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An off-grid social network

staltz.com

91–100 of 383 posts

Re: An off-grid social network

#91
post #69
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then your laptop gets stolen and everything's gone.

If I understand scuttlebut correctly, your stuff is broadcasted to whoever it might concern and the pubs. If you still have your private key, you should still be able to access whatever is in the ether, right ? You somehow become the recipient of your own messages. Only the thief will also have access to your private key, so the account can be considered compromised.

Yep, that's how it works.

Re: An off-grid social network

#92
post #42
post #8

So... it's kinna like USENET then?

I see the topology as very USENet like. Not that this is a bad thing. There's still life in USENet, and a fair few people still sit and discuss things in various groups (if you know where to look)[1]. The backbone concept of USENet is still great from a decentralised point of view - someone just needs to add some crypto layers to it (as a standard), and I reckon it could rise again like a phoenix. --- [1] I'm deliber…

If you make a decentralized, encrypted, potentially anonymous network some users will use it for bootlegs and probably worse. That doesn't preclude or outweigh all the legitimate uses.

Re: An off-grid social network

#93
post #82

No, you're not. If you were that would mean you would be interested. If you were interested you would have more to say. You're just trying to imply that I must suggest an alternative before commenting on the poor state of "social networks".

"I'm all ears" is simply a common idiom for asking you to suggest alternatives. Not sure why that upsets you?

Re: An off-grid social network

#94
post #86

I think I missed something. If information is exchanged when machines are on the same network, how does the guy in New Zealand get updates from the guy in Hawaii? Is there a server involved, or does the New Zealand guy have to wait until he is on a network with someone who has already connected with the Hawaii guy?

Information can also be exchanged using legacy internet.. ;)

kidding aside: we just introduce a few instances that act as exchange points (also called "pubs").

I played a little with the idea of using tor hidden services to directly connect to people, so that you don't need another computer that runs all the time.

Re: An off-grid social network

#95
post #86

I think I missed something. If information is exchanged when machines are on the same network, how does the guy in New Zealand get updates from the guy in Hawaii? Is there a server involved, or does the New Zealand guy have to wait until he is on a network with someone who has already connected with the Hawaii guy?

It sounds like that's what the 'pubs' mentioned in the article are for: https://github.com/staltz/easy-ssb-pub

Re: An off-grid social network

#96
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Hacker News, for example, people don't talk about themselves, although they do like to get upvotes.

but hacker news isn't really about social content. Some of that might creep in for some users, and yes the karma thing does pollute motivations for some, but I've never thought of it as a social network. Some networking is done here, but only indirectly I think. Maybe I'm not thinking about it right or use it differently than most :P

Yeah, it is not a "complete" social network, I was just using it as an example that there are places in which people aren't so narcissistic as in Facebook.

See also Joel Spolsky on the topic: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/03/building-communiti...

Re: An off-grid social network

#97
post #11

Since the author didnt mention it, the original creator of the patchwork project is https://github.com/pfrazee When I used it, which admitedly was a long time ago now, the biggest setback was lack of cross device identities. So I ended up having two accounts with two feeds, `wesAtWork` and `wes`. Maybe they have solved this by now. ps. Does patchwork still have the little gif maker? Because that was a super fun featu…

Cross device identity is still an issue, but not a problem in the foundation. It's a matter of making client apps (like Patchwork) recognize a message of type "link this and that account together" and then your friend's app would automatically follow both accounts and render them as if they are the same thing. It'll be done eventually in Patchwork.

I'm having trouble following this and the reply thread below. Why is identity device-specific? So every time a get a new computer I have a new public key?

Re: An off-grid social network

#98
This sounds more like a mesh communication tool, or a git repo, than a social network to me. "Social network" sites like Facebook aren't so utilitarian. Facebook was the place where people post life's highlights. (I say was, I haven't been there in years. I don't know what it is like today.) HN is also like this, except it is a stream of project highlights.

Re: An off-grid social network

#99
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Hacker News, for example, people don't talk about themselves, although they do like to get upvotes.

but hacker news isn't really about social content. Some of that might creep in for some users, and yes the karma thing does pollute motivations for some, but I've never thought of it as a social network. Some networking is done here, but only indirectly I think. Maybe I'm not thinking about it right or use it differently than most :P

You have a point there. "Social content". What is "social content"? Is it people talking about themselves and what they think and showing pictures of themselves? Is that what you do with your best friends? You arrive at their houses and start talking about yourself without being asked?

Re: An off-grid social network

#100
post #86

I think I missed something. If information is exchanged when machines are on the same network, how does the guy in New Zealand get updates from the guy in Hawaii? Is there a server involved, or does the New Zealand guy have to wait until he is on a network with someone who has already connected with the Hawaii guy?

(Public) information is not only shared between friends, but also between friends of friends. So as long as they have common friends connected to the internet, the data flows without problems.

To help with this situation, the network includes so called pubs. These are basically bots that run 24/7 and friend people. The article very briefly mentions them. More information here: https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/concepts/pub.html

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