I2P

I2P is a free and open source project building an anonymity and/or pseudonymous virtual private network. The network is a simple layer that applications can use to anonymously and securely send messages to each other.

Note that it is likely that there are bugs in the software and there has been insufficient peer review to date; thus those seeking strong anonymity should look elsewhere.

The network itself is strictly message-based ( à la internet protocol), but there is a library available to allow reliable streaming communication on top of it ( à la Transmission control protocol, although from version 0.6 there is a new User datagram protocol-based SSU transport). All communication is end-to-end encrypted (in total there are four layers of encryption used when sending a message), and even the end points ( destinations ) are cryptographic identifiers (essentially a pair of Public key).

Although many of the developers had been a part of the Invisible Internet Project and Freenet communities, there are significant differences between their designs and concepts. IIP was an anonymous centralized Internet Relay Chat server, Freenet is a censorship-resistant distributed data store, but I2P is an Anonymous P2P distributed communication layer designed to run any traditional internet service (e.g. Usenet, E-mail, Internet Relay Chat, Web hosting and HTTP, Telnet), as well as more traditional distributed applications (e.g. a distributed data store, a web proxy network using Squid cache, and Domain Name System).

I2P is currently in the Development_stage#Pre-Alpha development stage and not yet ready for general anonymity use. The first stable release, version 1.0 was planned to arrive in August 2005.

The main developer of I2P is jrandom, [http://www.i2p.net/team with support from numerous others].

=I2P software tools=

Since I2P is an anonymous network layer, it is designed so other software programs can use it for anonymous communication, the so called application layer. As such there are a variety of tools currently available for I2P or in development.

==Gnutella==

===I2PHEX===

I2PHEX is a port of the popular gnutella client [http://phex.org Phex] to i2p. Although currently still in alpha development, it does tend to run with stability and without crashing and is fairly functional. Some issues with file transfers still exist and there is much cleanup left to be done concerning its gui. It does already provide a halfway decent way of sharing content. Though BitTorrent would probably remain the best way to release new content.

==BitTorrent==

===I2P-BT===

I2P-BT was a BitTorrent client for I2P that allowed anonymous swarming for file sharing. This client was a modified version of the original BitTorrent 3.4.2 program which ran on Windows and most Unices in a GUI and command-line environment.

I2P-BT was developed by the individual known as duck on I2P in cooperation with smeghead. It is no longer being actively developed. The main reason for this is that the Azureus BitTorrent client took over with a new [http://azureus.sourceforge.net/plugin_details.phpplugin=azneti2p I2P plugin], but many have found it is a bit troublesome to use. However, there is a small effort to upgrade the I2P-BT client up to par with the BitTorrent 4.0 release.

===Azureus===

Azureus is a BitTorrent client for I2P that allows anonymous swarming for file sharing through either Tor or i2p.

==SAM==

SAM [http://www.i2p.net/sam] is a protocol that allows a client application written in any language to communicate over I2P.

==Susimail==

I2P has a free pseudonymous e-mail service, run by an individual called Postman. The mail transfer servers are Post Office Protocol.mail.i2p and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.mail.i2p . Susimail was created to address privacy concerns in using these servers directly using traditional email clients, such as leaking the user s hostname while communicating with the SMTP server. Susimail is a Web-based email client intended primarily for use with Postman s mail servers, designed with security and anonymity in mind. It is currently included in the default I2P distribution, and can be accessed through your I2P router console web interface. (Note that this is only used to read and send e-mail, not to create or manage your mail.i2p account; the latter must be done at www.mail.i2p .)

==Syndie==

Syndie is a blogging application for i2p (and also useable through Tor); it is currently at an alpha release.

==Other Possible Clients==

===Waste===

One can run WASTE over the Tor network and also i2p. What this proxying is provide a degree of anonymity: one can no longer discover the actual IP address of a peer running waste. As i2p is designed as another layer in the TCP/IP network stack, it integrates fairly well. It is unknown how well this works with Tor.

=See also=

*Anonymous P2P *Tor (anonymous network) - A similar anonymous communication system that is designed as more of an outproxy network to the existing Internet.

=External links=

*[http://www.i2p.net/ Official I2P website] *[http://board.planetpeer.de/ Support forums for I2P and related applications like i2phex] *[http://dev.i2p.net/i2p/ I2P Files and Source code] *[http://azureus.sourceforge.net/doc/AnonBT/i2p/I2P_howto.htm How to use Azureus with I2P] *[http://ugha.i2p/ Ugha s wiki] (I2P is required to access this site) *[http://orion.i2p/ A lists over other websites inside I2P] (I2P is required to access this site)