Pfyshnet seed nodes are gone.

Our patron fell on hard times and has pulled the plug on the seed servers we were using for Pfyshnet. Pfyshnet requires at least 20 nodes to form the "base" of the network. Until we can achieve this again, Pfyshnet is down. If you are willing to run a full time node or can sponsor seed servers let us know. (masequis - at - yahoo - . - com)

Pfyshnet GUI released!!

Pfyshnet 0.0.8 has just been released!  Featuring our GUI!

Download and enjoy.

A bunch of folks are waiting for this release before trying out pfyshnet.  I'll ask that everyone be patient.  Please commit your node to running for a day or so.  Fast growth while the network is small will create some growing pains, but once a little stability forms, things should start working nicely!

If you don't already have a node, simply download the pfyshnet_bin_0.0.8.zip file fromhttp://pfyshnet.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Downloads.  Unzip it.  Create a shortcut to the executable pfyshnet.jar file on your desktop.  Then double click!

You won't be able to use it for a period of time while it generates your node's keys.  This could take hours, or even up to a day depending on your hardware.  During this time you should disable “poll for return data” in Edit->Settings.  If you don't, you'll keep getting pop-up windows until your node has created its keys.

Once you start using the GUI, pay special attention to the little dot in the lower left corner.  When this icon is red, it indicates your node/gui is doing something.  You can submit requests during this time, but don't get impatient and submit the same request a bunch of times, or you'll just kill your node.

Also be careful with board updates.  If you submit too many board updates at once you'll swamp your node.  (the little dot will be red for a long time).  It will probably still work, but much slower.

If you have a node already, and want to upgrade.  Kill your node nicely (kill or Ctrl-C).  Then copy the new pfyshnet.jar file to your existing node installation.  Then restart your node.  Note: Both your node and the GUI will now be started with java -jar pfyshnet.jar.  If you just want to start the node, run like this:

  java -jar pfyshnet.jar -node

If your node is already running, and you just want the GUI, run like this:

  java -jar pfyshnet.jar -gui

NOTE: You must upgrade your node to use the GUI!  The GUI uses client features that did not exist in 0.0.7.

Lastly, we know the GUI still needs some work, but we think it's nicely usable for people to get started.  Please make note of bugs and feature requests.

The current bane of security!

Most current operating systems (even Linux!) have a hard-on for search. This allows people to simply search for a file they've misplaced or even allows them to simply use it has their primary organization mechanism. Unfortunately, to allow for quick searches "indexes" have to be created. These indexes tell a lot about the contents of files. So even if you have an encrypted volume, if you allow it to be indexed you might as well not even bother encrypting it because much of the information will be plain text in the index. On Ubuntu I was able to go to System->Preferences->Search and Indexing. There I disabled everything. Don't forget to click on the tabs. Even after I did this though, the trackerd deamon was still running. So, I killed it. It remains to be seen if it will start again when I reboot.

Vista and OS/X both have indexing also. I was able to stumble around to turn it off on Vista (I think it's off at least), but you should still steer clear of these operating systems for a hardened system.

On a side note. I did see that OS/X has a simple knob to enable swap encryption! This is really cool, but unfortunately there's no technical details about what encryption mechanism is used, so I wouldn't trust it, but at least they're trying.

Encrypting swap is not so easy on Linux, but it's another necessity for a hardened system. It's outside of the scope of this blog post though.

Announcing Pfyshnet!!

Pfyshnet is a network that has been developed to meet these goals. Our current status is "alpha", but we hope to soon be ready for a "beta" release.

Visit our site at:
http://pfyshnet.sourceforge.net/

We NEED a good GUI developer to help out. Right now we only have command-line user interface.

p2p over email.

Email would be a great transport layer for an anonymous peer to peer network if ISP's get too hostile. It could use any or all of the free web-mail services out there. Incoming connections would no longer be needed, and it would also help with intermittent node down time.

The down sides of course would be latency. You'd have to poll your e-mail account for incoming data. Also, you'd be open to detailed traffic analysis by the mail operators. Free email accounts are usually web-mail only, so application access would have to be written specific to the service provider and you'd be susceptible to changes they make to web pages. However, this is still a valid option if ISP's continue to become more aggressive.

more woes...

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/time-warner-download-too-much-and-you-might-pay-30-a-movie/?ref=technology

We've got to keep this from working/spreading!! It's a nightmare for anonymous peer to peer networking, and peer to peer networks in general.

On another note. I've got to stop browsing news aggregation sites and do some real work..

We can't allow computers to become black boxes.

I thought I'd take a break to make a commentary on the direction of computer hardware today.

Every new generation of computer hardware adds new complexity that most people will never fully understand. However, at the moment we can still say we OWN our hardware. We can install whatever software we want, we can add to it and customize it (forgoing warranties). However, pressures are mounting to create computers that we don't really own. It's not too hard to imaging a future where we get our computers for bellow cost and we're forced to purchase overpriced software from certain vendors. No more free (as in beer or freedom) software at that point! Think it's far fetched? Just extrapolate the game console market to computers and whala..

Say goodbye to your privacy and security. Every transaction and every keystroke, you'll have NO idea who's watching.. Marketers? Big Brother? Only the vendors will know. It would a dream come true for government and advertisers. How long did it take us to realized telecoms had bedded down with the government.

Our computers and software will be "black boxes". And if we want the newest coolest games, or software to read documents, we'll have no choice. The low cost and innocent offer will be hard to turn down. What average Joe wouldn't buy a computer that will play the best games and work with pervasive monopolized software for $50?

I realize that there would be a lot of pressure against this, but we have to make sure there is enough!

Slashdot led me to this, which inspired this post:
http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/2013733.html
"They also point out a number of other areas of concern, including compatibility with software licensing models (already an area of contention for multicore processors) and privacy/security issues related to vendors having access to customers' hardware."

Here's an interesting patent:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=358234.358271
"Hardware protection against software piracy"

I'm sure there more. Share if you find them.