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Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites

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Re: Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites

#61

Post by Latty »

publiush wrote: post #35
mrtksn wrote: post #32

What are some cool websites that I can visit right now?

It's new, so I don't think there are many out there yet. I do hope that this changes the landscape of the ecosystem for 'decentralization.' It's not supposed to be about tokens or organizational marketing hype. First, it's about free speech and freedom of information. "De-platforming" is now extinct. Only then, can you even begin to discuss anything else. I'm very thankful to WebTorrent, DMT, Handshake and Electron f…

Deplatforming still exists while any curated platform still exists, which will (hopefully) be always.

It shouldn't be possible for you to end up with nowhere to speak, that's why the public square exists, and I accept there is a need for an online public square that is currently pseudo-fufilled by private social media sites, but that doesn't mean deplatforming is bad.

Freedom of expression includes the freedom not to endorse or express an idea, and platforms shouldn't be forced to allow people to use them to amplify their speech, as then that right is violated, enforced expression is just as harmful as enforced silence.

Re: Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites

#63

Post by bluedays »

Latty wrote: post #61
publiush wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's new, so I don't think there are many out there yet. I do hope that this changes the landscape of the ecosystem for 'decentralization.' It's not supposed to be about tokens or organizational marketing hype. First, it's about free speech and freedom of information. "De-platforming" is now extinct. Only then, can you even begin to discuss anything else. I'm very thankful to WebTorrent, DMT, Handshake and Electron f…

Deplatforming still exists while any curated platform still exists, which will (hopefully) be always. It shouldn't be possible for you to end up with nowhere to speak, that's why the public square exists, and I accept there is a need for an online public square that is currently pseudo-fufilled by private social media sites, but that doesn't mean deplatforming is bad. Freedom of expression includes the freedom not to…

You seem to be arguing yourself in a circle.

Re: Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites

#64

Post by dane-pgp »

This looks like a great project, thank you.

One aspect of censorship resistance is the ability for people to publish and read content anonymously (or pseudonymously). Could you add something to the README about that threat model?

Also, I see that your IRC channel is hosted on Freenode. That seems an odd choice for a project that is opposed to censorship. Please consider a network with a better track record in that regard.

Re: Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites

#65

Post by chrisco255 »

publiush wrote: post #25
xwvvvvwx wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this literally uses a cryptocurrency (handshake) for domains

There's a dilemma as the magnet links/hashes aren't easily shareable. One option is to create a DMT directory, but this would be centralized. Handshake is the most mature decentralized domain name project, and I opted for it. It uses coins to limit abuse, since anyone can flood a decentralized system. You don't need coins to browse and use federalist. That said, if there are any other immutable DNS systems that aren'…

ENS (Ethereum Naming Service) is built on immutable smart contracts on Ethereum. Domain names (ie example.eth) are permissionlessly registered for up to hundreds of years at a time for ~$5 a year.

ENS domains can be resolved to Ethereum wallet addresses, IPFS, Bitcoin addresses or any other public key or string.

Re: Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites

#66

Post by chrisco255 »

anchpop wrote: post #36
publiush wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a dilemma as the magnet links/hashes aren't easily shareable. One option is to create a DMT directory, but this would be centralized. Handshake is the most mature decentralized domain name project, and I opted for it. It uses coins to limit abuse, since anyone can flood a decentralized system. You don't need coins to browse and use federalist. That said, if there are any other immutable DNS systems that aren'…

There’s ENS, which seems on sturdier footing than Handshake to me, but the gas on ethereum is ridiculous

ENS is adding layer 2 support soon. While gas sucks on layer 1, since it's only ~$5 a year for the domain, you can register something for like 10-20 years for not much more than the cost to register for one year (gas considered).

Re: Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites

#68

Post by duskwuff »

summm wrote: post #60
publiush wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The website for GNUnet seems to be down/404, but it looks like ownership of names is controlled by a central authority ( https://manpages.debian.org/unstable/gnunet/gnunet-namestore... ).

If you want to do anything decentralized, I highly recommend to read all of the scientific papers from the gnunet authors. They theoretically solved a lot of problems a long time ago that modern distributed projects keep repeating. About the name system: It is a bit more complex than that. Everybody can "create" a domain, but others must import it's public key, somewhat compatible to a hosts file. The trick is that e…

> The trick is that each domain can have arbitrary subdomains, also stored in the DHT. Now one can construct arbitrary deep trees. And everyone can choose a list of their trusted TLDs, and use them to resolve names. Say site.alice.bob.gnu (where .gnu is shipped with the client as default) and if I personally decide to trust Alice directly, I put her public key into my config file and from now on I can use site.alice instead without ever touching bob.gnu or .gnu again.

Which is ridiculous -- it makes names unreliable as public identifiers. Sure, you can refer to Alice's site as "site.alice", but nobody else can resolve that name unless they share your configuration. Worse, it means that anyone who has a different key mapped as "alice" might see "site.alice" resolve to something completely different than what you see.

Re: Show HN: Decentralized, Mutable, Serverless Torrent Swarm Websites

#70

Post by bscphil »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #31
easrng wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends. You an either have your mutable torrent point to the head of a liked list like this: head | |- post.txt +- prev.torrent prev | |- post.txt +- prev.torrent You get the idea. With the not yet widely-supported BitTorrent v2, you can just add files to a new torrent and seeders of the old torrent will seed the files that are also in the new torrent too.

What are the challenges slowing the v2 deployment? Client uptake?

My reading of the situation is that for 99.99% of data currently transferred by Bittorrent, v1 works just fine. And for many use cases, the ability to do something like change an already created torrent would actually be detrimental. It's not that v2 is actively bad, it's just that it's designed for a different audience than currently uses Bittorrent, and will take time for that new audience to find it.
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