Peer-to-Peer Meets Onion: The Veilid Framework

The Veilid Framework was introduced recently and aims to provide applications with a secure and anonymous layer of networked communication and distributed storage. Its openness to a wide range of network protocols and connection methods enables the participation of nodes, even with very limited networking options. Veilid inherits many of its concepts from Tor and IPFS. In this paper, we introduce the framework and describe its constituent parts. We also point out relevant differences from its predecessor Tor, some of which require future research and development. We find that Veilid's combination of onion routing with peer-to-peer storage opens up the potential for designing completely new types of distributed applications that go far beyond anonymous routing or peer-to-peer file storage alone. In the course of our research, we identified a number of facets that require further investigation. Most notable are deviations from the Tor protocol that may negatively impact anonymity of network traffic. That is, not wrapping the routed message within the onion structure, using magic strings in network packets, allowing envelopes of arbitrary size, and using one-hop-routes by default.