From: "Douglas R. Floyd" <dfloyd@io.com>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 06:42:45 +0800
To: cts@deltanet.com
Subject: Re: Jurisdictionless Distributed Data Havens
In-Reply-To: <3212B0CB.1AB7@deltanet.com>
Message-ID: <199608151452.JAA02130@xanadu.io.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


[...]
> 
> If one site gets shut down by Big Brother, denial of service attack,
> etc., the other sites either find a new site to replicate the missing
> part to, or they need to reconstruct the data and re-stripe it for the
> remaining servers. (Read any networking book with a section on RAID to
> see what all this means.)

[...]

> 
> The reason data striping is better than a simple mirroring network is
> that no single site contains anything useful in itself for the
> authorities to use against the server maintainer. (Similar to a remailer
> network perhaps)



> 
> An extra feature could be if some major attack was initiated against the
> data haven, there could be a dead-man button of some sort to make the
> data vanish altogether by sending distress signals to the other servers
> (or to at least one server, which could then cascade the signal).

BB would follow the signal and pop another person with conspiracy.

I have been researching this for a while yet, and have a pretty alpha
reference implementation as well as a mailing list exactly on this topic.

The problem with a RAID 5 data haven is that something needs to be the
controller, to put together and store/retrieve the data.  This controller
is in one point, and can be found out.

What BB could do is smash the controller of the RAID array, then press
charges against several of the "hard drive" owners for conspiracy.

I am working on a list for this topic (dh-l@lists.io.com, subscribe on
majordomo@lists.io.com), but I have had problems with getting a the reply
block correct, most likely due to me being very new to majordomo type
lists.

Another problem with this way of a data haven is the way network traffic
gets transfered around.  To have it more anonymous, DC net technology can
be used, but this very hard to implement.

As of now, I am looking for someone who can help me implement a redundant
controller system, so when the DH is contacted, even if the first one if
smashed, the "RAID" stays operable.

Currently, the data haven program just wakes up on input from a .forward
file into its stdin and acts on it.