A Free and Open Inter9


		  jrmu (jrmu@cloud9p.org)



			  ABSTRACT

	  The Inter9 is	an attempt to create a	   free
     and open internet.	It is modeled closely after the
     original Internet	with  a	 few  modifications  to
     allow  federation to unite	splintered internets.



The Inter9 is an experimental attempt to create	a   free and
open  internet.	 It  is	 modeled  closely after	the original
Internet, with a few design modificationsdesigned to prevent
centralized  control. The Inter9 is an attempt to apply	the
federation model to united splintered internets.

Open Standards

Some key principles from the old Internet are  preserved.
Anyone can write new applications and suggest new standards.
Like the original Internet, standards should not be dictated
by  any	 centralized  agency,  corporation,  or	 government.
Instead, all users are invited to  contribute  to  its	cre-
ation.	Its principles reflect the spirit of the old RFCs:
rough consensus	and running code.  It requires	open  proto-
cols and expects open implementations.

By design, the network is amenable to  experimentation	with
new  ideas  and	 customization	by its users. The goal is to
encourage a vibrant ecosystem of applications  developed  by
the network's users.

Backwards Compatibility

Although there have been many proposed overlay networks, the
ones  in  use  today fail to preserve many of the principles
that led to the	success	of the original	Internet.

The Inter9's first goal	is backwards  compatibility.  It  is
necessary  to  transparently support all existing networking
applications that were originally written for  the  central-
ized internet, without any modifications.

The network layer protocol must	be IP with  at	most  a	 few
modifications.	Internet Protocol is  packet-switching which


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is important for routing around	censorship  nodes.  However,
this  IP must be encapsulated and transported via tunnels to
avoid censorship, and the nodes	must be	spread out  globally
across	the world in multiple countries	to allow for routing
around national	firewalls.

Like the original ARPAnet, the design goals of this internet
are low-latency	and high bandwidth.

A New Overlay Network

Many existing overlay networks are  connection-oriented	 and
require	 the  formation	of circuits. This is a serious weak-
ness because it	makes it difficult to route around firewalls
and  censored  nodes. Especially in the	presence of changing
firewalls, the path taken to a destination may be obstructed
sporadically.  Dynamic	routing	 of  packets, namely packet-
switching, is preferred. Moreover,  many  of  these  overlay
networks  intentionally	choose convoluted routing methods in
order to  improve  anonymity.  Unfortunately  this  has	 the
effect	of increasing latency and decreasing bandwidth,	mak-
ing them unsuitable for	a general purpose alternative inter-
net.

VPN tunnels will be used at first  to  avoid  the  costs  of
building expensive infrastructure. Because encapsulated	data
is simply IP,  any form	of tunnel  can	be  used  in  theory
(IPSec,	 Wireguard,  OpenVPN).	If tunnels are blocked,	many
other transport	methods	(wireless links, sneakernet) can  be
used.

Uniting	Splinternets

The Inter9 anticipates a future	where each national  govern-
ment  attempts	control	 of  its  network  infrastructure by
imposing national firewalls and	blocking connections to	for-
eign  enemies.	As  a  result,	it  assumes  that there	are
multiple  valid	 internets  existing  simultaneously  and
multiple  DNS  roots  with contradictory but   equally valid
answers.

Like the original Internet, the	goal of	 the  Inter9  is  to
connect	 together  isolated  networks.	It  aims to act	as a
bridge between disparate, incompatible networks	 and  proto-
cols.  Gateways	sit at the boundary of two incompatible	net-
works to bridge	them together.

Federation

Its model for moderation is a distributed, federated  model.
It  does  not  rely entirely on	centralized authorities	like
the old	Internet. Instead,     moderation  powers  are	dis-
tributed  to  each node, and the nodes voluntarily choose to
federate or part. Any node has full capability	of  starting


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its own	federation or joining and participating	in an exist-
ing one. This is designed to help reduce the high crime	rate
experienced  by	 anarchic overlay networks that	are entirely
censorship-resistant.

The explicit goal of  the  Inter9  is  universal  access  to
information,  regardless of the	user's platform	or operating
system.	For this purpose, the 9p protocol is chosen to	pro-
vide a consistent, uniform file
,sistant.














































		     November 23, 2024