Could anyone provide a reasonable explanation of how I2P (garlic routing) works, why is it is well suited for Monero (compared to possible alternatives)?
1 Answer
As compared to Tor which is the most popular now:
- i2pd serves the same efforts as Tor, but on a more p2p level, rather than relying on servers.
- i2p lends itself more towards our workload.
- Monero i2p nodes will also act as general i2p routers, which increases the size of the i2p mixnet and thus has an upshot for both.
- Tor is optimised for low-bandwidth clients and high-bandwidth exit nodes, whereas i2p is optimised for internal hidden services. Thus, i2p is significantly faster when routing internal traffic.
- i2p's floodfill routers (roughly analogous to Tor's directory servers) aren't hardcoded
- i2p is a packet-switched network (as opposed to circuit-switched) which makes it more robust
- no client-only peers, all peers route traffic and assist in building and running short-lived tunnels
- TCP and UDP are supported, which means that things like OpenAlias can still work over i2p
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1For those who like references, this is the source: forum.getmonero.org/1/news-announcements-and-editorials/208/… Oct 22, 2016 at 12:42
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I would put a link but I was penalized for putting a link in another post. For some bizarre reason they prefer you copy paste than put a link here in SE. As far as I'm concerned, that just encourages laziness in the questions, and I think its silly.– pl55Oct 22, 2016 at 13:57
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A link alone is subject to break, and the post will be pointless soon enough. I'd copy the relevant part, and add a link both. Oct 22, 2016 at 14:27
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Could you explain what packet-switched and circuit-switched networks are, and expand on their differences?– user141Oct 22, 2016 at 15:49
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1packet switched: different packets in a connection might take different paths through the network; circuit switched: all packets in a connection will follow the same route (until the circuit is rebuilt). The former makes traffic analysis harder. Oct 22, 2016 at 18:25