Nowhere to Run
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To detail the CryptNet 2.0, an improved system for secure communications often used by members of the galactic underworld
- Image Source: Gerd Altmann
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source:
- Manufacturer: Darkwire
- Affiliation: Open-Market
- Model: CryptNet Version 2.0.4
- Modularity: Yes, CryptNet's CryptAccess protocol itself must be followed in order to properly connect, but any other components of the service may be removed or swapped out.
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Digital Bits
- Secure connection
- End-to-End encryption
- Federated community of connected apps
- Mesh-Networking system to bypass the HoloNet
- A rigorous encryption algorithm is used by CryptAccess to preserve security and trustworthiness of message integrity, making it extremely difficult to slice or compromise and making CryptNet a trusted method for staying safe from prying eyes.
- The federated network of CryptVerse apps allows users to access a broad variety of resources securely, requiring less interaction over the ordinary HoloNet or in person.
- Using the CryptFi mesh-networking, the HoloNet can be bypassed completely. This allows CryptNet entities to operate without interference or oversight from governments or other malicious users who would try to control information and communications.
- Requires the use of dedicated hardware, yet still portable, given that the encryption verification process is arduous even for a droid's standard processing systems.
- Security comes at a cost. The time and effort taken to set up hardware to use the CryptNet, as well as the utilization itself, takes noticeably longer than the conventional HoloNet and may delay more critical messages as a result.
- The CryptFi mesh networking is an invaluable way to bypass the inherent insecurities of the HoloNet, but only when other CryptFi devices are in range. A critical mass of devices is necessary in order to preserve physical security as well as digital.
The HoloNet is a broad and versatile communications method, but it suffers from several serious flaws. The first being that, while notoriously obscure to discover, the physical relays are relatively undefended and vulnerable to physical penetration and disruption by any bad actors who discover them. The second is that the HoloNet relays are generally run by governments or organizations with massive funding, and opaque intentions, which requires incredible trust on the part of the HoloNet users.
CryptNet came about as a solution to both issues. Its primary, stated, purpose is to create a secure platform for communication that can be trusted as free of interference or interception, a place for ordinary people to feel comfortable enough to communicate in peace. In practice, the Cryptnet is a haven for slicers, smugglers, black market operatives, pirates, terrorists and rebels, who use the tech's ability to stay undetected to evade retribution by governments and ordinary citizens alike.
The original CryptNet 1.0 operated as an anonymity browser, routing data through a secure set of relay hops. This provided adequate security provided the device itself was uncompromised, but in the years since its inception, methods were developed to both specifically defeat it and to greatly improve upon it, prompting the creation of CryptNet 2.0.
CryptNet 2.0 operates in three ways, a protocol, a federated community, and a mesh-network:
The mainstay for CryptNet is its CryptAccess protocol, an open standard connection protocol that allows applications and devices to communicate with other CryptNet entities, or users of the CryptNet whether individual beings or coded programs. This protocol uses a quartic curve holographic signature algorithm, a fifteen-part handshake encryption method, to secure and verify messages passed between entities. The elements of this handshake encryption, encapsulated in digital keys, use high-level mathematical equations and cosmic observations to generate their values, changing by the picosecond to create a completely randomized and unique signature key. Though the methods and instructions to replicate the protocol are public, they are extremely difficult to break without exacting knowledge of the fifteen elements of the encryption keys or a massive network of supercomputers. An inaccuracy in any one of the elements will result in an invalid signature and the inability to decipher the messages signed with it. This makes it difficult for even most droids to compute the key verification sequence, forcing reliance on dedicated devices and applications to perform the work instead, and keeping messages as secure as possible.
The secondary aspect to the CryptNet is its federated community of connected applications. Though the CryptAccess protocol can be used to send direct messages between entities via the ordinary HoloNet, the manual process is deliberately lengthy and arduous, leading to many users taking advantage of the CryptVerse. Here, the CryptAccess protocol can be implemented in many different apps, to service a social media community, to establish a marketplace, to facilitate a classifieds listing board, for a communications forum, etc. CryptNet entities can share and pass data between different CryptVerse apps, allowing a single entity access to a broad network of platforms on which to operate. These CryptVerse apps make use of the CryptAccess protocol to secure and shield its content from prying eyes, restricting them from access via the ordinary HoloNet, but also rely upon the trust and sincerity of their creators to implement the protocol securely. Many CryptVerse apps tend to be developed in the open, allowing their users (as well as outside interested parties) to examine and verify their security.
The tertiary, and final, aspect to the CryptNet relies upon the devices used to access it, forming a mesh network directly between connected devices to bypass the HoloNet (or any other shared networking systems) called CryptFi. CryptFi uses a localized version of the HoloNet's S-threads, and utilizes the CryptAccess protocol both at the network level to establish a secure connection, but also at the user or app level to ensure that security preserved even between the device and its user. This is done to prevent interference by compromised networks or malicious users even with access to the physical devices. The goal of the CryptFi is to avoid oversight by network designers and administrators by moving off of them completely, but it can only function well once a critical mass of CryptFi devices are within range.
The best security comes from using all aspects of the CryptNet, but the only real requirement is utilizing the CryptAccess protocol. It is possible to use it as simply as a means to sign/encrypt messages, allowing the method to be used for indirect communications such as dead-drops or storage mechanisms, but this is a niche use. Most CryptNet use is employed by real-time or direct communications, facilitating a secure and unsupervised method more trustworthy than the HoloNet for the privacy-minded.
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