27 ms·

Introducing Tent - the decentralized social web

469 points by Titanous 14y ago

Meldryn 14y ago
How does this compare with Diaspora?
- mike-cardwell 14y ago
  Diaspora is mentioned in the article in the "What about the federated social web?" section. Apparently it is more decentralised than Diaspora. Although I can't see what that means at the moment as implementation details are fairly sparse.
  - benwerd 14y ago
    Diaspora and some other platforms are federated communities - in other words, they federate between collections of multiple people. Here, the decentralized social activity occurs between individuals. It's decentralized all the way down.
- danielsiders 14y ago
  Diaspora* is a federated open source social network. It does not have a protocol specification or an API for app support/integration. Diaspora* is not intended to be run as one server/user, but by clustering users on pods with pod administrators, etc.
  - Meldryn 14y ago
    Reading the API docs, it seems that every user needs their own URI to be uniquely identified. I wonder how this will work with the average user, just IP address? What about users with shared internet?
    - danielsiders 14y ago
      You're correct-- we anticipate users either registering their own domains (i.e. http://danielsiders.com http://danielsiders.com) or using a hosted service that provides subdomains (http://danielsiders.tent.io http://danielsiders.tent.io). If you're hosting at home (dream solution here is plug computers), then dynamic DNS pointing to your home IP/computer.
      - kevingranade 14y ago
        PageKite (pagekite.net) is another solution for self-hosted from a household. plug
    - mmahemoff 14y ago
      This was the mistake Open ID made, which they later realised complicated things way too much for the average user. Regular users want to identify as an email address, not a URI.
mike-cardwell 14y ago
Sounds almost too good to be true. Looking forward to being able to download some software.
- knowtheory 14y ago
  They've got a github repo they're working out of it looks like: https://github.com/tent/tent.io https://github.com/tent/tent.io
  - spolu 14y ago
    Argghhh. Ruby.
    - danielsiders 14y ago
      Only the site generator is in Ruby. While most of our core team are Rubyists, someone is working on a C++ implementation, too. It's a protocol which means you can write an implementation in any language you want. We hope to see many server implementations with different optimal use cases in different languages. For libraries, Ruby and Javascript are our top priorities with Java and Obj-C/iOS to follow. We'd love help if there are other languages you'd like to write libs for.
      - benwerd 14y ago
        Confirming that I intend to write one for (gasp) PHP. NB: I am the technical cofounder of elgg.org, and I believe software like Tent is (part of) the future of the social web.
      - darkhorn 14y ago
        Okay but there are more PHP users out there. If you had one PHP server I would start to run it right now. My (and many others) shared hostings do not provide Ruby, Java, C++ support.
- danielsiders 14y ago
  We'll have a reference server implementation and a couple of sample apps up in the next 1-2 weeks for those who want to self host and a hosted version within a month for those who aren't so inclined.
mbreese 14y ago
Why is it that every new protocol seems to want to piggy back on HTTP? It seems to me that maintaining state would be a useful feature for a social protocol. Another issue is that this assumes that the web will be the client of choice in the future... with mobile apps being as big as they are in the social space, this seems a bit shortsighted. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea behind having a "social server", but I don't necessarily think that starting with HTTP is the way to go. I don't have any particular argument with using JSON for data transfer though... I think that is probably a good choice. Also using SSL for all connections is probably a good call too.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - mbreese 14y ago
    These aren't meant to be run from personal workstations behind firewalls, they are meant to run on servers. Firewalls in this instance shouldn't be an issue. If firewalls were actually an issue, you could always run the service on port 443. I don't know how you'd tell anyone else that you're running on a non-standard port, but it would be possible. That's actually another potential problem... this is a server that is masquerading as an HTTPS server... I hope that it plays nice with non-Tent HTTP clients. It isn't nice to hijack ports like that. They are seem to be assuming a web-based client, so that traffic (which does need to worry about firewalls), should pass though a firewall without issue. Edit: parent got deleted, it was One word: Firewalls
- pwf 14y ago
  They describe it as a 'protocol' on top of HTTP; I don't think that assumes much about the 'client of choice'. Most apps I've worked with already use HTTP and JSON anyway.
- Titanous 14y ago
  HTTP accomplishes all of our design constraints via REST and long-lived streaming connections. It is a very reliable, mature protocol, and the security and performance are very well understood. Also, if we invented a new binary protocol, users wouldn't be able to host their Tent servers on easy-to-use platforms like Heroku. Developers may implement other protocols in the future, but we are targeting HTTP as an accessible starting point. We are definitely anticipating heavy mobile use, both through mobile web apps as well as native. There will eventually be iOS and Android frameworks to handle all of the communication with Tent servers.
gjulianm 14y ago
My first thought was "Well, Diaspora with another name". But after reading and understanding it (it's not very well explained there) seems like a much more abstract thing. They want to build an abstraction layer to the social web, not a social network. The idea seems pretty good. It's just the basics: you follow people and receive their content (text, images, whatever), and people follow you and you share content with them. The most amazing thing is that, just using these simple concepts the possibilities are infinite. As they said, every social network out there can be implemented in this way. ¿Twitter? It's trivial, just make the format description and you're ready. ¿Facebook? The only thing you should specify is that the relationships are symmetric (you can follow me only if I decide to follow you too, that is, we are mutual friends). To me, the idea seems absolutely great. The problem will be execution: what apps are created using this protocol. I have also the doubt if apps will be interoperable. Example: I build a twitter-like app named Foo and another guy builds another twitter-like app named Bar. Both use similar formats, so, can an user using Foo see the contents posted with Bar? I imagine that this will be possible as long as they share the same post format, but I'm not sure. Anyways, good work. I would really like to see Tent to expand and grow.
