Live data from Hacker News

Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

getaether.net

81–90 of 232 posts

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#81

So how does peer discovery work? How to find initial nodes to connect?

It seems there is some kind of bootstrap node running somewhere that clients connect to when they haven't got anything. The upside is that this bootstrap node isn't special, and anyone should (I believe?) be able to set up new bootstrap nodes. But I'm not sure on that part.

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#82
post #29
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the cost of having open communication platforms is the existence of toxic communities. The correct approach (IMO) is to educate people about these rather than to have some sort of censorship mechanism.

That is, unfortunately, unworkable. You cannot successful quarantine toxic people from non-toxic people in the same community. People who aren't toxic rarely want to spend their time around toxic people, and those that don't mind it are usually those who aren't the targets of the toxic people. A community with many members who are openly white supremacists might not be uncomfortable for other white people -- even if…

See my sibling comment. Should we (society) have quarantined and de-platformed homosexuals when they were (historically) considered "toxic"?

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply. I'm talking about the tarball on https://www.getaether.net/linux_download.html Link Location: https://github.com/nehbit/aether-public/releases/download/v1... Looks like it's v1.2.3, released in 2014, so I'm guessing this client won't work? Might want to remove that link! :)

Oh wow - you got the old, old version from the prior site, v1.x. The new version is 2.0.0, it’s a completely different app. Clear your cache and go to getaeether.net again, that should give you the new site and new version.

It actually takes me to that old website when I use 'click here for other options' on Windows and my Arch machine, in incognito mode.

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#84

Hey guys - Burak here. Ouch, this was supposed to be a ‘soft’ launch. I’m here to answer any questions as usual. I’ll pick the best and try to add it to the FAQ on the site.

will you provide .AppImage or Flatpak or Snap? or all of them?

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#85

Hey guys - Burak here. Ouch, this was supposed to be a ‘soft’ launch. I’m here to answer any questions as usual. I’ll pick the best and try to add it to the FAQ on the site.

Seems to overlap with what SSB is trying to accomplish. Do you see any opportunities for integrating with that or other protocols, maybe for tracking unique identities over time?

(backed on patreon btw)

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#86

Hey guys - Burak here. Ouch, this was supposed to be a ‘soft’ launch. I’m here to answer any questions as usual. I’ll pick the best and try to add it to the FAQ on the site.

Thanks for creating this!

How does the unique username perk for patrons work? Does it mean that people can still create "normal"-coloured usernames, but there can only be one orange "verified" one?

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#87

Hey guys - Burak here. Ouch, this was supposed to be a ‘soft’ launch. I’m here to answer any questions as usual. I’ll pick the best and try to add it to the FAQ on the site.

Thanks for creating this! How does the unique username perk for patrons work? Does it mean that people can still create "normal"-coloured usernames, but there can only be one orange "verified" one?

Yep, that's how it works.

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#88

> Communities can elect and impeach their own mods by voting. If these are public communities that anyone can join pseudonymously (are they?) how does Aether prevent Sybil attacks, where a malicious actor joins a community using multiple identities and votes themselves into power? Also, spam?

Does any existing kind of social network prevent that kind of attack? I don't believe so, and I'd think that's pretty difficult to accomplish. Aether does attempt to make this nontrivial, I believe, by requiring proof-of-work before posting things. I don't know, but possibly that proof-of-work also applies for impeachment votes (I hope it does!). Then depending on how hard that proof-of-work requirement is and how many people are already in the community, performing such an attack would become harder.

Re: Aether – Free, privacy-sensitive public communities

#90

Hey guys - Burak here. Ouch, this was supposed to be a ‘soft’ launch. I’m here to answer any questions as usual. I’ll pick the best and try to add it to the FAQ on the site.

I would like to give Aether2 a test run. The only version I can find is the old 1.2.3 release on GitHub. Others here seem to have version 2. Where can I get it?
Post reply on HN