.. _CONG-Subsystem-Dev:

.. index::
   double: CONG; subsystem

CONG
====

CONG (COre Next Generation) is the name of the project redesigns the CORE
service. Here we document the design decisions and parts that are about to
change.

..
  TODO write a short overview
  - peer ids
  - libp2p
  - protocol versioning

..
  Design goals
  ------------
   - limit tracking


Key exchange
------------

While we are at it we may as well improve the key exchange.
Currently, we are using our own ECDHE key exchange that derives
2x2 keys.
2 keys for each direction (sending/receiving).
Each direction uses two 256-bit symmetric encryption keys derived through the ECDH exchange.
Each payload is encrypted using AES(kA, Twofish(kB, payload)) both in CFB mode (!).

For CONG, we should double-check the security of your ECDHE construction.
We decided on 11/03/2024 to investigate XChaCha20-Poly1305:

Proposal:

  * Use X25519 for the KX with ephemeral Curve25519 keys.
  * Use XChaCha20-Poly1305 and kTx,kRx := KDF(X25519(),senderPK,receiverPK) for symmetric encryption

We will have to replace the use of ``GNUNET_CRYPTO_symmetric_encrypt`` and
HMAC use in ``gnunet-service-core_kx.c`` including the respective keys and IVs.


.. _Peer-IDs:

Peer IDs
--------

Peer ids stop to be unique for the lifetime of a peer, but change each time a
peer's addresses change. This includes gaining or losing an address.

It is important to note that this design choice only increases the cost of
network location tracking and does not fully prevent it. For this feature onion
routing on top of CADET is envisioned.

At this point it seems like one has to weigh privacy versus performance when it
comes to this design decision.

.. _Reasoning:

Reasoning
^^^^^^^^^

..
  	 - why this decision (and not others?)
  		 - (scenarios to understand whether it makes sense)

This change was introduced in order to stop tracking of more mobile peers
across the network. For example a more mobile peer (laptop) that logs into the
network at different places can be easily tracked by everyone just by recording
the different addresses that are tied to that peer id over time.

..
  TODO
   - why does this prevent tracking? (partially answered in the attacker
     model section below
   - tracking hellos of peer: visible
   - reverse mapping (address to peer?) not possible - there's no functionality
     for that
   - gaining/losing as criterium to change peer id makes sense?


.. _Attacker-Model:

Attacker Model
""""""""""""""
An attacker observes the hellos (containing ip and other addresses) published
under a peer id and is thus capable of tracking locations and thus obtaining a
movement profile of this peer.

With the proposed changes to the peer id an attacker can only see a peer id and
its connected set of addresses. A movement profile can not be obtained in the
previous way.

..
  TODO how much info can be gained by that? all an observing peer sees is the
  ip addresses. how much can this tell?
  - mobile provider (implicit: mobile connection)
  - internet provider - home, company, public, ...
  - region (country, city, building, ...)

Tracking of addresses/locations might still be possible in the scenario that a
mobile client uses mobile broadband and wifi uplinks and uses them in an
'overlapping' manner. (Switching on mobile broadband before leaving the range
of a wifi hotspot and vice versa Turning off mobile broadband after connecting
to a wifi.) For the 'overlapping' time the peer would publish a HELLO
containing the old and the new network addresses. After the overlapping time,
the peer's HELLO would just contain the new network address, which was already
in the HELLO from during the 'overlap'. That way the overlap can be used to
link the old and new address and - in extreme scenarios - obtain the full
movement profile again. Note that this does not work on all, not all the time
and requires work for the correlation. It should be highlighted that, although
this attack is possible, the new design still greatly reduces the attack
surface.

