Re: How do you set up GNUNet on GNU Guix?

I read the documentation and tried to make it work, but got as far as described if you can confirm that GNUNet is supposed to work that way then that would help.

// In terms of what GNUNet is
So iiuc GNUNet is reimplementation of "the internet" with a transporter used to relay the data across selected solution e.g. TCP, UDP, Bluetooth, Wi-FI, etc..

If that's the case then how is that supposed to work in practice? Am i supposed to like get the "CORE" thing working through e.g. TCP transponder which is going to get me a solution that is able to resolve through GNUNet's eqvivalent of an IP addresses and if i want domain resolution then i need to configure GNS on top of it and other relevant reimplementations of "the internet"s functionality?

If so that sounds like a lot of work.. is there any rational reason to why there is no definition for something like gnunet-service-type in guix? (bcs i would rather spent the effort developing that so that it works for everyone instead of me doing the eqvivalent amout of work duct taping it together..)

// Usability

in terms of usage my threat model is in terms of who handles my data to trust none and being political activist to be a target for cyber and physical attacks so in an ideal world the general rule that i go by is that i don't want anyone to know that i am even using any device AND what am i doing on the internet to generally follow the rule of if the solution has bunch of people providing super illegal stuff like assasinations for hire, cp, guns, etc.. then it's implementation is likely beyond the capability of any relevant enforcement agency to be good enough for me (Tor/Lokinet) -> Is GNUNet anywhere near such capability or is there a rational reason for me to migrate from Tor/Lokinet on it?

// Delay?

The main problem on onion-routing for me is the delay how does GNUNet handle that in comparison to what my ISP is giving me?

// Registering a domain?
Is there a way for me to register a TLD on GNUNet so that i can then use something like domain.my-cool-tld?

> Sounds like a good course of action to me -- sometimes on IRC (or Matrix), the people currently logged in did not have an answer, so they redirected you to a source that might have one. Additionally, I must recommend against insulting them (‘matrix channel suck, they don't know’), it makes people disinclined to help you further.
I didn't meant to insult anyone i wanted to inform about my experience with GNUNet so far so that it can hopefully be addressed as to me it's not going a good job explaining what GNUNet (like i rread the docs and looked at the videos and i just have more questions then answers) is and the experience to make it work is ride through hell..

> Do you have a particular part of the website in mind that you consider to not be explaining a particular thing well?
For context i have 14 years of experience with computer science.. when i look at the website it's wall of text using custom terminology (that is hidden in the docs) on a self-made technology without clear explanation beyond someone talking on FOSDEM and alike events trying their best to explain it that to me feels more like an entertainment salted with bits of semi-useful info that is just not enough for me..

If this is supposed to be the replacement of the internet then it should be recognized that people go to the university to learn about it and how it use it for X years so the focus should be on how to make that process of presenting the project understandable to the general public as it seems to me as that GNUNet is something that people need a very specific knowledge and experience to understand how it works and how to make it work so i at very least i would suggest to make as short as possible informative video like https://invidious.namazso.eu/watch?v=JWII85UlzKw (That GNU seems to be really good at making based on guix's videos at https://guix.gnu.org/en/videos/2020/packaging-part-two) and put in on the landing page of the website to make this process easier and explain the terminology and used components instead of the current which seems to make everyone think that it's GNU's attempt at making TorProject alternative that doesn't work..

Ideally i would suggest to make more short videos like the one presented above by guix explaining the invidual components as well to get everyone "on the same boat" and to be able to work with/on the project painlessly and improve the current docs.

> it's currently like comparing apples to oranges, or even worse, comparing apples to lunchboxes What everyday usecase do you propose then or how should i look at this project?

On Čt, zář 8 2022 at 23:44:23 +0200, Maxime Devos <maximedevos@telenet.be> wrote:

On 08-09-2022 15:34, Jacob Hrbek wrote:
I am trying to set up an alternative to tor on GNU Guix where following the docs gets me:
GNUnet is not an alternative to Tor. Perhaps a Tor-like something could be built on top of GNUnet (maybe with CADET?) with some time and effort, but AFAICT nobody has built an anonymising (and properly anonymising, like Tor) P2P proxy thing on top of GNUnet yet.
$ guix shell gnunet -- gnunet-arm -s -m Now only monitoring, press CTRL-C to stop. Starting namestore... Starting namecache... Starting statistics... Starting ats... Starting core... Starting peerinfo... Starting setu... Starting transport... Starting nat... Starting datastore... Starting peerstore... Starting identity... Starting reclaim... And that's how far i got.. using $ chromium --proxy-server="socks5://127.0.0.1:7777" test.gnu <returns 404>
Unless the installation documentation has changed, there were a more steps than that. IIRC, the docs ask you to modify some configuration files. You can find the installation documentation at <https://docs.gnunet.org/installing.html> (I recommend the single-user setup, as it is simpler, and because Guix does not expect you to use usermod, useradd and groupadd that way). Also, IIRC the GNS proxy thing was a bit complicated, how about trying out a few simpler things first? E.g. the GNUnet file-sharing.
Btw. the matrix channel for gnunet sucks they don't know how it works and just sent me on the mailing list
Sounds like a good course of action to me -- sometimes on IRC (or Matrix), the people currently logged in did not have an answer, so they redirected you to a source that might have one. Additionally, I must recommend against insulting them (‘matrix channel suck, they don't know’), it makes people disinclined to help you further.
and i still have no idea how GNUNet is even supposed to work as the website doesn't do a good job explaining it
how about: * https://www.gnunet.org/en/applications.html# -- this gives a few applications. It also has (indirectly) link to the GNS specification (https://lsd.gnunet.org/lsd0001/), explaining in much detail how a (part of) GNS works. * For GNUnet file-sharing: in the TOC of the documentation (https://docs.gnunet.org/), there is a promising section "How file-sharing achieves Anonymity", which explains how it works. It also has links to PDF explaining in more detail. * In the surrounding text, it gives explanation on other related things. * For another method of explanations, there are video's: https://www.gnunet.org/en/video.html It seems to me that it explains many parts of Guix, in different ways, with a reasonable structure (last time I checked, certainly not perfectly, but it has improved). Do you have a particular part of the website in mind that you consider to not be explaining a particular thing well?
so if anyone can elaborate on that e.g. is it using multi-layer encryption like Tor? Or is it possibly better than tor?, etc..
GNUnet has lots of components. What part are you looking for -- the DHT, NSE, the file-sharing, the GNS (= GNUnet's version of DNS), the ‘VPN’, Messenger, CADET? All of them have different security properties in mind and implemented. Also again, nobody has implemented a Tor-like thing on GNUnet yet, it's currently like comparing apples to oranges, or even worse, comparing apples to lunchboxes -- questions like ‘is X better than Y at Z’ are currently meaningless, especially when you aren't mentioning what your goal Z is. Greetings, Maxime

From:	Jacob Hrbek
Subject:	Re: How do you set up GNUNet on GNU Guix?
Date:	Thu, 15 Sep 2022 05:35:31 +0000