PUBLIC DESIGN WORKSHOP

NYU LAW SCHOOL, SEPTEMBER 13-14,- 2002



Marc Waldman
(waldman@cs.nyu.edu)
Department of Computer Science
New York University
Weaver Hall
251 Mercer Street, #405
New York, NY 10003

Title of Presentation: It Takes Two To Tangle - Censorship-Resistant Publishing Through Document Entanglements
by Marc Waldman and David Mazières

We describe the design of a censorship-resistant publishing system that employs a unique document storage mechanism. Newly published documents are dependent on previously published documents. We call this dependency an entanglement. Entanglement makes replication of previously published content an intrinsic part of the publication process. Groups of files, called collections, can be published together and named in a host-independent manner. Individual documents within a collection can be securely updated in such a way that future readers of the collection see and tamper-check the updates. The system employs a self-policing network of servers designed to eject non-compliant servers and prevent them from doing more harm than good.