HNFS is an anonymized network file system for hiding ownership of sensitive information. It works by splitting sensitive files to be stored in the network into pieces, encrypting them, and having them distributed across the network to be stored separately by other nodes in the network.
The goal of the project is to create a distributed tool to anonymize file owners so that people with access to sensitive information can never be associated with it.
HNFS demands users offer more space on their harddrive than they wish to use in order to use the network. In return, the network provides:
- Distributed file storage within the network.
- Automatic file transfer, keeping data moving through the network and never stagnant.
- Multiple copies will be kept in the network to avoid problems due to dead sources.
If users do not meet the usage requirements, their files will be removed from the network slowly over time (copy by copy).
- Split the file into pieces.
- Disperse the pieces to neighbours to be further distributed at random.
- Delete file from the local machine.
- At random, forward the file to a random neighbour (including the one received from).
- If the file is kept, store information about it to allow recovery (id, part, path on disk).
- Propagate a request over the whole network.
- Nodes containing part of a requested file send it back via a random path along which the request was forwarded.
- The owner waits until it has all the parts of the file and reconstructs it.
Users of the network are expected to:
- Offer more space than they wish to use. How much is yet to be determined.
- Keep their node active.
[PADDING | FILE ID | PART ID | FILE CONTENT]
[PADDING | FILE ID | PADDING ]
PATH/FILEID|PARTID (| means concatenation)
All file content will be encrypted with a key known only to the owner, and then for messages passed between neighbours, asymmetric encryption will be used to encrypt request messages.