A way to circumvent this anti-tracking mechanism would be for an attacker to
exploit the means for consistently connect to the same peer.
.. TODO wording/conceptualisation - overlap with next sentence
For example with the means of higher-layer services like gns. With the
knowledge of the gns entry, its peer ids and thus its addresses can be fully
tracked. Until the existence of an onion-routing service and its decoupling of
identities and network addresses, this behavior is probably intended and maybe
the only way to connect endpoints. Although this leak is still existent the
new design still prevents a lot of other leakage. Also it is important to point
out that it is impossible to prevent leakage at higher layers, but necessary to
prevent leakage at this layer, because leakage at this level could not be fixed
at higher layers.

.. TODO review for wording/clarity


.. _Implications-PeerIDs:

Implications
^^^^^^^^^^^^

Here we present the implications for different parts of the framework. This
should help get a grasp of the implications of the change.
.. TODO poor phrasing?

.. _DHT:

DHT
"""

The DHT uses the peer id such that it determines which buckets a peer is
responsible for. So each time the peer id changes, the peer becomes responsible
for different data. This means that each time a peer changes address, it leaves
and re-enters the DHT, changes its and other peer's neighbors and changes the
stored data.


.. _Scope-of-Peer-ID-for-higher-Layers:

Scope of Peer ID for higher Layers
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

When peer ids stop to be unique over time, the framework is in lack of a
globally unique identifier. Higher layers may rely (have relied) on the
uniqueness of the ids. This means gnunet has to use other means for this
purpose. The Reconnects_ section below is concerned with the specific impact on
reconnects for different higher-layer services. In general gns/identity offers
this functionality.

As peer ids cease to be unique over time, this might be a good point to review
the scope of its and other elements' usage and terminology. (See
Open_Design_Questions_)

.. FIXME This section overlaps in scope with the next section.


.. _Reconnects:

Reconnects
""""""""""

When addresses (and with those the peer id) of a peer change, all core
connections need to be torn down and with them all higher-layer connections.
This affects the layers above CADET as follows:

 - Revocation: Is not really affected as it is only connected to direct CADET
   neighbors and makes no use of CADET's routing, only of its flow and
   congestion control.
 - File sharing: Only the non-anonymous filesharing uses CADET connections.
   This is not significantly affected by a reconnect as it only looks up peer
   and port in the DHT, so in the meanwhile it's looking for other peers. TODO
   this is very unclear to me!
 - Messenger: All CADET connections would break and the peer might assume that
   all previously connected peers went offline. So it would require a
   mechanism to reconnect to peers with a known peer identity which offer
   routing capability (open port via CADET to connect to). In case the peer
   itself is providing such capability, it would help to know about peer ID
   changes ahead of time to communicate a switch between IDs to other peers.
   For other reconnections via GNS lookups are required.
 - Conversation: The call would be interrupted until the new peer id of the
   other has been found (potentially via GNS).

Open question: is gns needed for a reconnect? Could the peer with the new
id not simply 'call back' the other peer? Of course this would only work if
only one peer changes its peer id. If both change their peer id at the same
time, an external mechanism would be needed.

See Open_Design_Questions_ for thoughts on good designs to handle address
changes more smoothly.


.. _Messenger-Implications:

Messenger
"""""""""

The current implementation of messenger heavily relies on a globally unique
peer id. The change requires messenger to account for peer id changes.


.. _Details-on-how_PeerIDs:

Details on how
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Peer ids will be generated from the set of a peer's current addresses. Once a
peer obtains the same set of addresses it shall be using the same peer id. To
achieve this behavior, the current string representation of addresses is
sorted, the sorted representation hashed and the peer id generated from the
hash.
.. TODO details?

Once a peer id changes, all communication via open channels shall immediately
cease. To signal this, the mq is to be used.
.. TODO details?

..
   - adress bundle (transport communicators implement decision?)
   - I vaguely remember the talk of 'insignificant' address changes (within
     local network or such), that don't require a new peer id, but forgot the
     specifics.


