Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

ctrl.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 48 posts

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#21

Post by anticensor »

ezoe wrote: post #5

The last time I checked IPFS is a joke. There are only two implementations of IPFS protocol and both come from the same group of developers. On the other hand, there are so many BitTorrent protocol implementations from totally independent group of developers. Also, the namespace system of IPFS is just beyond stupid. They openly recommend relying the traditional central DNS to resolve the human readable name to hash.…

> namespace system of IPFS

Namespace companion of IPFS is called IPNS.

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#22

Post by Etheryte »

colordrops wrote: post #13
zzzcpan wrote: post #4

The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control, like BitTorrent did. Nobody cares about the main thing that decentralization is all about - making rule/law enforcement on others practically impossible. There was a great series of posts about decentralization from BitTorrent people recently: https://…

Bitcoin?

While in theory Bitcoin is decentralized, in practice roughly half of the coins in existence are from a single mining company and 74% of global mining power currently resides in China, belonging to a handful of owners.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/report-links-74-bitcoin...

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#23

Post by kbody »

colordrops wrote: post #13
zzzcpan wrote: post #4

The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control, like BitTorrent did. Nobody cares about the main thing that decentralization is all about - making rule/law enforcement on others practically impossible. There was a great series of posts about decentralization from BitTorrent people recently: https://…

Bitcoin?

Per sgeisler's comment[1] there's the ability of any individual inside Russia that uses Blockstream's Satellite (free) to essential link Runet with the rest-of-the-world Bitcoin network and maintain global consencus even if there isn't direct internet link between the "two internets". I hope someone takes advantage of that and keep logs.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19176785

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#24

Post by ForHackernews »

sgeisler wrote: post #10
Gaelan wrote: post #8

Oh lord, what’s this going to do to the blockchains?

At least bitcoin will be mostly unaffected since you can receive blocks via satellite [1] and if even one satellite connected node is inside Runet then you can at least keep up with the blockchain. Sending transactions can be done via sms [2]. The main problem would be mining in Russia, but if miners know about the shutdown in advance and it's economically feasible then they can get satellite internet to upload found…

is anyone actually using this?

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#25

Post by Confiks »

zzzcpan wrote: post #4

The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control, like BitTorrent did. Nobody cares about the main thing that decentralization is all about - making rule/law enforcement on others practically impossible. There was a great series of posts about decentralization from BitTorrent people recently: https://…

> The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations, people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to give up control

All the examples of decentralized software mentioned in the article are fully open source. They don't need to "give up control", because they are not necessarily in control.

It is of course true that they run the most used implementation of the software, and that the project is centralized around that. That's mostly a result of these projects being run as meritocracies; any person or group who wishes could aid in removing that initial organizational centralization. The original authors also simply know the most about running their own software in production.

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#26

Post by state_less »

ytjohn wrote: post #9

One of them that will, or at least should be able to continue, is scuttlebutt. Scuttlebutt clients on an isolated LAN can share messages with each other. To go beyond the LAN, you point at a "pub server", which anyone can host anywhere. Yes, only russian-based pub servers will be available, and that assumes they are using russian based DNS to point to them (or have a known static IP). However, for the test of communi…

Isn't the design motivated in part because one (or more) of the key contributors actually are/were sailors?

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/meet-...

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#27

Post by wongarsu »

ForHackernews wrote: post #24
sgeisler wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least bitcoin will be mostly unaffected since you can receive blocks via satellite [1] and if even one satellite connected node is inside Runet then you can at least keep up with the blockchain. Sending transactions can be done via sms [2]. The main problem would be mining in Russia, but if miners know about the shutdown in advance and it's economically feasible then they can get satellite internet to upload found…

is anyone actually using this?

One person is enough. If one person inside Runet receives blocks from the wider internet (via satellite or other means), their client will automatically forward the blocks to all clients they are connected to, quickly spreading them accross Russia. And because Bitcoin follows the chain of blocks that took the most work to create, latency isn't an issue.

Mining (and making a profit while doing so) is more latency sensitive, but should be able to tollerate a satelite uplink. And again, one person having a satelite uplink is enough to give all Russian miners a chance.

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#28

Post by neuraxon77 »

gregknicholson wrote: post #20
ytjohn wrote: post #9

One of them that will, or at least should be able to continue, is scuttlebutt. Scuttlebutt clients on an isolated LAN can share messages with each other. To go beyond the LAN, you point at a "pub server", which anyone can host anywhere. Yes, only russian-based pub servers will be available, and that assumes they are using russian based DNS to point to them (or have a known static IP). However, for the test of communi…

> To go beyond the LAN, you point at a "pub server", which anyone can host anywhere. You could also get messages into and out of Russia by physically moving a laptop or phone with a Scuttlebutt client. Forgive my ignorance here but, supposing there was a mesh network spanning across the block, would Tor, cjdns, Hyperboria or Yggdrasil be low-level enough to get around a block like this?

Yes, any network link to an outside pub would eventually sync that pub to the rest of the network. This makes Secure Scuttlebutt a [delay tolerant network](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay-tolerant_networking).

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#29

Post by mods_censors_me »

ytjohn wrote: post #9

One of them that will, or at least should be able to continue, is scuttlebutt. Scuttlebutt clients on an isolated LAN can share messages with each other. To go beyond the LAN, you point at a "pub server", which anyone can host anywhere. Yes, only russian-based pub servers will be available, and that assumes they are using russian based DNS to point to them (or have a known static IP). However, for the test of communi…

Totally agree, the article is total FUD.

The Decentralized Web is a lot bigger than just the 2 projects they mention.

They don't discuss SSB, GUN, WebTorrent, Zeronet, etc., all legitimately popular systems running in production with tons of users.

In in our community we are already running local multi-cast discovery (working!) and have Bluetooth in the works. And we can do extended peer discovery through decentralized signaling relays (any/all peers contribute to this, WebRTC, browser, or other).

Even Internet Archive is using us ( https://github.com/amark/gun ) for their dweb mirror.

Additionally the system uses daisy-chain mesh net algorithms to proxy messages regardless of whether you are directly connected to peers or not.

Bring it, Russia.

I'm also starting to notice HN actively trying to kill off or censor any dweb discussion that doesn't involve one of Y Combinator's backed protocol.

Re: Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet

#30

Post by ForHackernews »

wongarsu wrote: post #27
ForHackernews wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is anyone actually using this?

One person is enough. If one person inside Runet receives blocks from the wider internet (via satellite or other means), their client will automatically forward the blocks to all clients they are connected to, quickly spreading them accross Russia. And because Bitcoin follows the chain of blocks that took the most work to create, latency isn't an issue. Mining (and making a profit while doing so) is more latency sens…

Is there even much mining in Russia? My understanding is the overwhelming majority of bitcoin mining is in China.
Post reply on HN