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Anything that depends on an ISP is not truly distributed or decentralized. You'd need a way to route ad-hoc networks deterministically. You'd have to replace BG
by pyinstallwoes 3y ago
Anything that depends on an ISP is not truly distributed or decentralized. You'd need a way to route ad-hoc networks deterministically. You'd have to replace BGP with something like DHT.
Yggdrasil is one example of this although it is an 'overlay' and not a direct protocol replacement. https://yggdrasil-network.github.io https://yggdrasil-network.github.io
- bawolff 3y agoI think that is a silly definition, but doesn't usenet fit? It didn't start on the internet and supported rather arbitrary routing.
- pjc50 3y agoUSENET very much depended on ISPs in practice, they ran most of the servers! However, yes it was theoretically possible to have a route between two NNTP servers that wasn't over a BGP-routed chunk of internet but was "something else". Including posting a tape.
- flyinghamster 3y agoIndeed, Usenet could go over dialup (or direct serial line) UUCP, not an IP address in sight.
- bawolff 3y agoThe last uucp service shutdown in 2012 according to wikipedia. So not just theoretically possible but was happening in actual pracitise much later than you would expect.
- pyinstallwoes 3y agoIn the original architecture yes it was closer to an ideal. If only Usenet became Xanadu. Unfortunately people gave way to the centralization of servers and thus lost control to the direction of the 'net. At least that's one take.