Will that solve things? As we are seeing, much of the value is in the metadata, who is speaking to whom. Cryptography won't necessarily hide that, as ultimately the network itself needs to know where messages are going to.
The design of the network has a role to play. Is it possible to design a network that doesn't expose where information is flowing, or better yet, doesn't even need to know where information is flowing (it can't leak what it doesn't know)? Such a network would presumably not require an address space.
Freenet does something like this, exchanging messages by a process akin to a dead drop and restricting each node's view of the network to its immediate neighbours. I'm thinking something like Freenet, but operating as a physical network rather than an overlay network. Does such a thing already exist?
"Is it possible to design a network that doesn't expose where information is flowing, or better yet, doesn't even need to know where information is flowing (it can't leak what it doesn't know)?"
Post encrypted messages to Usenet; since anyone can receive them, there is no need for a destination address. Post the messages through anonymous remailers (mix-nets) if you want to avoid revealing that you sent them.
The design of the network has a role to play. Is it possible to design a network that doesn't expose where information is flowing, or better yet, doesn't even need to know where information is flowing (it can't leak what it doesn't know)? Such a network would presumably not require an address space.
Freenet does something like this, exchanging messages by a process akin to a dead drop and restricting each node's view of the network to its immediate neighbours. I'm thinking something like Freenet, but operating as a physical network rather than an overlay network. Does such a thing already exist?