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Really like the idea behind this. The basic premise is really interesting: Conversation between two people is direct p2p through tor, while groups require a ser

by geoah 5y ago

Really like the idea behind this. The basic premise is really interesting: Conversation between two people is direct p2p through tor, while groups require a server that people need to host. It's a really interesting middle ground between having to trust a single party with all your conversations and making everything truly p2p.

sanity31415 5y ago
Tor isn't really P2P since messages need to go through Tor's network of routers.
- bastawhiz 5y ago
  The whole internet requires that any connection traverses numerous switches and routers. Unless you're pointing a microwave antenna at the destination to deliver your packets, the distinction here is pointless.
  - teorema 5y ago
    To be fair to the grandparent poster, who was downvoted, in the decentralized networking community there are protocols designed to be robust to different hardware setups, like over wifi or other ad hoc systems. Depending on tor from that perspective might be seen as restrictive.
    - bastawhiz 5y ago
      Cwtch isn't made specifically for the decentralized networking community. The properties of a globally-usable, decentralized, and private system are almost entirely at odds with the constraints of decentralized networking. Making such a system robust against network partitions and latency and keeping your IP/location private while still being truly decentralized (and not federated) is an incredibly hard—and perhaps unsolved—problem.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  So nothing on the internet is peer to peer, since you have to go through ISP’s network of routers?
  - beders 5y ago
    Your ISP sees everything. It might not be able to interpret and filter everything though. Try traceroute google.com for example to see (some) of the hops your data packets are going through.
- generalizations 5y ago
  My first thought as well, since tor is built around the idea of bouncing connections around the network. But "p2p" still makes sense, if we just consider tor a black box.
kodablah 5y ago
Easy to get around residential ISP NAT issues too. It's really easy for any software to start a local ephemeral onion service on Tor on their local machine and have it reachable worldwide in a couple seconds. I'm a fan of this project and have been watching it for a while. It is my hope that more self-at-home-hosted options pop up in this space around Tor onion services.
- ignoramous 5y ago
  > ...self-at-home-hosted options pop up in this space around Tor onion services. See also: https://github.com/agl/pond https://github.com/agl/pond With Snowflake bridges, apps can now connect to the Tor network from within a browser. Ref: https://snowflake.torproject.org/ https://snowflake.torproject.org/
  - kodablah 5y ago
    Shameless plug, I also wrote a simple lib that makes onion services easy: https://github.com/cretz/bine https://github.com/cretz/bine (OP's project uses a fork of it and I plan on putting more time into it soon)

by geoah 5y ago

sanity31415 5y ago

Tor isn't really P2P since messages need to go through Tor's network of routers.

bastawhiz 5y ago
The whole internet requires that any connection traverses numerous switches and routers. Unless you're pointing a microwave antenna at the destination to deliver your packets, the distinction here is pointless.
- teorema 5y ago
  To be fair to the grandparent poster, who was downvoted, in the decentralized networking community there are protocols designed to be robust to different hardware setups, like over wifi or other ad hoc systems. Depending on tor from that perspective might be seen as restrictive.
  - bastawhiz 5y ago
    Cwtch isn't made specifically for the decentralized networking community. The properties of a globally-usable, decentralized, and private system are almost entirely at odds with the constraints of decentralized networking. Making such a system robust against network partitions and latency and keeping your IP/location private while still being truly decentralized (and not federated) is an incredibly hard—and perhaps unsolved—problem.
cortesoft 5y ago
So nothing on the internet is peer to peer, since you have to go through ISP’s network of routers?
- beders 5y ago
  Your ISP sees everything. It might not be able to interpret and filter everything though. Try traceroute google.com for example to see (some) of the hops your data packets are going through.
generalizations 5y ago
My first thought as well, since tor is built around the idea of bouncing connections around the network. But "p2p" still makes sense, if we just consider tor a black box.

kodablah 5y ago

Easy to get around residential ISP NAT issues too. It's really easy for any software to start a local ephemeral onion service on Tor on their local machine and have it reachable worldwide in a couple seconds. I'm a fan of this project and have been watching it for a while. It is my hope that more self-at-home-hosted options pop up in this space around Tor onion services.

ignoramous 5y ago
> ...self-at-home-hosted options pop up in this space around Tor onion services. See also: https://github.com/agl/pond https://github.com/agl/pond With Snowflake bridges, apps can now connect to the Tor network from within a browser. Ref: https://snowflake.torproject.org/ https://snowflake.torproject.org/
- kodablah 5y ago
  Shameless plug, I also wrote a simple lib that makes onion services easy: https://github.com/cretz/bine https://github.com/cretz/bine (OP's project uses a fork of it and I plan on putting more time into it soon)