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An off-grid social network

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Re: An off-grid social network

#201

Post by cel »

fiatjaf wrote: post #31

Why do all "social networks" have to be a feed of news? Couldn't anyone think of anything better than a system in which people are only encouraged to talk about themselves and try to get other people's approval? In which having more "friends" is always better, because you have more potential for self-agrandissement in your narcissistic posts?

With SSB, you could make a UI that renders the content in a different way, such as a HN-style thing, and use it on the existing network alongside people using other clients.

The social aspect is important though because in this architecture what you see is determined by who you follow (and who they follow, etc.)

Re: An off-grid social network

#202

Post by Neliquat »

JdeBP wrote: post #173
georgecmu wrote: post #150

As a historical note, there used to be quite a few very popular solutions for supporting early social networks over intermittent protocols. UUCP [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP ] used the computers' modems to dial out to other computers, establishing temporary, point-to-point links between them. Each system in a UUCP network has a list of neighbor systems, with phone numbers, login names and passwords, etc. Fido…

It's slightly misleading to refer to Fidonet only in the context of Russia. It was popular in quite a lot of places around the world, not just Russia. Not even principally Russia, in its heyday. These things are definitely systems to learn from, both their architectures and their histories; and people have already been drawing parallels to Usenet on this very page, notice.

Indeed. My BBS was fidonet connected in the 90s. Many interesting discussions happened dispite the day long delay in replication.

Re: An off-grid social network

#203

Post by jaccarmac »

rocky1138 wrote: post #16
chc4 wrote: post #15

This sounds like what I wanted from GNU Social when I first joined over a year ago. GNU Social/Mastodon is a fun idea, but it falls apart when you realise that you still don't own your content and it's functionally impossible to switch nodes like it advertised, along with federation being a giant mess. I tried to switch what server my account was on halfway through my GNU Social life, and you just can't; all your fol…

Not being able to switch nodes pushes you to try and host your own instead. That's what I've done. IMO we should instead be looking at packaging a self-hosted version into a native Windows and Mac app. Run it in the background and everything's done.

That's basically the aim of Urbit. An instance you control that you can connect to other services to tie those external identities together.

Re: An off-grid social network

#204

Post by Zaak »

lolc wrote: post #84
cryptarch wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Raspberry Pi is very low-powered though, it's completely insignificant compared to the power used by the webservices you use daily.

I disagree. Google uses 1/4GW worldwide and that's less than a watt per user.

Where does that number come from?

One data center * 24 backup generators * 3 MW each = 72 MW per data center. Four of those = 288 MW > 1/4GW.

Google has more than three data centers.

Re: An off-grid social network

#205

Post by itchyjunk »

jumpkickhit wrote: post #192
itchyjunk wrote: post #68

I am not much of a social networking type of person, but I have wondered how nice it would be to network with a community like HN. For example, I see a nice comment chain going on in some news article, but as the article dies so does all the conversation within it. Maybe it's just me but if I see an article is x+ hours old (15+ for example), I don't bother commenting. What type of social networking would HN use for n…

Yeah, I'd be happy to see an active IRC channel for HN. Though, I doubt many would use it since IRC is way past being en vogue.

I like IRC still. For example, the science based channels in freenode.net is pretty good. #biology, ##physics and ##math. Might not be the worst of ideas for a mod to make one for us :s (provided they already have an IRC client going, it wouldn't be too much added hassle).

Re: An off-grid social network

#206

Post by cel »

rattray wrote: post #139

So it seems there are two ways to exchange information: 1) be on the same wifi (presumably great for dissidents in countries with heavy-handed internet control, and inconvenient for everyone else) 2) use "pubs", which can be run on any server, and connected to ¿through the internet? So most users would use pubs, which are described as "totally dispensable" (a nice property). But how can users exchange information abo…

The equivalent to a bootstrap node is the pub to which you used an invite code to connect to when joining the network (unless you connect to the network in a different way, like by being followed by someone else on your LAN). When you use an invite code, you publish a message with the pub's address on your feed. When peers replicate your feed, they see those messages, and thereby find out about new pubs to connect to.

Re: An off-grid social network

#207

Post by floatboth »

johanneskanybal wrote: post #137
crypt0x wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I want future generations to live in a world where 'the internet' isn't a thing that authorities can grant/deny. _THIS_ is very much the spirit of SSB. :)

Did I misunderstand the article or is this only for social feeds? I want headless internet in general, guess it's a common idea these days.

https://docs.meshwith.me

The technology is here, the only thing left is to make people actually use it…

Re: An off-grid social network

#209

Post by reitanqild »

freehunter wrote: post #189
reitanqild wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have to be solved before the world has any chance of moving to a decentralized network. I say no. Most of them don't have to be solved first. Feel free to convince me that 3 days of downtime on my personal messaging account cannot have my personal account is a problem.

It doesn't matter how you feel about it, take a look at people complaining when Google put a news article about Facebook at the top of the results instead of the Facebook login page: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/feb/11/face... These are people who typed "Facebook Login" into a Google search, clicked the first result without reading, and got confused. Now tell these same users that Comcast blocked…

Still not convinced. It doesn't need to be for everyone in the beginning.

The early web (when I entered and before) wasn't for everyone. And thats OK for me. Actually I think it is a good way to start.

Re: An off-grid social network

#210

Post by cakeface »

Can I choose who's content I pass along? I am ok distributing my own feed, that's presumably why I am joining the network. I am not OK passing along someone else's hate speech, porn, warez, malware, spam, etc. I'd like to be able to review the feeds available and say "Yeah sure I'll pass that around." If everything in a feed is encrypted then I'd need to decide. Also yeah my brother who's feed I follow and pass may upload a really nasty bit of content and I may relay it.
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