GNUnet 0.12.0 released

We are pleased to announce the release of GNUnet 0.12.0.
This is a new major release. It breaks protocol compatibility with the 0.11.x versions. Please be aware that Git master is thus henceforth INCOMPATIBLE with the 0.11.x GNUnet network, and interactions between old and new peers will result in signature verification failures. 0.11.x peers will NOT be able to communicate with Git master or 0.12.x peers.
In terms of usability, users should be aware that there are still a large number of known open issues in particular with respect to ease of use, but also some critical privacy issues especially for mobile users. Also, the nascent network is tiny and thus unlikely to provide good anonymity or extensive amounts of interesting information. As a result, the 0.12.0 release is still only suitable for early adopters with some reasonable pain tolerance.

Download links

• http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-0.12.0.tar.gz
• http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-0.12.0.tar.gz.sig
• http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-gtk-0.12.0.tar.gz
• http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-gtk-0.12.0.tar.gz.sig
• http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-fuse-0.12.0.tar.gz
• http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/gnunet/gnunet-fuse-0.12.0.tar.gz.sig

The GPG key used to sign is: 3D11063C10F98D14BD24D1470B0998EF86F59B6A

Note that due to mirror synchronization, not all links might be functional early after the release. For direct access try http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnunet/

Noteworthy changes in 0.12.0 (since 0.11.8)

• GNS:
  • Changed key derivation protocols to adhere with LSD001. #5921
  • Names are not expected to be UTF-8 (as opposed to IDNA). #5922
  • NSS plugin now properly handles non-standard IDNA names. #5927
  • NSS plugin will refuse to process requests from root (as GNUnet code should never run as root). #5907
  • Fixed BOX service/protocol label parsing (for TLSA et al)
• GNS/NSE: Zone revocation proof of work algorithm changed to be less susceptible to specialized ASIC hardware. #3795
• TRANSPORT: UDP plugin moved to experimental as it is known to be unstable.
• UTIL:
  • Improved and documented RSA binary format. #5968
  • Removed redundant hashing in EdDSA signatures. #5398
  • The gnunet-logread script for log auditing (requires perl) can now be installed.
  • Now using TweetNaCl for ECDH implementation.
• Buildsystem: A significant number of build system issued have been fixed and improvements implemented, including:
  • GLPK dependency dropped.
  • Fixed guix package definition.
• Documentation: Improvements to the handbook and documentation.

Known Issues

• There are known major design issues in the TRANSPORT, ATS and CORE subsystems which will need to be addressed in the future to achieve acceptable usability, performance and security.
• There are known moderate implementation limitations in CADET that negatively impact performance.
• There are known moderate design issues in FS that also impact usability and performance.
• There are minor implementation limitations in SET that create unnecessary attack surface for availability.
• The RPS subsystem remains experimental.
• Some high-level tests in the test-suite fail non-deterministically due to the low-level TRANSPORT issues.

In addition to this list, you may also want to consult our bug tracker at bugs.gnunet.org which lists about 190 more specific issues.

Thanks

This release was the work of many people. The following people contributed code and were thus easily identified: ng0, Christian Grothoff, Florian Dold, xrs, Naomi Phillips and Martin Schanzenbach.