, but each user has to take care of that it for herself. Anonymisation and encryption are not in the standard configuration.
A penal action against these secret processes is nearly impossibly, starting with the problem that they are not even detected by the affected parties. This status quo endangers our democracy. However, it can be countered in different ways. The following is a technical approach: To repurpose and to extend existing digital communications infrastructure to make surveillance more cumbersome, especially through decentralisation.
Goal
The communication potential in densely inhabited regions is recognizable in these pictures:
- http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/this-is-what-wi-fi-would-look-like-if-we-could-see-it
- http://socialtimes.com/cell-phone-signals-mapping-turns-the-world-into-a-psychedelic-landscape_b194303
Our goal is to use these existing resources to form a difficult-to-monitor cellphone/router/computer network. There are plenty of software solutions (Recherche) with the goal of protecting the privacy of its users. Preexisting structures are to be evaluated and combined into such a network. The communication should run, first and foremost, on top of a combination of WiFi, copper (do you say it like this in English?) and fibre optics, but we could also consider Bluetooth and Ultra Wideband (UWB).
The following criteria should be met:
Primary Criteria
- The communication is
-
- decentralised
- there is no server through which the main communication streams have to go through and which could collect data to de-anonymise other nodes. ISPs should be preferentially circumvented
- encrypted end-to-end
- standard, except for emergency calls
- Using Perfect Forward Secrecy
- session keys should be used. Even future Forward Secrecy shall be tested.
- authenticated
- The source is authenticated.
- anonymised
- the nodes know as little as possible about each other. Only neighbouring nodes know each other.
- signed
Secondary Criteria
- The infrastructure enables caching and intelligent distribution of public data.
- -> Knowledge representation and file sharing in P2P networks
- The solution is holistic, which means it encompasses all layers of the OSI model, i.e. from the strongly delay and packet loss tolerant physical layer through an automatically configured, encrypted and anonymising middle layer to services on the upper layer such as social networking, P2P transfer or generic data storage. However it can also be structured in a different way.
- The network is open: that means everyone can easily participate, e.g. by having the network providing the user with the appropriate software to install
- The code must be:
- logically verified
- efficient
- well documented
- well tested
- made public/Open Source
- The network has to be resilient: stable, adaptable, fault-tolerant (e.g. against jamming)
- Robust against fluctuating node participations
- The nodes can be mobile
- The infrastructure supports also realtime communication
- It is possible to securely update system components
- The interface(s) of the software are accessible (to people with impairments/disabilities)
- The amount of bandwidth for private usage can be configured
- Routing in smartphones must be energy saving
- [to be continued]
Services
public | personal/private | ||
---|---|---|---|
Text | Chat of local (neighbouring) nodes | To a single person: Chat, Email or SMS | To multiple people: Chat or mailing list |
Audio/Telephony/Video | Call among locally restricted nodes | normal call | conference call |
Other formats | ? | ? | ? |
- + Private communication with embedded devices (?)
- Internet
- Searching reachable networks
Approach
short term
- Tasks
- summarize outcome of the EDN Geekend
- here shall the notes be put: https://wiki.c3d2.de/Echt_Dezentrales_Netz/ErstesGeekend
- Edit and upload the Videos of the first EDN Geekend
- create mailinglist
- discuss further steps via mailinglist
long term
- Research and analysis: Research and analysis
- Research: to list all relevant approaches and technologies
- Analysis: to establish (success) criteria (functional specification); to evaluate and compare existing approaches
- Concept of the overall system: contains the purposeful extension of existing approaches or also new developments, in order to fulfill all criteria
- specification: formal description of all components from the concept, as well as of the criteria (preferrably all quantifiable criteria), where possible and sensible
- Evaluation: to evaluate the formal model of the specification, whether it fulfills the criteria (e.g. via theorem proof and probabilistic model checking)
- Implementation: Implementation of the specification for the different platforms
- Testing the implementations:
- Proving that the implementation covers the formal specifications
- Testing of all components (unit test)
- Testing of the overall system (audit)
- Usability testing
- Testing attack scenarios (Penetrationstest = Pentest)
- Distribution of software and hardware, where needed
Contribute
- maintenance of project wiki, networking, testing: demos: https://wiki.c3d2.de/Benutzer:Demos
Links on the topic Surveillance and Democracy
Mostly German only:
- Einschränkungen der Pressevielfalt und Bedrohung der Demokratie durch Überwachung:
- Offener Brief Schriftsteller zur Verteidigung unserer Demokratie
- Geheimdienste und Bürgerrechte
- Überwachung/Demokratie
- Sasha Lobo zu Überwachung/Demokratie
- Der Ausspähskandal – Weckruf für die Demokratie
- Mass U.S. Surveillance Targeting Journalists and Lawyers Seen as Threat to American Democracy
- Geheime Vorgänge
- Bürgerrechte: Oberster Verfassungsrichter warnt vor GAU beim Datenschutz