.. _Open-questions:

Open questions
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

..
  overall for this "peer id" section
  Notes from the meeting:
   - higher-layer roll-over
  	 - problem in practice 'phone call not interrupted by change of
  	   location'
  	 - solved by gns entries? and re-connect?
  	 - cadet search for peer id - search in dht and via gns
  	 - caching-problem for gns
  	 - no signaling for roll-over
  	 - estimated reconnect within 15 minutes
  	 - change of address/peerid results in unclear state (down? lost
  	   connection, ....?)
  	 - cadet needs to regularily check gns entries
   - how signal the change of addresses?
  	 - do we signal trear-down?
  	 - scenario address change in internet cafe?
  	 - choice between privacy and connectivity
  	 - sense of changing ids for cadet?
  		 - -> rendez-vous peer (more stable)
  	 - tracking via gns?
  		 - only for people who are connected/known (tracking might be
  		   ok for this)
  			 - requires pir for gns
  		 - tracking impossible/hard for others


.. _Ownership-of-Peer-IDs:

Ownership of Peer IDs
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When the peer id was static, all parts of gnunet had a simple way to interface
with it. Once it becomes dynamic, it makes a lot of sense that a single part
takes control/responsibility/ownership for it. A new service is created for
this purpose. A name suggestion was "peer id lifecycle service" - PILS.

The reasons for this new service:

 - Good encapsulation (which is even more important as it is a component deals
   with crucial cryptographic operation).
 - Avoidance of circular subscriptions of core and transport.
 - Avoidance of callback api hell between core and transport.
 - Using peerstore for this would be really messy.

The reasons against this new service:
 - Having yet another service.

Core will be the responsible service to provide addresses to pils for the
switching of peer ids.

Peer ids should not be stored in permanent memory (on disk), but kept in
working memory.
They will be (re-) computed from the new set of addresses. The advantage is
that it is not possible to prove that a peer id belonged to a peer by
examining its hard-drive. Keeping the respective HELLO in the peerstore is fine
as a peer also keeps other peer's hello in there and the existence of a hello
in the peerstore proves nothing.


.. _Implications-onwnership_PeerIDs:

Implications
^^^^^^^^^^^^

Pils needs to take ownership. It is responsible for generating, changing of
peer ids, informing subscribers of changes and signing with the current peer
id. (To be gentle on the ipc, it should not sign big amounts of data - if
applicable rather hashes of data or such.)


.. _Transport:

Transport
"""""""""

Up until now transport still creates, signs and puts hellos into the peerstore.
When pils takes ownership of peer ids, transport will need to ask it for
signing the hellos before putting it into the peerstore. (With libp2p as
alternative/additional underlay in mind, everything related to hellos needs to
move to core eventually as libp2p is oblivious about that part of gnunet. Core
will have to create and provide the hellos. See libp2p-Underlay_ below.)


.. _Other:

Other
"""""

Generally, all parts that so far read the peer id from a file into local
memory, will need to ask pils for it. All services that sign/encrypt something
with the peer id now will need to ask pils to do it.


.. _Details-on-how_ownership_PeerIDs:

Details on how
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In order to provide the needed functionality, pils needs to expose it via its
api:

 - a call to provide the current set of addresses, so the generation of the
   peer id can be triggered.
 - a call to obtain the current peer id
 - registering a handler that informs about new peer ids
 - signing data with the peer id


.. _libp2p-Underlay:

libp2p Underlay
---------------

Get gnunet to work on libp2p. This includes the FFI with rust, converting
address formats, signaling metadata (traffic class and priority, as far as
libp2p supports it) and signalling connectivity changes.
This is a first attempt to technically link the two projects. Therefore the
feasibility is quite uncertain and the milestones might have to be re-evaluated
after the report on the needs and feasibility. Should it turn out that the
needed resources are beyond the capabilities of this project, a detailed report
on the requirements and roadmap of and for the realisation shall be written and
published.

