Combining BitTorrent with darknets for P2P privacy

CSEMike writes: "Currently popular peer-to-peer networks suffer from a lack of privacy. For applications like BitTorrent or Gnutella, sharing a file means exposing your behavior to anyone interested in monitoring it. OneSwarm is a new file sharing application developed by researchers at the University of Washington that improves privacy in peer-to-peer networks. Instead of communicating directly, sharing in OneSwarm is friend-to-friend; senders and receivers exchange data using multiple intermediaries in an overlay mesh. OneSwarm is built on (and backwards compatible with) BitTorrent, but includes numerous extensions to improve privacy while providing good performance: point-to-point encryption using SSL, source-address rewriting, and multi-path and multi-source downloading. Clients and source are available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows."

File sharing for friends

[tethernet]

I've been using the beta version of OneSwarm for a while, and I found it extremely useful. It's great for sharing files privately with friends. The best part is that it allows you to download files from your friends' friends (and vice-versa) without ever revealing your identity or IP address.

Re:

[javvee]

I've been testing the beta too of this f2f implementation. I like it! Trust only the ones who you trust. However, it's time for the rest of the world to get fiber to the home so tunneling actually starts working :) Now,for the sequential download so we can stream video from several friends friends through our friends!

Cool

[zhapp]

This really sounds cool, but it seems like you only can download torrents privately that has been shared in the f2f network and not all bittorrent files. Good thing I have friends with friends with big hard-drives... :)