[117892] in Cypherpunks
Re: request for information/virtual private network as parallel archit
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (lcs Mixmaster Remailer)
Tue Sep 14 11:37:42 1999
Date: 14 Sep 1999 15:20:05 -0000
Message-ID: <19990914152005.7270.qmail@nym.alias.net>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: lcs Mixmaster Remailer <mix@anon.lcs.mit.edu>
Reply-To: lcs Mixmaster Remailer <mix@anon.lcs.mit.edu>
> I wonder if it is possible to create a virtual private network which,
> operating as a parallel architecture composed of its nodes, implements a
> database that is accessible from each of the nodes in such a way that the
> information contained in any one or few of the nodes does not permit
> reconstruction of the database and in which the database would be "doing
> sommersaults" all the time so that only simultaneous interception of the
> data content of the majority of nodes would allow the database to be
> reconstructed?
You need to clarify your threat model.
If a node is corrupted by the enemy, then it can reconstruct the entire
database (since you said it is accessible from each of the nodes). It
doesn't have the whole DB in its local memory, but an enemy who corrupts
a node is not necessarily limited to just grabbing it and seeing what
is available locally. It can make the node pretend to be working
normally, and have it make requests to the other nodes for the rest of
the information in the database.
