NEWS: Version 1.5 is out!
Hello, here is Turtle F2F.
Turtle is a free and open
source
anonymous peer-to-peer network project facilitating free speech and
sharing information by combining encryption with peer-to-peer (P2P)
technology. Like no other anonymous P2P software, it allows users to
share files and otherwise communicate without fear of legal sanctions
or censorship.
The basic idea behind
Turtle is to build
a P2P overlay on top of pre-existing trust relationships among Turtle
users. Each user acts as node in the overlay by running a copy of the
Turtle client software. Unlike existing P2P networks, Turtle does not
allow arbitrary nodes to connect and exchange information. Instead,
each user establishes secure and authenticated channels with a limited
number of other nodes/friends controlled by people he or she trusts
(friends).
What Is the
Turtle?
Turtle is a peer-to-peer
architecture
for safe sharing of sensitive data with full sender and receiver
anonymity using only connections among trusted friends. This way,
sharing information and transfering files is a kind of friendslist to
trusted friends only. Technically, Turtle is a friend-to-friend (F2F)
network - a special type of peer-to-peer network in which all your
communication goes only to your trusted friends, and then to their
friends, and so on, to the ultimate destination.
In the Turtle overlay, both
queries and
results move hop by hop; the net result is that information or files
are only exchanged between people that trust each other and the network
connections among Turtle friends is always encrypted. Consequently, a
snooper or adversary has no way to determine who is
requesting/providing information, and what that information is. Given
this design, your Turtle network offers a number of useful security
properties, such as confined damage in case of node compromise, and
resilience against denial of service attacks (for more details on this
see the Documents section).
Turtle friends can exchange
information
deemed "controversial'' or "risky'' (for example whistleblowers
exposing government or corporate abuse) without being exposed to legal
or economic pressure from parties that may want to censor or suppress
this information. Such users are likely to be found in countries where
the government routinely snoops on citizens' communications. It will
also be attractive to people in all countries who value their privacy.
The Turtle Client
Under
the sponsorship of NLnet,
we are developing an open source client for Turtle networks. Download
the currently available now and check for more details the Installation
section). The Turtle client is a modular software design, it contains
parts developed by us, as well as third-party open source components
(some of which we had to modify). Currently, Turtle runs under Linux
and we hope to port it to other platforms like Windows XP / Vista or
MacOS - just check the Download section.
For the current Turtle
client (with a
sexy user interface), any Linux distribution and any desktop manager
will suffice. The most complete GUI interface requires the KDE desktop environment. You can
find out more about system requirements for installing Turtle in the user's manual.
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