..
  TODO this generally needs more love

..
  - addresses from underlay in string representation go into core
  - libp2p can't handle hellos/peerstore
  - address signaling between transport and core
  - hellos should be handled by core


.. _Protocol_002dVersioning:

Protocol-Versioning
-------------------

Currently applications signal to core which message types they support. For
this milestone we will implement proper protocol versioning where higher-level
applications can signal a range of protocol versions which they support (min,
max) and exchange messages at the CONG layer between peers to determine common
protocols.



.. _Open_Design_Questions:

Open Design Questions
---------------------

In this section we list design question that are not decided on, yet.

..
 - scope of peer ids and other such elements (gns/identity, ...)
 - resolve gns to pid on lower layer? (cadet or even core)
    - convenience api: cadet connection to domain name
    - -> not the scope of cong


.. _Peer-ID-changes-and-connectivity:

Peer ID changes and connectivity
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

..
 - smooth handling of address/pid change possible?/signaling change of address
    - should be possible at least when we gain one address
    - construct that allows an additional peer id that is pre-computed (not
      based on addresses) and announced ahead of address change?
    - other terminology: provide tracking capability selectively
    - use peer ids as long as there are open connections with them?

In case a peer's addresses change, it gets a new peer id and therefor needs to
reconnect. The challenge is to reconnect as fast as possible. The main problem
is that a peer cannot know its next peer id in all cases. Connections that have
dedicated peers at its endpoints will probably look up the new peer id of the
other peer in a higher-layer service, most probably gns.

In the case in which a peer just gains an additional address, that peer can
pre-calculate its next peer id, signal it via still open connections on the old
peer id and finally switch to using the new peer id.

Other more evolved ideas include using multiple peer ids per peer: Either an
additional address-independent peer id that will 'survive' address changes and
serve as means to link to the address-based peer id after a change. It would
just be sent to connected peers and reset once all connections have been
re-established.

Alternatively (maybe in addition) peers could use multiple address-based peer
ids - one per address. Thus some peer ids might stay unchanged while others go
offline.

..
    - tracking even harder
    - comes closer to equivalent of ip addresses
    - possibly helps with (privacy-preserving) roll-overs
    - we ceased having unique peer ids over time, why not cease to have a
      single address at a time?
    - might serve as an 'onion-address light'?
    - cleaner, less messy abstraction


Another idea to address this challenge is to keep peer ids in use on
connections which are still in use, but don't publish those ids anymore.

Terminology-wise we might add another perspective and say that we selectively
and deliberately provide tracking capability to peers which we want to stay in
touch with.


.. _Peer-ID-Terminology:

Peer ID Terminology
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Once peer ids cease to be unique over time the question raises whether they
should actually be called identities. (In my intuition an identity is something
more persistent.)
As we discuss peer ids as an analogue to ip addresses, a natural close idea
would be to use "peer address".


.. _Requirements:


Requirements
------------

In the discussions we seem to have lost partial oversight over things.
In this section we figure out the requirements for core (and possibly other
components) it's mechanisms.

TODO: what requirements exactly did we want to document here?


.. _Use-Cases-and-Scenarios:

Use Cases and Scenarios
-----------------------

This section is supposed to help with the understanding of the use of elements
and structures by imagined examples.


.. _Peer-ID:

Peer ID
^^^^^^^

The peer id has been used throughout gnunet as a very convenient means for many
purposes. It was used as globally unique and stable identifier of a peer. From
now on it should rather be treated as something more volatile and fitting for
its layer: an ip address. Below we collect the intended purposes and use cases
and also point out some uses for which it was not intended and point to other
means to achieve it.

..
   - address change: shutdown vs. standby vs. ...


.. _GNS:

GNS
^^^

TODO

..
  - identify on user level
  - vpn record: globally unique id


.. _CADET:

CADET
^^^^^

TODO


.. _Messenger-scenarios:

Messenger
^^^^^^^^^

TODO

..
  TODO 'tracking capability' via gns: shared secret
   - this a good place?
   - understand how that would work
   - hide multiple devices behind one identity


..
  TODO Overall: Look at the project milestones to check coverage
