[Freedombox-discuss] finding each other. was: Re: I'm new here

[James Vasile]

On Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:21:37 -0500, Jason <freedombox at lakedaemon.net> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 19, 2011 at 06:57:31PM -0500, James Vasile wrote:
> > how FreedomBoxes find each other on the net across firewalls, NATs,
> > meshes, dynamic addresses and the like.  And how can we make that
> > anonymous when it needs to be?
> 
> I've been thinking about a small daemon listening on localhost.  A tor
> hidden service would connect incoming requests to it.  It would then
> do a Skype-like negotiation to create a point-to-point VPN outside of
> the Tor cloud.  I'm thinking openvpn with UDP transport.  UDP is easier
> to firewall-punch.

That's an interesting idea.  I haven't actually studied up on how Tor
does hidden services yet.  How are Tor they found?  What if a box
running such a service moves to a new IP?  How do you find a Tor hidden
service if it's inside a firewall?

> 
> Obviously, the VPN connection would eliminate the anonymity.  I suppose
> a config file could dictate classes of clients.  Some for direct
> connections (friends, etc), and some forced to stay within the Tor
> cloud (slower, but more anonymous).  The VPN connection through the Tor
> cloud would have to be TCP transport.