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Make any site multiplayer in a few lines. Serverless WebRTC matchmaking

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Re: Make any site multiplayer in a few lines. Serverless WebRTC matchmaking

#61
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, but unlike what the OP claims, you do not need to age verify your site just because you added a social element. If the purpose is not to distribute pornography/other age restricted materials and you are able to moderate the site (ie: are not facebook scale), this is not required. The law sucks but the misinformation around it is getting out of hand.

So if a site is completely p2p, it's illegal because it is unmoderatable?

And if so, is BitTorrent also completely illegal now, even if there's no piracy? IPFS? I2P? Tor?

Re: Make any site multiplayer in a few lines. Serverless WebRTC matchmaking

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong! Serverless is a funny term. Cloud companies use serverless to mean you don't have to provision and manage the server yourself, but it is still very much serverful technically speaking. This is neat in that you don't even need to setup anything with a cloud provider yourself to enable p2p connections

I've always seen the distinction as "serverless" meaning there wasn't a set group of servers always on and instead they provision up and down on demand. Only avoiding provisioning and managing the server just means you are renting rather than self-hosting.

My mental model is "we handle interpreter restarts for you, so forget about systemd unit files and CEO's laptop with minimized tmux"

Re: Make any site multiplayer in a few lines. Serverless WebRTC matchmaking

#65
Small nitpick. Tried logging in simultaneously with a desktop and a phone to make it wasn't BSing, and it was actually sending moves/fruit correctly. Yes, appears to. However, found out phones don't update on touchmove. Only on final touch.

Be nice if it used:

  const [sendMove, getMove] = room.makeAction('pointerMove')

  window.addEventListener('pointermove', e => sendMove([e.clientX, e.clientY]))
It's part of the Pointer Events API and provides a unified event model for handling mouse, pen/stylus, and touchscreens.

If necessary it can then use "PointerEvent.pointerType" to find the actual type.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/poi...

Otherwise, neat capability, and there's at least several different concepts it seems like it would be enabling of. Mapping / GIS, you could see where other people are browsing on somewhere like Google Maps. Maybe leave little markers that fade with time. Temporary file sharing where you broadcast a list of available files after logging on and peers can send requests. Dropbox-esque send yourself stuff with a home system that's always logged on. Computer-aided design (CAD/CAE/CAM) or stuff like blender/photoshop, work on models/images together. Obvious stuff like word/excel. Field Service Management, collaborative service calls.

Admittedly, also enabling of botnets, darkweb, and other such ideas. However, such is the nature of a lot of these types of technologies.

Re: Make any site multiplayer in a few lines. Serverless WebRTC matchmaking

#66
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The VPS is like renting office space. You don't own the space, but for the most part get to use it how you want, and all the responsibilities that come with that. "Serverless" is like paying for a hot desk by the minute, with little control of your surroundings, but it is convenient and cheap if you only need it for an hour.

At one job I had access to some paid AWS support tier. It's basically a bunch of consultants. We needed to process a datastream of events from user actions on a website. We asked about serverless / AWS Lambda. Their answer was something like "Well yeah it'll work but don't do that. It'll cost too much money and you'll wind up rebuilding it around EC2 anyways"

Yup. If you want something to plumb some pretty low volume events, sure serverless like Lambda can be useful. Anything which would be considered high levels of compute, you are just wayyy over paying. Hell, even EC2 on spot instance is expensive compute. I do like some AWS services, but yeah they come at a premium that is just getting more and more expensive.

Re: Make any site multiplayer in a few lines. Serverless WebRTC matchmaking

#67
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is factually untrue and either venting or wilfully ignorant of the actual law.

Hm? Have you taken a look at the law? https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/12 What's even "harmful content to minors"? Even if it were restricted only to pornography--which is not--I wouldn't count with being able to "moderate" all the ways users can draw penises. The act regulates "user-to-user" services: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/50/section/3 > In this Act “user-to-user service” mean…

Ofcom has a clear guide on how harmful to minors is defined. It is even clearly referenced in your own links:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/cons...

Your own links also reference the fact that moderation of content by platforms will allow them to comply with the law.

I don’t like this law and not here to defend its existence. But it is factually untrue just adding this would mean you also need to age verify users.

Case in point (which is not a rare use case), I use webrtc signalling to establish data connections in a multiplayer online game. Why would that require age verification when users are unable to send random content to one another?

Re: Make any site multiplayer in a few lines. Serverless WebRTC matchmaking

#68
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do, but unlike what the OP claims, you do not need to age verify your site just because you added a social element. If the purpose is not to distribute pornography/other age restricted materials and you are able to moderate the site (ie: are not facebook scale), this is not required. The law sucks but the misinformation around it is getting out of hand.

So if a site is completely p2p, it's illegal because it is unmoderatable?

No. If you are operating a p2p video chat site that is accessed by minors and you have no way for users to block or report content, then you are indeed going to face issues.

If a user is downloading a Linux image via bit torrent, or using WebRTC data channels to synchronise many clients using a p2p mechanism, what is the risk that needs age restricting?

This is what I meant, the OP is factually incorrect that just adding P2P technology to a service means it must age gate.

Re: Make any site multiplayer in a few lines. Serverless WebRTC matchmaking

#69
post #65

Small nitpick. Tried logging in simultaneously with a desktop and a phone to make it wasn't BSing, and it was actually sending moves/fruit correctly. Yes, appears to. However, found out phones don't update on touchmove. Only on final touch. Be nice if it used: const [sendMove, getMove] = room.makeAction('pointerMove') window.addEventListener('pointermove', e => sendMove([e.clientX, e.clientY])) It's part of the Point…

Made a site to try out the framework. Mostly just testing that it works and actually produces something.

Swapped over to having birds instead. Little bit confusing how to actually implement some of the functionality and how some of the functions work. Otherwise, relatively easy to set up and have working.

https://araesmojo-eng.github.io/trystero_test/

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