Growing pains

I've just started running 0.7 alpha darknet --- were the initial runs
of previous versions this heady? --- and I must congratulate Mathew on
a job well done.

One thing that has become quickly obvoius is that there is not yet any
good method of starting one's connection to the darknet.  Go to
<http://code.bulix.org/XXXX?raw>, where XXXX is just about any number
between 1350 and 1650 (as I'm writing) and you'll see the "secret"
node information for almost every node on the darknet --- and they've
all been posted to public IRC, too.

As toad pointed out, this has two problems:
1) Security -- Most people connecting during this heady time are not
being terribly concerned about trusting the nodes they connect to,
leaving them open to harvesting by the unscrupulous.
2) Network Topology -- We've been connecting to *everybody*, when the
network works best when it grows as a small world system, as designed.

One possible soIution is Frost, either an existing 0.5 Frost or on
"insecure" references and 0.7 Frost:  Announce that you are willing to
trade node references via encrypted private messages.  In the real
darknet, you'd decide you knew and could trust me, you'd send me a
private message asking if I knew and trusted you, and then we'd
exchange node references via encrypted private mesages.  For the
nonce, just send me an encryted-to-me message with your node info and
I'll reciprocate.

Does anyone see a problem with this idea?  Are encrypted Frost
messages "secure enough" even while the darknet isn't quite dark?

++H

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