4 ms·

So first I would suggest some sort of global service for translating user friendly names to internet addresses. Something that might have a bit of centralizat

by a-dub 8y ago

So first I would suggest some sort of global service for translating user friendly names to internet addresses. Something that might have a bit of centralization at the top, but ultimately a decentralized network of authority of sub-namespaces and protocols for building servers that can translate these names to addresses. This system should also support attaching small bits of metadata to these names. On top of this I propose building a protocol for store and forward messaging. Something where it is possible for anyone to develop a server that speaks this protocol. Instances of these servers can be registered in the namespace above and this is how these servers can find each other to push data around. Anyone should be able to run these servers, providing service just for themselves, small communities or even large organizations, businesses, institutions or resold commercial services. Lastly I propose an application layer on top of this. This application layer has two components: 1) A suite of standard protocols for user agents to contact these servers and download user data 2) A suite of standard protocols for rich content, encryption or group distribution From these pieces, it would be totally possible to build a giant decentralized social network that could present the same sort of data we see on social networks. While things could start with simple messaging, similar features to what we find on social networks could be built. Of course there's the problem of bad actors and abuse, but it seems this could be solved by merely blocking all communication except for that from a list of known senders... We could call this the friends list. It would be a lot of work to build and get right, it's a shame nothing like this exists today.

kodablah 8y ago
> So first I would suggest some sort of global service for translating user friendly names to internet addresses. You can't do this without having a central authority (which people don't want to be beholden to), making names cost money (or be otherwise difficult), or accepting squatters. People aren't going to pay for names and you've gained nothing if you centralize the name store. People aren't going to accept the immobility of federation like they do with email (and it still gravitates towards centralized authorities). I think we're just going to have to accept large hard-to-gen and hard-to-read identities (e.g. base32'd pub keys like onion service names) and we each "tag" friendly names to them locally as we choose.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  If you can share those tags (and why not?), now you have decentralized "authorities" for names. "Squatting" is only a problem if someone else can take an identity after I've used it within the service. Squatting on previously-unused-in-the-service IRL identities doesn't matter at all.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    > If you can share those tags (and why not?), now you have decentralized "authorities" for names. Until an indexing service becomes a defacto standard, once again making it centralized. This is what I meant about federation (i.e. sharing your name lists) gravitating towards centralization. > Squatting on previously-unused-in-the-service IRL identities doesn't matter at all. It does when I can register thousands and thousands of names. This is why it must be too difficult for squatters and not too difficult for users.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      There isn't a point to generating thousands and thousands of UUIDs, but it's only the UUIDs that need to be reserved after use. The human-readable names needn't be universal. If too many of your tags point to squatters, then no one will want to share them.
zekevermillion 8y ago
Global address service could be namecoin. Message storage / forwarding / encryption could be secure scuttlebutt. Personally I see no reason to make global addressing mandatory -- could be optional for those who want to be globally findable. Otherwise, use ssb pubkey as identifier and only connect with immediate FoF network.
dmckeon 8y ago
So: DNS, NNTP, IMAP, RSS? Xor, <whoosh>, as the joke flies over my head.
bitesports 8y ago
Just look at protocol labs, they're building all that stuff

by a-dub 8y ago

kodablah 8y ago

> So first I would suggest some sort of global service for translating user friendly names to internet addresses. You can't do this without having a central authority (which people don't want to be beholden to), making names cost money (or be otherwise difficult), or accepting squatters. People aren't going to pay for names and you've gained nothing if you centralize the name store. People aren't going to accept the immobility of federation like they do with email (and it still gravitates towards centralized authorities). I think we're just going to have to accept large hard-to-gen and hard-to-read identities (e.g. base32'd pub keys like onion service names) and we each "tag" friendly names to them locally as we choose.

jessaustin 8y ago
If you can share those tags (and why not?), now you have decentralized "authorities" for names. "Squatting" is only a problem if someone else can take an identity after I've used it within the service. Squatting on previously-unused-in-the-service IRL identities doesn't matter at all.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > If you can share those tags (and why not?), now you have decentralized "authorities" for names. Until an indexing service becomes a defacto standard, once again making it centralized. This is what I meant about federation (i.e. sharing your name lists) gravitating towards centralization. > Squatting on previously-unused-in-the-service IRL identities doesn't matter at all. It does when I can register thousands and thousands of names. This is why it must be too difficult for squatters and not too difficult for users.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    There isn't a point to generating thousands and thousands of UUIDs, but it's only the UUIDs that need to be reserved after use. The human-readable names needn't be universal. If too many of your tags point to squatters, then no one will want to share them.

zekevermillion 8y ago

Global address service could be namecoin. Message storage / forwarding / encryption could be secure scuttlebutt. Personally I see no reason to make global addressing mandatory -- could be optional for those who want to be globally findable. Otherwise, use ssb pubkey as identifier and only connect with immediate FoF network.

dmckeon 8y ago

So: DNS, NNTP, IMAP, RSS? Xor, <whoosh>, as the joke flies over my head.

bitesports 8y ago

Just look at protocol labs, they're building all that stuff