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Open Research Problems
We are seeking to collaborate with researchers in the following topic areas. Feel free to join our Discord for discussion.
DHT (distributed hash table) security / privacy / anonymity
Compared to unstructured P2P overlay networks, DHTs offer efficient and (theoretically) reliable discovery. However, they are prone to eclipse attacks and typically offer weak privacy properties. This topic comprises researching novel techniques mitigating or even thwarting eclipse attacks against DHTs. A focus on Node Discovery Protocol v5 (discv5) is of special interest to the Vac team.
Further background on the usage of discv5 in Waku can be found in our research log. A new version of discv5 that is both efficient and provides eclipse mitigation is currently being researched.
Privacy-Preserving Incentivizations of waku protocols
- Incentivise relay
Devising novel applications of the Waku protocol stack
examples comprise
- p2p social network
- evoting system
Halo2 in a browser
Meshnet transports and libp2p
Waku protocols are built on top of libp2p's modular network stack. This in essence allows the Waku network to be overlayed on existing network links. Several transports are already supported: depending on the specific underlying libp2p implementation, supported transports could include WebSockets, QUIC, TCP, WebRTC, etc. However, currently all transports are IP-based and require Waku nodes to have an active Internet connection to communicate outside of the local IP network. Not only does this presuppose access to reliable Internet connectivity, but such links are vulnerable to data profiling and censorship by ISPs or other entities.
This topic focuses on using Waku over non-IP routed networks, such as Wireless Mesh Networks to improve accessibility and strengthen resistance against censorship. It also investigates how appropriate the libp2p network stack is for such environments and if Waku could benefit from using different networking stacks that may function better in very restrictive environments.
Applied ZK
Robust P2P network - NAT traversal
Waku relay, Waku's core protocol, is based on a gossipsub mesh, while Waku discv5 uses a DHT overlay. Both significantly benefit from robust and reliable P2P connections. Better connectivity allows nodes to contribute more to the network and improve overall availability, efficiency, and by extension, anonymity (see k-anonymity).
NAT is a well known problem to P2P connectivity. There are various types of NATs whose behaviours are described in RFC 4787. Carrier-Grade NATs add another layer of indirection, which complicates the matter further. Various NAT traversal protocols have been developed to overcome the different types of NATs. RFC 8445 specifies Interactive Connectivity Establishment (ICE), which integrates a set of NAT traversal techniques. Waku currently uses libp2p NAT traversal, specifically STUN (leveraging the identify protocol) and AutoNAT.
The main focus of this topic is on researching novel ICE-complementary NAT traversal techniques that are decentralized and have desirable privacy and anonymity properties. The topic also comprises integrating and specifying ICE for Waku v2.
Further Research Collaboration Opportunities
Besides the open research problems listed in the section above, you may browse our Research Areas page and check our roadmaps for various research topics.