Seems to me that, as MAID becomes huge, the core development team themselves become a target for the authorities to control.
Now, I’m not referring to such things as NSA/GCHQ middle-man tampering with downloads of client software, which can be thwarted by cryptographic signing and reproducible builds.
I’m talking about such things as threatening someones family or other forms of pressure to get them to accept some tiny flaw in the security. I saw a CCC video from a couple of years back (sorry, can’t find the link) where changing just one bit in a crypto module disabled its entropy and made it vulnerable to breaking by anyone who knew the break was there. A zero day type of thing, like the SSL failure of a few years back.
No wonder so many firms in this area are based in Switzerland and Luxembourg.
Apart from the authorities, there are just plain terrorists angry at some content appearing on the SAFE network.
Are there plans to harden or make distributed, the core development? Is that even possible?
I don’t think anyone has to be afraid of that to be honest. Look at those Bitcoin Devs. Anyone ever threatened by a government? I think not. Same for the inventor of BitTorrent and the Devs from uTorrents etc. They just provide the software.
This has been discussed a number of times and each time there is no credible evidence of fear resulting.
That is the beauty of open source. It is easy to indicate that a update is coerced, and then we see the unaffected version copied and notified as being the “safe” version.
SO no matter the changes we can keep to the version without the corruption.
Already is, there are devs operating from different countries now. It is opensourced.
Do not be so certain that it cannot happen. The 1MB hard limit in bitcoin was almost certainly such an attack. Even innocuous-appearing changes can result in the failure of a project, or at least significantly slow down adoption and use. Given what’s at stake, and the resources state actors possess, it would be…unwise to assume that this cannot/will not/has not happened. Who knows who the ‘core team’ has been talking to. Who knows, who is behind Mike Hearn. Of course, if you could tell who got the them and how, they wouldn’t be very good at their jobs now would they?
The SAFE network is about so much more than anyone individual or group. That bbeing said though, it is entirely reasonable to expect attacks that may be quite ungentlemanly, even ruthless.
Bureaucrats and politicians don’t understand the internet or anything else about technology. They care about the next election. They’ll wail and throw a tantrum only when it’s too late.
I’m sorry, but I’m really not sure what you mean. Some rogue NSA nerds coming to knock at someone’s door? Are we talking about the same people that are “preventing” all those attacks in major cities?
We need to be ready in case we have spies or trolls anywhere on this community. One mole can do a lot of damage if he is undetected. Any organization can be infiltrated slowly, and its initial goals subverted and slowly molded into something entirely different. We need to be ready for anything.
That being said, I still feel really happy about what Maidsafe is doing and the progress they are making. This is the best forum on the net. And I am very optimistic.
Yes I agree. Although we’re probably still under the radar for now; despite the fact that David has been working on it for over 10 years.
But, even if we’ve been lucky so far, when SAFE goes live and the market cap attracts attention like Eth’s has we’ll be in the spotlight.
I’ve worked in central govt in UK private office with politicians in the SPADS (special advisers) office for a few years. From my [limited] experience these things usually happen much like they did with Silk Road in the US. Things hum along nicely until one influential person gets a bee in their bonnet, they petition for action and support, then government wheels start to turn to find ways to attack the perceived threat.
I agree that the ‘intelligence’ agencies are inappropriately named and it’s unlikely that they will spring into action effectively and efficiently. However, powerful people do not like to be beaten. Once they discover it’s difficult to shut down, I have very little doubt that they will look at any-and-all means they can find, and will eventually pour a lot of resources into trying to stop safenet.
Hopefully ‘they’ will be too late and they will be forced to adapt to the new world… which will be a much better/SAFER place for all of us
