Konrad Bächler

I2P ("Invisible Internet Project") is a peer-to-peer overlay network. Overlay networks (inappropriately called "darknet") are able to anonymize peers and to fully encrypt all messages within a network. I2P gained more attention in 2022. Lately some important changes to the protocol layer of I2P have been implemented: the cryptography has been modernized and the software packages were released end of 2022.

This short talk shows the major changes, and whether the performance and stability of the I2P network got improved. This is one of the I2P reseed server maintainers and application developers talking (see links).

The presentation has the following content:

• Short introduction: the I2P network (3')
• Overview of the latest changes (3')
• Focus on the impact of the changes (5')
• Summary and take-outs (2')
• One or two questions (2')

Overlay networks (also sometimes called, inappropriately, "darknet") are able to anonymize peers and to fully encrypt all messages within a network. Creating a javascript application which is implementing true "privacy-by-design" is not that hard by using the I2P SAM library. This is the core developer of the library showing its usage and use cases.

The presentation has the following content:

• Motivation: why I2P-SAM got developed (3')
• Setting up the distributed overlay I2P network for testing (4')
• Creating an application using the I2P-SAM library (10')
• Use cases: wide range of peer-to-peer applications (3')
• Q & A (5')

A fully distributed network does not have - by definition - a central authority. Nevertheless overlay networks, like I2P ("Invisible Internet Project") do have the need for a DNS. Also, by definition, there is nothing like trust between peers of such a network. Typically such a problem might be solved using a distributed storage layer driven by a byzantine fault tolerant consensus algorithm. Students of the Lucerne University of Applied Science and Arts created mid December 2022 a prototype solution including an API.

The presentation has the following content:

• Short introduction to the concept of the I2P network and its b32 naming space (3')
• Motivation: Why the I2P network needs a DNS (4')
• Setup: the tools, a distributed layer to store data and an I2P test network (3')
• Byzantine Fault Tolerance as consensus algorithm (2')
• Design and usage of the DNS API for I2P (5')
• Review and outlook (3')
• Discussion: feedback from DNS devs (10')

Imagine: I2P (aka "Darknet"), a highly energy-efficient, new and fully distributed storage engine, some basic banking business logic and a fresh user interface.

Result: a highly privacy-respecting, in theory secure, yet very slow, personal bank. Meet diva.exchange - the first non-profit, non-corporate, very-small-tech and research-driven association developing "Free Banking Technology - For Everyone". All licensed under AGPLv3+.

The presentation is about the technology stack of the truly distributed free banking technology "DIVA". It's also about the fact that "distributed technology" does not offer anything like a "business model" in the old-fashioned-cloudy way. It's about the overlay network "I2P". It's about the distributed storage engine "Iroha" and the challenges with a very slow network. It's about banking business logic, the user interface and its challenges being fully distributed. And it's about the research co-operations in Switzerland.

DIVA is small and local tech for everyone.