5 ms·

Ok, so as I understand it, yggdrasil and cjdns are virtual P2P networks that offer the normal layer 3 routing services, but built on top of the existing interne

by hahajk 2y ago

Ok, so as I understand it, yggdrasil and cjdns are virtual P2P networks that offer the normal layer 3 routing services, but built on top of the existing internet. So they still require ISPs and internet backbones, etc. Are there any projects attempting to build a worldwide P2P network that can replace the IP layer? Like a mesh network that can operate without verizon, cisco routers, etc? I know of some mesh network technologies aimed at small disconnected networks but nothing consumer-facing and supporting anything more than a few thousand nodes.

dartos 2y ago
There’s meshtastic, but it’s not a full internet stack replacement iirc
- prurigro 2y ago
  It can do tcp/ip, but it's extremely slow. Like 5+ seconds for a character to appear over ssh with a direct connection.
u8080 2y ago
There was cjdroute project with own OpenWRT-based Yggdrasil firmware for routers. But it seems failed to gain traction and died - https://habr.com/ru/companies/cjdns/articles/198428/ https://habr.com/ru/companies/cjdns/articles/198428/ [in Russian]
prussia 2y ago
reticulum.network perhaps? It certainly fits the "replace the IP layer" requirement, and I believe in theory it can be very large scale, though unsure how it would do in reality.
fragmede 2y ago
It's a very romantic notion, but there's a lot of resources (time/money/hardware/effort) that go into the existing IP layer that's totally invisible. Without a plan on how to supplant those resources, any replacement network will struggle.
- lambdaone 2y ago
  I think the idea here is that somebody else runs an underlying IP layer, and this rides on top as an overlay network. You could, of course, run a local wireless IP layer and use this to route, but peer-to-peer wireless has well-known scaling problems. Still, it looks like a very interesting and reasonably well thoughout out idea.
Communitivity 2y ago
There was the Locker project by Jeremie Miller (XMPP), but it failed to gain traction and I think he pivoted into a more small scale commercial effort with it IIRC. The telehash protocol of Locker was extremely interesting.
bythreads 2y ago
6lowpan was also a pretty nice attempt at overcoming some of the deficiencies - i think that operated on both lvl 2 and 3
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
Why would you want to remove the IP layer? Or are you thinking about IP layer, just not on the "internet", but on a separate network? If this, then how do you suggest connecting people together? Mesh becomes innefficient due to mesh routing at larger sizes and sooner or later you just reinvent "your own internet", but not worldwide, because you don't have the resources to actually connect the whole world together.
- hahajk 2y ago
  In order to access the internet you are required to enter into a contract with a corporate entity. That's not because the internet is "theirs" (like Facebook's servers and systems are Meta's), but because the network layer was design with the assumption that companies would do the work of setting up ISPs, core routers, peering agreements, etc. I'd like to see a P2P protocol that doesn't assume this but instead is designed to be completely decentralized, and anyone running the protocol can join. This protocol would provide addressing routing like our current IP protocol, and TCP/UDP etc can run on top of it. Would this be a separate "internet" or could it have gateways to the proper internet? Preferably the latter. There are obvious technical challenges with routing, addressing, mobility, all in a decentralized way but are they truly impossible?
  - ajsnigrutin 2y ago
    It's not nearly like that, it's designed that you can build your own, separate networks, before the concept of internet providers even existed (and a few colleges and DoD were the only users). It is completely decentralized (with the exception of DNS, which can be decentralized easily, but isn't). Setting up networks is easy and cheap. the expensive part is pulling cables and connecting people, that's why many countries have the local governments do that. If you live in an apartment building, you can easily create a separate network for all the apartments. If you want to connect to the next building, you'll need a lot more cables and someone to actually dig in the cable or erect the poles and use those to carry the cable... but who will pay for that? What if you want to connect to the next city over... who will pay for the cabling, digging etc? And of course, the paperwork? Underseas cable? Good luck with that. It's not a protocol problem, it's a cost problem.
YesThatTom2 2y ago
IP was originally an overlay network on top of the telco network. That has many benefits most importantly it makes adoption easy. Now we run telco networks over IP for legacy apps. If this Yggdrasil stuff is successful, I presume eventually we’ll run IP over it for legacy systems.
rolph 2y ago
mesh over a starlink like system, but i think he would want a goodly sum for it.
progval 2y ago
That was the original goal of cjdns, which is why it automatically peers with other nodes reachable over Ethernet (no IP needed), including WiFi (see the first paragraph of https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/blob/master/doc/Whitepaper.md https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/blob/master/doc/Whitepape...). Unfortunately, its approach to routing turned out to not scale in practice. Yggdrasil uses a different routing algorithm so it might.
- neilalexander 2y ago
  Yggdrasil was actually inspired in part by cjdns but the design is very different. We care deeply about scale and we want an Yggdrasil network to be able to grow organically without requiring a strict hierarchy, huge amounts of state etc. We’re still working on it of course but for now the public test network is somewhere around 5000-6000 nodes and continues to work pretty well as it grows.
bityard 2y ago
People have been dreaming of mesh networks forever. Unfortunately they scale very poorly (among other issues) and this is a fundamental limitation of their design. The Internet (ARPAnet) started out as a mesh network and the concept of trunks, backbones, and routing came about to solve those scaling issues.
- alexvoda 2y ago
  What are the reasons that make mesh networks scale poorly?
rapnie 2y ago
Maybe Irdest [0] mesh network. > Irdest is a networking research project that explores different technologies and ideas on how to build more sustainable, user-controlled communication networks. [0] https://irde.st/ https://irde.st/
stackghost 2y ago
Before cjdns a group of us started "project meshnet", inspired by Athens[0], to essentially replace or supplant the Internet. At the time it was an idealistic/anarchic response to the Pirate Bay ruling back in 2009-2010. IIRC cjdns came a bit later and subsumed most of the group. Who knew that a bunch of disgruntled hackers and software pirates building a shittier version of the Internet wouldn't last? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan_Network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan...

