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Your software cannot be more decentralized than your hardware. For example, true p2p can only happen if you meet with someone and use a cable, bluetooth or loc

Your software cannot be more decentralized than your hardware. For example, true p2p can only happen if you meet with someone and use a cable, bluetooth or local wifi. Anything over the internet needs to pass through routers and *poof* decentralization's gone and you now need to trust servers to a varying level of degrees

colordrops 3y ago
"varying" is a pretty wide range here. If you mean "trust" as in trust to maintain connectivity, yes, but beyond that there are established ways to create secure channels over untrusted networks. Could you provide specifics about what you mean if anything beyond basic connectivity?
- Almondsetat 3y ago
  Sure: what is the process to start downloading a torrent? what is the process to message someone on Jami? what is the process to call someone on (old) Skype or Jitsi? Answer this and you realize you can only get as decentralized as your hardware infrastructure
  - Charon77 3y ago
    Well for torrent it starts by contacting one of the various trackers that know other peers. It's not centralized but there's only a couple of trackers out there. There's no trust between any of the peers, but each of the torrent piece has associated hash, meaning peers cannot give you invalid data without being caught (unless hash collision occurs). Peers can be discovered with DHT magic, but ultimately, can only be dialed if the ISP allows peers to receive connections.
Barrin92 3y ago
>Anything over the internet needs to pass through routers and poof decentralization's gone That's not true. Yes the strict p2p connection is gone but decentralization is what the name says, a network of connections without a single center. The internet and it's routing systems are decentralized. Of course every decentralized system can also be stressed to a point of failure and not every node is automatically trustworthy.

colordrops 3y ago

"varying" is a pretty wide range here. If you mean "trust" as in trust to maintain connectivity, yes, but beyond that there are established ways to create secure channels over untrusted networks. Could you provide specifics about what you mean if anything beyond basic connectivity?

Almondsetat 3y ago
Sure: what is the process to start downloading a torrent? what is the process to message someone on Jami? what is the process to call someone on (old) Skype or Jitsi? Answer this and you realize you can only get as decentralized as your hardware infrastructure
- Charon77 3y ago
  Well for torrent it starts by contacting one of the various trackers that know other peers. It's not centralized but there's only a couple of trackers out there. There's no trust between any of the peers, but each of the torrent piece has associated hash, meaning peers cannot give you invalid data without being caught (unless hash collision occurs). Peers can be discovered with DHT magic, but ultimately, can only be dialed if the ISP allows peers to receive connections.

Barrin92 3y ago

>Anything over the internet needs to pass through routers and poof decentralization's gone That's not true. Yes the strict p2p connection is gone but decentralization is what the name says, a network of connections without a single center. The internet and it's routing systems are decentralized. Of course every decentralized system can also be stressed to a point of failure and not every node is automatically trustworthy.