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routing?

A project log for Internet 2

a really decentralized free network

michaelMichael 03/16/2015 at 09:290 Comments

Been thinking a lot about routing the past days. Actually not the routing, but knowing all the hops. I'm open for any suggestion or discussion.

1. Broadcasting ping

This has some neat possibilities. First of all, nodes could cache results. If you ping a depth of 2, it means for all receivers they don't need to ping any further, you'd get a list of their direct peers. This ping also registers you at all neighbours. With the result of the ping of depth of 2 you also cover a subnet fast, e.g. in a cafe you'd realize every client sees the same, just the up-link (aka free wifi ap) would show you a list with a unique link. Albeit imagin a block and every apartment has a node, you'd be able to progressively ping your way until e.g. you could play a lan party with your friend on the other side of the block without every the need to go through the net of any big provider.

2. Registration echo

Every peer would forward it to all, unless it already knows about you, then the registration echo was already received previously and forwarded. This would look like a wave through the net. Provider could use an uplink architecture that just forwards those registration echos up the chain. Some root nodes would act like DNS nowadays, but without any legal or other issues, there would be no country or organization that maintains this, you'd just register with any public key you want.... this time by using your private key to sign the current time/date. if anyone would try to spoof you, they'd need to sign the packet with a newer date and therefore they'd need to know your private key. "DNS Spoofing" would not be possible.

3. resolve ping

That would be like an DNS query, or rather a google query... or rather like a search with a data sharing network. But you could use previous knowledge to improve the search, e.g. send queries to the hops of the last time you've communicated to the address of your target. The person has maybe not moved at all (e.g. his home network knows him), so if you'd ping his router, it very likely knows your target. But even if the person moved, it is very likely in the same city, pinging higher nodes might track this person down and ultimately, in the worst case, one of the root hops of internet2 got his registration echo (from 2.)

Your device would manage a DB with connections and when you buy it, it would have a clone from your device vendor with the basic upper level nodes just so you don't start at 0. But this could be very custom, some military organization might have even black lists of nodes your device should avoid.

Companies on the other side could whitelist nodes that can communicate within the network, there would be no subnet masks. It could be a totally isolated network or shared across all companies within the same building. you would share the bandwidth, but again no security issues, as every packet would always be encrypted.

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