by hahajk 2y ago

dartos 2y ago

There’s meshtastic, but it’s not a full internet stack replacement iirc

prurigro 2y ago
It can do tcp/ip, but it's extremely slow. Like 5+ seconds for a character to appear over ssh with a direct connection.

u8080 2y ago

There was cjdroute project with own OpenWRT-based Yggdrasil firmware for routers. But it seems failed to gain traction and died - https://habr.com/ru/companies/cjdns/articles/198428/ https://habr.com/ru/companies/cjdns/articles/198428/ [in Russian]

prussia 2y ago

reticulum.network perhaps? It certainly fits the "replace the IP layer" requirement, and I believe in theory it can be very large scale, though unsure how it would do in reality.

fragmede 2y ago

It's a very romantic notion, but there's a lot of resources (time/money/hardware/effort) that go into the existing IP layer that's totally invisible. Without a plan on how to supplant those resources, any replacement network will struggle.

lambdaone 2y ago
I think the idea here is that somebody else runs an underlying IP layer, and this rides on top as an overlay network. You could, of course, run a local wireless IP layer and use this to route, but peer-to-peer wireless has well-known scaling problems. Still, it looks like a very interesting and reasonably well thoughout out idea.

Communitivity 2y ago

There was the Locker project by Jeremie Miller (XMPP), but it failed to gain traction and I think he pivoted into a more small scale commercial effort with it IIRC. The telehash protocol of Locker was extremely interesting.

bythreads 2y ago

6lowpan was also a pretty nice attempt at overcoming some of the deficiencies - i think that operated on both lvl 2 and 3

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

Why would you want to remove the IP layer? Or are you thinking about IP layer, just not on the "internet", but on a separate network? If this, then how do you suggest connecting people together? Mesh becomes innefficient due to mesh routing at larger sizes and sooner or later you just reinvent "your own internet", but not worldwide, because you don't have the resources to actually connect the whole world together.

hahajk 2y ago
In order to access the internet you are required to enter into a contract with a corporate entity. That's not because the internet is "theirs" (like Facebook's servers and systems are Meta's), but because the network layer was design with the assumption that companies would do the work of setting up ISPs, core routers, peering agreements, etc. I'd like to see a P2P protocol that doesn't assume this but instead is designed to be completely decentralized, and anyone running the protocol can join. This protocol would provide addressing routing like our current IP protocol, and TCP/UDP etc can run on top of it. Would this be a separate "internet" or could it have gateways to the proper internet? Preferably the latter. There are obvious technical challenges with routing, addressing, mobility, all in a decentralized way but are they truly impossible?
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  It's not nearly like that, it's designed that you can build your own, separate networks, before the concept of internet providers even existed (and a few colleges and DoD were the only users). It is completely decentralized (with the exception of DNS, which can be decentralized easily, but isn't). Setting up networks is easy and cheap. the expensive part is pulling cables and connecting people, that's why many countries have the local governments do that. If you live in an apartment building, you can easily create a separate network for all the apartments. If you want to connect to the next building, you'll need a lot more cables and someone to actually dig in the cable or erect the poles and use those to carry the cable... but who will pay for that? What if you want to connect to the next city over... who will pay for the cabling, digging etc? And of course, the paperwork? Underseas cable? Good luck with that. It's not a protocol problem, it's a cost problem.

YesThatTom2 2y ago

IP was originally an overlay network on top of the telco network. That has many benefits most importantly it makes adoption easy. Now we run telco networks over IP for legacy apps. If this Yggdrasil stuff is successful, I presume eventually we’ll run IP over it for legacy systems.

rolph 2y ago

mesh over a starlink like system, but i think he would want a goodly sum for it.

progval 2y ago

That was the original goal of cjdns, which is why it automatically peers with other nodes reachable over Ethernet (no IP needed), including WiFi (see the first paragraph of https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/blob/master/doc/Whitepaper.md https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/blob/master/doc/Whitepape...). Unfortunately, its approach to routing turned out to not scale in practice. Yggdrasil uses a different routing algorithm so it might.

neilalexander 2y ago
Yggdrasil was actually inspired in part by cjdns but the design is very different. We care deeply about scale and we want an Yggdrasil network to be able to grow organically without requiring a strict hierarchy, huge amounts of state etc. We’re still working on it of course but for now the public test network is somewhere around 5000-6000 nodes and continues to work pretty well as it grows.

bityard 2y ago

People have been dreaming of mesh networks forever. Unfortunately they scale very poorly (among other issues) and this is a fundamental limitation of their design. The Internet (ARPAnet) started out as a mesh network and the concept of trunks, backbones, and routing came about to solve those scaling issues.

alexvoda 2y ago
What are the reasons that make mesh networks scale poorly?

rapnie 2y ago

Maybe Irdest [0] mesh network. > Irdest is a networking research project that explores different technologies and ideas on how to build more sustainable, user-controlled communication networks. [0] https://irde.st/ https://irde.st/

stackghost 2y ago

Before cjdns a group of us started "project meshnet", inspired by Athens[0], to essentially replace or supplant the Internet. At the time it was an idealistic/anarchic response to the Pirate Bay ruling back in 2009-2010. IIRC cjdns came a bit later and subsumed most of the group. Who knew that a bunch of disgruntled hackers and software pirates building a shittier version of the Internet wouldn't last? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan_Network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens_Wireless_Metropolitan...