GNUnet is a framework capable of secure peer-to-peer networking GNUnet is a framework capable of secure peer-to-peer networking that does not use any centralized or otherwise trusted services.

A first service implemented on top of the networking layer allows anonymous censorship-resistant file-sharing. GNUnet uses a simple, excess-based economic model to allocate resources.

Peers in GNUnet monitor each others behavior with respect to resource usage; peers that contribute to the network are rewarded with better service.

The first question that developers of any of the dozens of emerging P2P networks (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) should probably answer is why yet another network? GNUnet was started in late 2001 with a set of new technical ideas for secure peer-to-peer networking.

Most of the key technical contributions behind GNUnet are described in detail in our research papers. The ideas include an improved content encoding (ECRS, the encoding for censorship resistant sharing) and a new protocol for anonymous routing (gap).

Properties of the content encoding and the routing protocol allow GNUnet to reward contributing peers with better service using an excess-based economic model for resource allocation.

Furthermore, GNUnet is extensible and makes it easy to build new peer-to-peer applications or add alternative network transports to the base system. When GNUnet was started, existing systems were investigated (at the time in particular Freenet and mnet) to find a starting point.

However, the conclusion was that the envisioned system was too far from the existing codebases to benefit from building on top of any of those.

GNUnet continues to improve both in terms of technical ideas and implementation, often thanks to discussions with developers from related projects.

Here are some key features of "GNUnet":