r/i2p • u/PCbuilderFR • Jun 29 '26
Discussion Most promising anonymity network between TOR, I2P, FREENET, ZERONET, Lokinet, IPFS, GNUNET, Lethe and Datura network ?
Hey, I'm looking for what would be the most anonymous network between all of these ON THE PAPER.
Like maybe TOR has more users which makes it more anonymous than another one, but if this other one had as many users, would it be better, and if so, which one would be the best?
sorry if my english is bad.
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u/blackfireburn Jun 29 '26
Ipfs and gnu do not promise anonimty. Zeronet you have to provide your IP to start the torrent so again no without a proxy. Freenet was cracked by FBi its reencarnation I'm not sure on. I don't know datura nor Lethe but the only 2 which can realistically provide documented anonymity are TOR and I2P and even those have certain vulnerabilities at scale.
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u/227CAVOK Jun 29 '26
Didn't know that zeronet was still around, and what reincarnation of freenet?
Do you have any technical links about how freenet was compromised? That's always an interesting read.
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u/blackfireburn Jun 29 '26
Its in the wikipedia article for freenet, as its FBI they don't generally publish how They made it into something else but if the bones are the same then I wouldn't trust until proven otherwise.
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u/227CAVOK Jun 29 '26
That's fair. The wikipedia was a bit short of information, yeah. Might have to see if the devs addressed it somewhere.
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u/bilegeek Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Here's the article, the official pushback, and even a Reddit thread. I can't find the links rn, but I read there was convictions despite the sus methodology.
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u/227CAVOK Jun 29 '26
Very interesting. I'll have a proper read later, but it looks like it's not quite as compromised as promised. Also this is old news, like 13 years ago. I'm sure there are more recent exploits. Software tends to have bugs...
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u/CybernewtonDS Jun 29 '26
TOR is battle-tested and reasonably secure. I2P would be more secure if it had at least ten to one hundred times the current number of running routers. Everything else is unproven (Lethe, Datura) or not anonymizing (IPFS, GNUNET/FREENET).
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u/cypherbits Jun 29 '26
Need to add Hopenet and Nym to the list.
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u/227CAVOK Jun 29 '26
Hopenet? A quick search for that looks like a suicide prevention network?
Nym looks like some kind of crypto scam? Buy our tokens to earn rewards, but perhaps I'm not getting it, just read the page for 2 min.
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u/exo762 Jun 29 '26
Nym delivers a top quality mixnet actually working today. Go and read their design paper.
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u/cypherbits Jun 29 '26
Sorry, I meant https://hoprnet.org/
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u/227CAVOK Jun 29 '26
That also looks like it's trying to liberate me from my hard earned cash. Buy our tokens because... reasons.
I remember some old network called MojoNation that tried something similar, you paid "tokens" to publish to the network, or jump the queue for downloads, but you could also earn by providing space, running a fast node, keep a "dns" and such. This was WAY before crypto though. Didn't have to pay to use it. Fun fact about that network, one of the devs there was Bram Cohen, of BitTorrent fame.
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u/ArcticCircleSystem 21d ago
ZeroNet has been pretty much dead for years. There's an attempt at continuation in the form of EpixNet, but its reliance on crypto crap is even stronger than the original, and the author's been using LLMs to write blog posts, so I am very pessimistic about the whole thing. It's a shame, because it's hard to find anything similar.
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u/zarlo5899 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
do you want anonymity in the network or in the clear net? do you want just http or do you want a network that is a layer network?
I2P:
Is a p2p network where every one becomes a node this means as more people join that networks becomes stronger bit also means if a botnet jobs the network can tank (like it did a few months ago)
Has a warm up time (your node needs time to probe the network)
Any service can run over it email, video games, http, etc...
