Software update: I2P 0.7.8

I2P focuses on anonymizing communication flows. The project started in 2003 as a proposal to freenet and has evolved over time into a standalone program. For more information, we refer you to this page. The developers have released version 0.7.8, with the following announcements since the last entry in the Meuktracker:

0.7.8 Release

0.7.8, contains initial support for router console translations, and changes to the floodfill system which lay the foundation for supporting large growth in the network.

To prevent easy blocking of I2P by malicious firewalls, the release randomizes the I2P port for new installs. For existing installs, please help those who are vulnerable to blocking by changing UDP from 8887 to a random port on and adjusting your firewall if necessary.

The release also contains more changes to reduce memory and CPU usage, and a large assortment of bug fixes. Upgrading is recommended. We especially encourage those of you still running release 0.7.6 or earlier to upgrade as soon as possible. Please give the developers feedback on IRC #i2p or forum.i2p and get involved or donate! We are also looking for help on new and existing translations. Please volunteer on IRC #i2p.

Release details:

Network Database

• Partially reintroduce Kademlia to the network database, by having each floodfill store only a portion of the keyspace. Routers will query and store to a floodfill that is closest to the key in question. Floodfills will only flood to peers closest to the key.
• The limit on number of floodfills will not be raised in this release. Therefore, there will be no immediate change; all floodfills will store the entire keyspace. In future releases, the limit will be raised until most class O routers will be floodfill. After that, each floodfill be responsible for about 300 netdb entries, independent of network size, thus allowing i2p to scale to many thousands of routers.
• The release also fixes a bad bug that was preventing verification of RouterInfo stores.

Router Console Translation Support

• The router console now supports translation to other languages ​​using standard “po” files. Initial string tagging by “walking”.
• The HTTP proxy now supports translated error pages.
• Chinese translation (by “walking”) is included.
• French translation (by “neutron”) is included.
• German translation (by “echelon”) is included.
• Translation of bundled applications (i2psnark, i2ptunnel, susimail, susidns) is not yet supported, it will be included in a future release.
• We are searching for additional translation volunteers.

Streaming Lib

• Improve the handling of immediate ack requests, hopefully this will help network speed.

Peer Profiles

• Additions to store statistics on netdb performance, to assist floodfill peer selection
• Reduction in storage for non-floodfill peers, to save about 2MB RAM

Transportation

• To prevent easy blocking by malicious firewalls (matching source or destination port 8887), new I2P installs will now use a random port between 9000 and 32000. Users who have previously installed i2p are encouraged to change their port to make blocking more difficult.

I2PSnark

• Raise piece size limit from 1MB to 2MB

Other

• Continued cleanup of the code to reduce package size and memory usage
• Continued console cleanup

0.7.7 Release

I2P version 0.7.7 contains several anonymity improvements. The use of session keys for crypto was completely reworked, and I2PSnark now uses its own tunnels for tracker communication. Work continues on improving the router console, including conformance to HTML standards and better support of UTF-8.

Work also continues on increasing speeds, both by reducing the number of session keys transferred, by improving the methods of dropping messages during overload, and by reducing drops by high-bandwidth routers. There is a new unsigned update option for those of you that would like automatic updates to bleeding-edge development versions.

The release also contains several changes to reduce memory and CPU usage, and a large assortment of bug fixes. Upgrading is recommended. Please give the developers feedback on IRC #i2p or forum.i2p2.de and get involved!

Release details:

Resources

• Redesign bloom filters, saves 6-8MB heap.
• Reduce PRNG buffers for I2PAppContext, saves 3.5MB heap.
• Remove more unused classes and code, more Java 5 cleanups
• Reduce connection limits slightly.

tunnels

• Improve the random early discarder, to be smarter – will hopefully improve tunnel speeds
• Increase the size of the Bloom filter for high bandwidth routers (>= 512KBps share) to reduce packet discards

crypto

• Use multiple Session Key Managers for anonymity benefits
• Reduce the number of Session Tags sent out at once, for efficiency – should reduce stalls on long-lived connections

console

• Lots of HTML cleanups and fixes
• UTF-8 fixes
• New error page

Updates

• New unsigned update option
• Verify zip file integrity at startup

I2PSnark

• Use snark’s tunnels rather than the HTTP Proxy for announces and torrent fetches, for efficiency and anonymity.