CSE2410 Null_Pinter¶

Project: I2P¶

In CSE2410, open source projects are chosen and worked on by small teams throughout the semester. The team Null_Pointer, consisting of Aaron Nies, Nick Namba, Rafael Trujillo, and Santiago Roig, chose I2P as their project. In this wiki you'll find information on their project, the current status of the team, and their schedule.

What is I2P?¶

I2P Website: https://geti2p.net/en/

I2P is a network anonymizer for the internet. It works as a network-within-a-network, allowing people to host services, send messages, and create postings all in private. As the project site states, "I2P is used by many people who care about their privacy: activists, oppressed people, journalists and whistleblowers, as well as the average person." Obviously no one can ever be completely anonymous on a network, with I2P the user is able to set a level of privacy which increases the difficulty of discovering the user's identity. Traffic from low levels of privacy is indistinguishable from more secure traffic, increasing the difficulty for attackers.

The I2P network is isolated from normal websites to prevent it from being abused (ex. DOS attacks, etc). In place of websites, eepsites enable private browsing and hosting. Users are able to navigate to key eepsites such as the developer forums, blogging sites, free eepsite hosting services and more as soon as they setup I2P. To go to an eepsite not listed in the users addressbook (similar to a DNS), the user must subscribe to a site. This adds more eepsites to the user's addressbook.

Other core services are included with I2P like I2PSnark, a torrent client. I2PSnark allows better file transfer over the smaller than normal bandwidth of the I2P network. Core services like this provide the complete anonymity package to those needing a secure network.