Re: [GNUnet-developers] FPS paper & browser study

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

Christian Grothoff <address@hidden> skribis:

> As you can verify by running our script (before & after doing a search) from
>
> https://gnunet.org/gnsdatacollect
>
> it is indeed the case that following a search result like this would be
> counted as following a link (and thus not be in the 8%).  We cannot tell
> from the data what percentage of followed links were from search engines.

OK.

> However, I do not see this as a problem.

Just to be clear: I don’t think the fact that people abuse centralized
search engines as a name system is a problem for the paper’s argument;
I think it’s a problem from a censorship-resistance viewpoint (and
beyond GNUnet’s scope.)

> GNS will work fine with search engines: once you've gotten
> "search.gnu" in your zone, you will resolve links from the search
> engine for say a search for "ludu" using "ludo.search.gnu", which
> would go to Ludo's zone (where "Ludo's zone" is defined by the search
> engine, which is fine --- you will get the Ludo corresponding to the
> search result you clicked on).

Now you’re proposing abusing the name system as a search engine.  :-)

> Now, we might not like people exposing their browsing habits like this from
> a privacy perspective, but that's another story.  And obviously the 8% is
> given on a limited sample for today's behavior; how people may evolve to
> behave tomorrow is another story.  I mean, sample the percentage of encrypted
> e-mails you got two months ago vs. today... Sometimes these values change,
> and if you need to import a public key into a zone, I can imagine that users
> may change their surfing behavior in a way that reduces the 8% further.

Yes.  Perhaps we should push for Firefox’s address bar to behave
exclusively as an address bar by default.

Thanks,
Ludo’.