August 17th, 2024

Private Internet

The article highlights the inadequacies of current internet protocols regarding security and privacy, advocating for a new protocol with features like non-sensitive addresses and DoS resistance, while suggesting onion routing.

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Private Internet

The article discusses the inadequacies of existing internet protocols, particularly in terms of security and privacy. Many protocols were developed in an era of implicit trust, which is no longer applicable due to the prevalence of malicious actors online. While IPv4 and IPv6 are generally considered well-designed, they still exhibit fundamental flaws, particularly concerning privacy and susceptibility to Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. The author emphasizes the need for a new network protocol that addresses these issues, proposing features such as non-sensitive client addresses, DoS resistance, and the prevention of outgoing and incoming connection address leaks. The article also suggests potential implementations, including onion routing and fine-grained routing, while acknowledging the challenges associated with these methods. The author concludes that while encryption is desirable, it may be better managed at a higher layer due to the slow evolution of fundamental protocols. Overall, the piece serves as a call to rethink and redesign internet protocols to enhance security and privacy in the current digital landscape.

- Existing internet protocols were designed without modern security considerations.

- IPv4 and IPv6 have fundamental flaws related to privacy and DoS attacks.

- Proposed features for a new protocol include non-sensitive client addresses and revocable connections.

- Potential implementations discussed include onion routing and fine-grained routing.

- Encryption is recommended at higher layers due to the slow evolution of core protocols.

Link Icon 3 comments
By @ehhthing - 6 months
Most of these proposals would probably make the internet a worse place rather than a better one.

Complete anonymity on L3 would result in all tracking being on L7 instead. Right now at least most people can use Google/YouTube/most other websites without creating an account. With complete anonymity, it's all but certain that all of these would need to be gated by account creation to prevent abuse.

This would actively increase the ability for websites to track you, or else they'd need to be able to somehow handle abuse with exactly 0 information about where any given connection is coming from.

I don't think these proposals were seriously thought out by the OP.

By @samuraixp - 6 months
By @gibbitz - 6 months
Why do we want to be anonymous? I think if we look at it closely it is for self-centered reasons. We want the video platform but we don't want the ads to know who we are so we don't have to deal with spam (IE pay for the platform we want). We want to comment without editing what we say (troll) and not worry about the repercussions. The best moral reason I can come up with is to avoid sharing personal details that can be tracked back to us or used against us. Before the internet this was called a secret. You just didn't tell anyone. Generally there are ways around all the anonymity concerns that just involve abstaining or giving up feeling entitled to getting things for free or being able to dump our negativity on other "anonymous" people. What's wrong with traceability in all things. If we want to make the internet safer accountability works IRL why not online?