Re: Thinking about a new decentralized/serverless IM protocol

On 2004-12-14 19:30:16 UTC, Ron wrote:
> Wouldn't everybody who's logged on need to know the IP of everybody on 
> their contact list at all times? What if the IP changes?

Yes, when using the Internet you need to know the IP/TCP address of the
buddies, and that's the function of the network "routing". That is, for
each buddy knowing where to send the data.

> Is communication without going through a 3rd party server safe?

Yes, it's safe because the protocol is encrypted and authenticated
end-to-end using public/private keys.

> I suppose people can run their own servers, but then what if they meet a 
> friend 
> who uses a different server, are they going to be forced to have a 
> repository of a dozen servers to connect to and poll?

The servers are in communication and you can connect to some of them to
not trust all the searching and routing to one of them.
My original plan it to use the already in place ed2k network for
searching and routing (but until I have something implemented I won't
know how that would work).

> What about spoofing? If there's no centralized user registry, what is 
> stopping somebody from logging in as "Ron" (or whatever account I choose 
> to make) and chatting to people I know?  That could be solved with sound 
> cryptography and/or message signing, I suppose.  But it's something to 
> look out for.

I already said "no centralized user registry". So you don't choose your
alias that's the task of your buddies. You just assign an alias to the public 
key
of your buddy. The network doesn't know a thing about aliases.

> You know, this is beginning to sound somewhat like IRC.  IRC uses a very 
> simple, text-based protocol, plus a SSL layer frequently.  You should 
> have a look at the IRC protocol if you haven't, it's very slick.

IRC needs somewhat centralized servers, has strong centralized user
registry and has not end-to-end security.

Thanks for your feedback!

Eduardo


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