From: janke@unixg.ubc.ca
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 1996 11:35:10 +0800
To: mccoy@communities.com (Jim McCoy)
Subject: Re: Pseudo-DC-net Project
In-Reply-To: <v02140b00ae07452b6958@[205.162.51.35]>
Message-ID: <m291cu1g0w.fsf@clouds.heaven.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Thank you for the comments, but I'm not sure I fully understand them 
all. First of all what is a TLA? Second of all, and this seems to be
something I was unclear about in my first post---I need *not* mean to
suggest that all clietns shared the same PRNG. Every pair of
clients will have their own. By star-shapped, I meant the configuration
of the communications network, not the  abstract connection that exist 
between cleints by virtue of the PRNG's. As for a MAC being silly,
well it would be if everyone used a different one, but I meant for
it to be shared by all participants, so that the most the MAC would 
reveal is that *someone* on the network sent the message.

Your paragraph that I have created a simple packet anonymizer is
probably based on the misunderstanding of the points I mentioned above.
I do like the idea of encrypting the link to the server with a PRNG,
and since I will be running lots anyway... :) (O(N) not 1 for each
client! :) ) it might be worth adding. Then again, I do not want to regard the
server as a trusted party in any way... 

Collision detection is easy with a MAC, so I think I will keep it.

I hadn't thought of using a ring topology... Interesting. I'll think
about that one some more.

How do hash trees help? Is that mentioned in the paper you cite? I'll
take a look at that one before long. What's the title and author?

-- 
Leonard Janke
(pgp key id 0xF4118611)