#+TITLE: VatTP routing musings Consider: | name | SAD? | Name can sign? | Stringy name? | |-----------------------+---------+----------------+---------------| | Tor Onion Services | Yes | No (usually) | Yes | | Unix domain sockets | Yes (λ) | No | No | | E VatTP | Yes | Yes | Yes | | CAs + DNS | No | No (usually) | Yes | | St&Fwd carrier pigeon | Yes | Yes | Yes | Some definitions: - *SAD:* Self Authenticating Designator for routing or verifying messages... "you'll know it's me by my name". "Does not separate identity and authentication." (Note, this is similar but different from "does not separate designation and authority"... it's about authentication!) Note that a (λ) indicates that this is technically true, but it's both kind of "anonymous" (no stringy name) but eq?-comparable - *Name can sign:* I mean something specific here: that the same key that designates how to securely route messages to this location can be used *in the protocol* (VatTP or CapTP) to sign messages, including handoff certificates. Absence of this is not prevention of certificate usage, but one must ask the destination for a key that will be used for such signatures. - *Stringy name:* A name that's string-encodeable. Note that the lack of this isn't bad at all, in the same way that language "reference" ocaps are super great even sans any stringy name... up until the point where you want to involve certificates. What the heck is the last one? "St&Fwd carrier pigeon", what? This is an imaginary protocol: high average bandwidth, high latency, high packet loss (also known as CapTPigeon... or CarryTPigeon...?). In a shadowy and apocalyptic near future, our radio-frequency networks are unusable and wired networking infrastructure has crumbled, but networked cooperation continues. Humans communicate by sending messages via carrier pigeons with tiny backpacks outfitted to carry small datacards (maybe microsd or whatever is popular then). Human handlers unload these backpacks into devices which sort out which messages are local and which need to be loaded onto cards flying to other pigeons until they reach their destination. (Maybe uses some kind of onion protocol.) Of course, some pigeons don't make it or drop their backpacks... hence the high packet loss. (Inserted for amusement but also demonstration of how secure store and forward networks do not require contemporary networking infrastructure.)