=head1 Darknet Comparison

Back to homepage - L<http://www.anonet2.org/>

There are a number of darknets out there.  Different darknets have
different features, which any individual may consider as advantages (or
disadvantages) depending on his goals.  This page attempts to present
an accurate comparison between the different darknets known to SRN.
In particular, SRN has attempted to avoid being unjustly critical of
AnoNet1 even after having been a victim of AnoNet1's ugly side on multiple
occasions (although obviously, no attempt has been made to avoid "earned"
criticism).  If you'd like to add other darknets to this table, keep
in mind that all of anonet2.org is freely editable from within AnoNet.
If none of the existing darknets suit your needs, you're encouraged
to advertise your new one here.  You're also more than welcome to spam
AnoNet IRC for new members, but if your advertisements get redundant and
boring and redundant and repetitive and redundant after a while, don't
be surprised if people start b</ignore>ing you.  (Please don't let that
discourage you, if you truly believe your new darknet is worth joining.
You may want to rethink your advertising strategy, though.)  You may
also be able to get help in planning and/or building a new darknet on
AnoNet IRC.

Please keep in mind that this comparison is mostly focused on relative
anonymity value, rather than, say, the quality of the available social
networks.  If the latter is more important to you than the former, you're
almost certainly wasting your time here.  If you'd like to understand
more about the mechanics of anonymity, L<there's a whole separate page
here devoted to that topic|http://www.anonet2.org/anonymity>.

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<table>
 <tr><th colspan='5'>Overview</th></tr>
 <tr><td>&nbsp</td><th>AnoNet1</th><th>AnoNet2</th><th>dn42</th><th>VAnet</th></tr>
 <tr><th>Claimed Purpose</th><td>anonymity to prevent censorship</td><td>anonymity to prevent censorship</td><td>have fun with BGP</td><td>freedom and network efficiency</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Claimed Government</th><td>nearly none</td><td>none</td><td>nearly none</td><td>backbone only</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Actual Government</th><td>oligarchy</td><td>none</td><td>nearly none</td><td>backbone only</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Actual Government betrays Claimed Purpose</th><td>yes</td><td>no</td><td>no</td><td>no</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Centralized Critical Infrastructure</th><td>wiki (includes resource database), client port, IRC</td><td>none</td><td>wiki, IRC</td><td>all</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Decentralized Critical Infrastructure</th><td>routing</td><td>all</td><td>routing, resource database</td><td>none</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Current Size</th><td>20-30</td><td>~10</td><td>40-50</td><td>&lt;5</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Average Monthly Growth</th><td>~0%</td><td>~20%</td><td>~5%</td><td>~10%</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Activity Level</th><td>medium</td><td>medium</td><td>medium</td><td>low</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Interdarknet Connectivity</th><td>censored access to AnoNet2 (must use AnoNet2 DNS), censored access to dn42 (must use AnoNet2 DNS)</td><td>full routing to part of AnoNet1, full routing to part of dn42, full routing to VAnet</td><td>censored access to AnoNet (1&amp;2, must use SRN's DNS), censored access to VAnet (must use SRN's DNS)</td><td>full routing to part of AnoNet1, full routing to AnoNet2, full routing to part of dn42</td></tr>
 <tr><th>DNS Coverage</th><td>AnoNet1</td><td>AnoNet (1&amp;2), dn42, VAnet, IcannNet</td><td>dn42, IcannNet</td><td>AnoNet (1&amp;2), dn42, VAnet, IcannNet</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Peering Prerequisites</th><td>OpenVPN, BGP daemon, sustained IRC participation for over a month</td><td>OpenVPN or tinc or quicktun, BGP daemon or static routing</td><td>OpenVPN, BGP daemon or static routing</td><td>depends on individual PoP policy</td></tr>
 <tr><th colspan='5'>Services</th></tr>
 <tr><td>&nbsp</td><th>AnoNet1</th><th>AnoNet2</th><th>dn42</th><th>VAnet</th></tr>
 <tr><th>Routing</th><td>decentralized</td><td>decentralized</td><td>decentralized</td><td>centralized</td>
 <tr><th>Resource Database</th><td>centralized (part of wiki)</td><td>decentralized (part of git-based resdb)</td><td>decentralized (part of monotone-based registry)</td><td>centralized (ask Borg)</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Documentation</th><td>centralized (crzydmnd's wiki)</td><td>decentralized (part of git-based resdb)</td><td>centralized (helios's wiki)</td><td>centralized (vanet.org)</td></tr>
 <tr><th>Chatroom</th><td>centralized (single IRCnet)</td><td>decentralized (ad-hoc relaying between IRC and Jabber chatrooms)</td><td>semicentralized (single IRCnet, with a Jabber chatroom relay)</td><td>decentralized (shared with AnoNet2)</td></tr>
 <tr><th>DNS</th><td>centralized (from wiki), several official "rootservers"</td><td>decentralized (from resdb), each user fields his own, public nameservers available for the lazy</td><td>decentralized (from registry), multiple competing deployments</td><td>centralized (from svn), centralized official deployment</td></tr>
 <tr><th>BitTorrent Trackers/Indexers</th><td>none?</td><td>1 centralized and 1 decentralized (git-based)</td><td>1 centralized</td><td>1 centralized</td></tr>
</table>

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