The release of the GNUnet 0.17 framework has been announced, designed for building secure decentralized P2P networks. Networks created using GNUnet do not have a single point of failure and are capable of ensuring the confidentiality of users' private information, including preventing potential abuses by security agencies and administrators with access to network nodes.
GNUnet supports the creation of P2P networks over TCP, UDP, HTTP/HTTPS, Bluetooth, and WLAN, and can operate in F2F (Friend-to-friend) mode. NAT traversal is supported, including with the use of UPnP and ICMP. A distributed hash table (DHT) can be used for data location addressing. Tools for deploying mesh networks are provided. For selective granting and revocation of access rights, the decentralized attribute exchange service reclaimID is used, which employs GNS (GNU Name System) and attribute-based encryption.
The system features low resource consumption and a multi-processing architecture to ensure isolation between components. Flexible tools for logging and accumulating statistics are provided. For developing end applications, GNUnet offers an API for the C language and bindings for other programming languages. To simplify development, it is recommended to use event loops and processes instead of threads. It includes a testing library for the automatic deployment of experimental networks covering tens of thousands of peers.
Several ready-made applications are being developed based on GNUnet technologies:
- The GNS (GNU Name System) is a completely decentralized and censorship-resistant alternative to DNS. GNS can be used alongside DNS and in traditional applications such as web browsers. Unlike DNS, GNS employs a directed graph instead of a tree-like hierarchy of servers. Name resolution is similar to DNS, but requests and responses are handled with privacy in mind—the node processing the request doesn't know to whom the response is given, and transit nodes and third-party observers cannot decipher the requests and responses. The integrity and immutability of records are ensured through cryptographic mechanisms. A DNS zone in GNS is defined using a pair of ECDSA public and private keys based on the Curve25519 elliptic curves.
- A service for anonymous file sharing that prevents information analysis by transmitting data solely in encrypted form and does not allow tracking of who uploaded, searched for, and downloaded files thanks to the use of the GAP protocol.
- System VPN for creating hidden services in the '.gnu' domain and tunneling IPv4 and IPv6 over a P2P network. Additionally, it supports IPv4-to-IPv6 and IPv6-to-IPv4 translation schemes, as well as tunneling IPv4 over IPv6 and IPv6 over IPv4.
- The GNUnet Conversation service for making voice calls over GNUnet. GNS is used for user identification, and the content of voice traffic is transmitted in encrypted form. Anonymity is not yet provided—other peers can track the connection between two users and identify them. an IP address.
- A platform for building decentralized social networks, Secushare, that uses the PSYC protocol and supports the multicast distribution of notifications with end-to-end encryption so that only authorized users can access messages, files, chats, and discussions (those to whom messages are not addressed, including node administrators, will not be able to read them);
- A system for organizing encrypted email, pretty Easy privacy, which uses GNUnet to protect metadata and supports various cryptographic protocols for key verification.
- The GNU Taler payment system provides anonymity for buyers while tracking seller transactions to ensure transparency and provide tax reporting. It supports operations with various existing currencies and electronic money, including dollars, euros, and bitcoins.
In the new version of GNUnet, changes have been made that break protocol compatibility and may lead to potential issues when nodes based on GNUnet 0.17 interact with older versions. In particular, compatibility at the distributed hash table (DHT) level has been broken — the DHT implementation has been updated to a new version of the specification, and block type definitions have been moved to GANA (GNUnet Assigned Numbers Authority). Support for unaligned and regrouped message formats has been added. Additionally, back-ported incompatible changes concerning the decentralized domain name system GNS (GNU Name System) have been adopted from the new version of the specification. For entries added to GNS, the option to configure the time to live of the record has been provided.
Source: opennet.ru
