GNUnet

Infobox Software
name = GNUnet



caption = GNUnet with the GTK+ user interface
developer = GNUnet developers
released = November 6, 2001
latest_release_version = 0.8.0
latest_release_date = June 14, 2008
operating_system = Cross-platform
genre = Anonymous P2P, Friend-to-friend
license = GNU General Public License
website = [http://www.gnunet.org/ www.gnunet.org]

GNUnet is a free software framework for decentralized, peer-to-peer networking. The framework offers link encryption, peer discovery and resource allocation.

The primary codebase is written in C, but with Freeway there is an effort to produce a compatible version written in Java. GNUnet currently runs on Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows.

It is an official GNU project.

ervices running on GNUnet

File sharing

The primary application at this point is anonymous, censorship-resistant file-sharing, allowing users to anonymously publish or retrieve information of all kinds.

The file sharing service uses GNUnet's anonymity protocol for routing queries and replies. Forwarded query messagesare used to search for content and blocks of data. Depending on load of the forwarding node, messages are forwarded to 0 or more nodes. When a node is under stress it drops requests from its neighbor nodes having lower internal trust value.

GNUnet offers a "F2F topology" option for restricting connections to only your trusted friends. Then your friends' own friends (and so on) can indirectly exchange files with your computer, never using your IP address.

URIs

GNUnet uses Uniform Resource Identifiers (not approved by IANA). The URI notation has changed along with new GNUnet versions. The following notation is used since version 0.7.0.

The GNUnet URIs consist of two major parts: the module and the module specific identifier. A GNUnet URI is of form "gnunet://module/identifier" where "module" is the module name and "identifier" is a module specific string.

The ECRS module

Files shared with GNUnet are ECRS (An Encoding for Censorship-Resistant Sharing) coded. The "ecrs" module "identifier" consists of either "chk", "sks", "ksk" or "loc" followed by a slash and a category specific value.

* "chk" identifies files, typically: gnunet://ecrs/chk/ [file hash, using 0-9A-V] . [query hash, using 0-9A-V] . [file size in bytes]
* "sks" identifies files within namespaces, typically: gnunet://ecrs/sks/NAMESPACE/IDENTIFIER
* "ksk" identifies search queries, typically: gnunet://ecrs/ksk/KEYWORD [+KEYWORD] *
* "loc" identifies a datum on a specific machine, typically: gnunet://ecrs/loc/PEER/QUERY.TYPE.KEY.SIZE

Examples

A type of GNUnet filesharing URI pointing to a specific copy of GNU GPL license text: gnunet://ecrs/chk/9E4MDN4VULE8KJG6U1C8FKH5HA8C5CHSJTILRTTPGK8MJ6VH ORERHE68JU8Q0FDTOH1DGLUJ3NLE99N0ML0N9PIBAGKG7MNPBTT6UKG.1I823C58O3L KS24LLI9KB384LH82LGF9GUQRJHACCUINSCQH36SI4NF88CMAET3T3BHI93D4S0M5CC 6MVDL1K8GFKVBN69Q6T307U6O.17992

Another type of GNUnet filesharing URI, pointing to the search results of a search with keyword "gpl": gnunet://ecrs/ksk/gpl

Chat

A trivial chat module has been implemented more as a test than as a serious application, but it is usable.

See also

* Anonymous P2P
* Friend-to-friend networks or F2F
* Tor (anonymity network)
* Freenet
* Winny - inspired on Freenet
* Share - the successor to Winny

External links

* [http://gnunet.org/ GNUnet homepage]
* [http://www.gnu.org/software/gnunet/ Official GNUnet page at GNU]
* [http://gnunet.org/drupal/ GNUnet community homepage & forum]
* [http://gnunet.org/freeway/ Freeway homepage]
* [http://gnunet.org/faq.php3#compare A comparison of GNUnet with other peer-to-peer networking]
* [http://gnunet.org/faq.php3 GNUnet FAQ]