Echt Dezentrales Netz/en

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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 - real 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 Wireless Community Network, with several anonymised services

Questions and suggestions are very welcome! Please send them to the EDN-mailinglist.

News

The newest challenges.

We have a project diary.

Mailinglist: EDN has got a mailing-list!
If you want to get the mailing-lists public key just send an empty unsigned message.

Background

Today's communication infrastructure is predominantly centralized.

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.

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 impossible, 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:

Our goal is to use the 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 and fibre optics, but we also consider Bluetooth, Ultra Wideband (UWB), red light, ukw and satelite uplinks - shortly all allowed frequencies and ways.

The following criteria should be met:

Primary Criteria

The communication is
decentralized
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
where it is possible. The nodes know as little as possible about each other. Only neighbouring nodes know each other.

Secondary Criteria

  1. The infrastructure enables caching and intelligent distribution of public data.
    -> Knowledge representation and file sharing in P2P networks
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  4. The code must be:
    • logically verified
    • efficient
    • well documented
    • well tested
    • made public/Open Source
  5. The network has to be resilient: stable, adaptable, fault-tolerant (e.g. against jamming)
  6. Robust against fluctuating node participation
  7. the user interface is intuitively usebable
  8. the user interface represents in an easy way the functionality that is laying beneath
  9. The nodes can be mobile
  10. The infrastructure supports also realtime communication
  11. It is possible to securely update system components
  12. The interface(s) of the software are accessible (to people with impairments/disabilities)
  13. The amount of bandwidth for private usage can be configured
  14. Routing in smartphones must be energy saving
  15. the network is open to connect for example a sneakernet(s)
  16. [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 ? ? ?
  • crypto currency/ pay system
  • Internet
  • Searching in local and other reachable networks
  • filesharing (where location has to be discussed)
  • blogging (where location has to be discussed)
  • Private communication with embedded devices (?)

Approach

short term

  • Hardware and software for the experimental/testing networkExperimentelles Netzwerk Dresden

medium-term

long term

  1. 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
  2. Concept of the overall system: contains the purposeful extension of existing approaches or also new developments, in order to fulfill all criteria
  3. specification: formal description of all components from the concept, as well as of the criteria (preferably all quantifiable criteria), where possible and sensible
  4. Evaluation: to evaluate the formal model of the specification, whether it fulfills the criteria (e.g. via theorem proof and probabilistic model checking)
  5. Implementation: Implementation of the specification for the different platforms
  6. Testing the implementations as a proof of concept
  7. Distribution of software and hardware, where needed

Contribute

Hello developers of relevant projects, you are kindly invited to help out building EDN. You know your project best and which parts (maybe the hole) could help and how.
Beside everyone else can contribute, the field is so wide (osi layer 1-7) so is the varity of tasks/challenges.

Links on the topic Surveillance and Democracy

Mostly German only:

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