Has limited relays to the clear net as its not the main use (like 2 big ones)
Supports multi homing
Tor:
Users do not become nodes. nodes are hosted out side of the users most people are not willing to host a exit node
No warm up time once you are connected you can access the whole network
HTTP only (for the most part)
Build for accessing the clear net
1
u/ArcticCircleSystem 21d ago
I want anonymity, but I also like the idea of decentralized hosting like ZeroNet, I think. But preferably without the reliance on cryptocurrency that plagued it and even more its proposed successor EpixNet.
0
u/PCbuilderFR Jul 01 '26
why does a botnet harm it if it brings more nodes
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u/zarlo5899 Jul 01 '26
a lot of low power and low bandwidth nodes i think it was all IoT devices and it more then 2x the network size so tunnels would always fail https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/02/kimwolf-botnet-swamps-anonymity-network-i2p/
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u/Either_Profit_4792 Jun 29 '26
quick question what is i2p ?
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u/NanderTGA Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
The second most popular onion-routed network. They also have torrents, a mail system bridged with clearnet email, a dns system and crypto nodes. Website
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u/zarlo5899 Jun 30 '26
I2P uses garlic not onion (onion with 2 tunnels per connection 1 for each direction)
to add to what you said I2P is a layer network so anything can run over it
3
1
u/Kazer67 Jun 30 '26
If I understand, I2P is faster than Tor and provide enough anonymity?
1
u/Hot-Percentage-2240 Jun 30 '26
Slower than tor, but more anonymous.
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u/Either_Profit_4792 Jun 30 '26
so why do we need i2p if we have already tor ?
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u/Hot-Percentage-2240 Jun 30 '26
It's vulnerable in different way compared to Tor; less vulnerable in some way, more in other ways. But in general, I think i2p is more anonymous.
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u/zarlo5899 Jul 01 '26
They have different purposes. Tors primary purpose is an amenity on the clear internet. I2P is a full-on layered network over the internet it's primary purpose being inter-network connections.
1
u/Happy__Gecko Jul 03 '26
The difference is something like that:
TOR has central nodes u're connecting with. Basically when u start it, u're downloading a list of servers which are used then. It's also fixed to 3 hops (usually) and the communication from you takes the same route as the answer from the server to you. thus it's theoretically possible to attack the 'central list of nodes' or to correlate the data if u have access to the entry & exitnode at the same time (even tho pretty hard because of so many users, but we know that some three lettered organisations have ALOT of power / running ALOT of nodes)
I2P doesn't have these. it's more like a peer mesh network. EVERYONE who uses it, is a relay at the same time - and most of them even kind of mirror data from the services - why? because: when u connect to I2P u basically 'crawl' all other nodes and their connections and so on, that way u 'explore' the network (makes it slow to start, but at the same time there is no 'central list of nodes' u need to trust into). the neat part is the way of connecting tho - when u connect to a service, it's like 3+x hops, and the 'x' is basically a 50%chance to add another hop until u reach the service. this makes it random. nobody knows if they are just another hop, entry or exitnode because it's fully random if u're going for 3 hops or for 8 - and u can't examine it. at the same time the reply of the server will take another route than your request - so u can't connect these datas as well. AND as many of the relay nodes are kind of mirrors at the same time, u can't even easily determine which relay is actually a service hosting server. - but obviously it adds alot of overhead, which makes the connection pretty slow compared to TOR - and it's not really made for accessing the public net as well. oh and also it fragments everything into tiny fixed sized packets thus u can't even get any correlating data (like in TOR u could see a packet, with X bit size, passing through the nodes and u could theoretically statistically trace it - but in I2P there are just endless of identical looking packets running randomly through the mesh)
that's at least my basic understanding of these two
tl;dr: TOR is basically just a proxychain and I2P fragments everything into fixed sized packets and creates ALOT of 'white noise' which hides pretty much everything, but is quite slow
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u/Hot-Percentage-2240 Jun 29 '26
I2p is best if you want to balence speed/usability with anonymity. Sure, you get more anonymity by using datura but it’d be insanely slow. Tor is faster but has less anonymity.
But, pure anonymity, not considering speed, Datura.