Re: [Asrg] Computer Security Communication Network

["John Levine" <[e-mail]>]

> The aforementioned distributed, decentralized computer security
> communication network, a computer system for the dissemination of
> instantaneous computer security information between computer
> scientists is an interesting topic.

Since this assertion is rather dubious, we can skip the rest of the
message for now.

We already have effective ways to distribute material from a central
point, such as CDNs.  We also already have usenet (yes, it still
exists and some parts remain quite healthy.)

The main thing that a distributed network provides is the ability for
anyone to send out material, but as we've seen on usenet, that
instantly falls afoul of Sturgeon's Law.

In the meantime you might take a look at DCC: http://www.rhyolite.com/dcc/

It is not totally open like typical p2p networks, but anyone with
resonably large mail volume and who doesn't smell like a sleazeball
can run a server that exchanges DCC data, and anyone at all can
contribute message hashes.  It's relatively resistant to bad guys
because the main thing you can do to poison it is to report hashes of
single messages as spam, which doesn't help other than for a rather
arcane DoS.