- Titanous 14y ago
  We are putting together a wiki-style solution for community-curated post types. Common types are expected to be standardized so that apps are interoperable. For example status/microblog would be a standardized post type. We will launch with common types specified, so that everyone doesn't reinvent the wheel. After that, community managers will help keep the devs in line.
  - jsilence 14y ago
    Maybe you should get in touch with the OpenSocial movement: http://www.opensocial.org/ http://www.opensocial.org/ Combine forces.
  - joe_the_user 14y ago
    It sounds like a very nice idea. I'm putting together a "multi-protocol social client". I'd love to be able to use Tent. I am correct in assuming there isn't currently a reference implementation?
pwf 14y ago
It seems like this will use up a crapton of bandwidth with its 'push' style notifications. If someone with a million Facebook followers makes a new post, one entry is made in the database and then users pull it down as they visit their own pages. If a million people decide to 'camp in my tent' (?), my server is suddenly pushing out gigs of data every time I make a post.
- danielsiders 14y ago
  We anticipate follower counts similar to the levels seen on Twitter today. Managing 1 few hundred followers isn't too difficult, thousands can be managed by cranking up the dynos on heroku. But yeah, Justin Bieber is going to need a hosted solution to handle that kind of load (like he has now with Twitter, YouTube, etc). We also have a setting in subscriber settings that control which types of posts are pushed in their entirety to different followers vs just a notification being sent vs nothing at all. So blog entries and status updates might get pushed to all 1M, but you probably wouldn't push an HD video update to all of them without some more serious server architecture.
  - Torgo 14y ago
    What about allow a publisher to delegate a subscription endpoint via something like pubsubhubub? Then publisher just has to push to the aggregator, everybody does their pulls from them.
    - mappu 14y ago
      That only moves the load problem, doesn't solve it - given a decentralised system you're likely to be responsible for load on the aggregator server as well.
  - pwf 14y ago
    What arguments do you have against a 'pull' style for notifications? Something like a GET to /latest that passes in the last time the client checked for updates and only gets back the URI of the last 10 or so posts since then. An HD video post could contain simply a URI that points to the video, so the video isn't even downloaded until the 'app' within tent asks for it. This way you could have a path with all the videos on it that you could proxy off to a server with more bandwidth. It would get the user a lot more control over how their content is accessed. Edit: And what if my server is down when one of my friends makes a post? Will I never see it?
Torgo 14y ago
I am not convinced that this needs a new protocol as they claim. Facebook-style functionality be done on top of activity streams, pubsubhub, salmon, webfinger et al. They indicate they have investigated existing systems and found them lacking. I would rather have something like this built on protocols that a bunch of people have discussed out in the open first. That said, I am interested to see more details as they arise, as this type of thing is needed.
- danielsiders 14y ago
  We considered the protocols you're mentioning. There are a few huge problems for our use cases: PSH is built on Atom which means all feeds are public. That's fine for your public feed ala Twitter, but unacceptable for private messages. We also think it's critical for users to be able to take their relationships with them when they move to another server/provider. OStatus and PSH don't make that possible. They also don't have a standard application access API, so developers have to work around different providers' specifications if they exist at all. The federated social net was a great first step, but the lack of support for access control/private messages and account portability means that you end up with lots of proprietary implementations of basic features which can create vendor lock-in.
  - e12e 14y ago
    How does using atom make things public? Just use client certs over https -- and it's as private and secure as anything over http(s) ever is? Alice gets her updates from Bob via something like: https://bob.example.com/private/alice/<type>.rss https://bob.example.com/private/alice/<type>.rss You'd of course need to synchronize access passwords/keys/tokens somehow -- but that could be part of "friending" someone? Integrate with something like cacert.org so you don't have to manage certs (as part of this project). A friend request includes the requesters cert (could be self signed, or via a trusted authority, like cacert), encrypted with the public cert of whomever the request is sent to. When a friendship is accepted on the other end, store the cert, and use that for authentication. Add your own authorization rules (Alice is a close friend). It might be a benefit to set it up as follows: everyone has a personal cert. They generate and sign a proxy cert for their tent server. The public "top" cert is used for user management and federation -- numerous such "downstream" certs could be generated, along with revocation certs.
adrianbg 14y ago
This looks really neat. How are you going to get people to start using it? Anything more active than hoping that an app/user ecosystem develops?
- Titanous 14y ago
  We are starting with an easy-to-use hosted service that will launch in a few weeks. We are catering to the development community by offering a simple, standardized API that will be easy to use. Privacy is a first-class feature, and Tent is specifically designed to be usable by high-risk activists[1] and people in countries that block other social networks. [1] http://liberationtech.tumblr.com/post/13377461578/how-the-next-generation-diaspora-should-be-built-to http://liberationtech.tumblr.com/post/13377461578/how-the-ne...
  - bct 14y ago
    I don't mean this in a cruel way (I'd really like this to succeed), but that's a list of features, not a plan for getting adoption. Figuring out how to bootstrap network effects is critical.
    - benwerd 14y ago
      A hosted service, extremely simple APIs and libraries, and some really great end-user clients will go a long way. Make it easy, in other words, and don't make it technical (except for the people who want it to be).
      - bct 14y ago
        Having a good product is necessary, but far from sufficient.
    - danielsiders 14y ago
      You're right-- Our plan is to get the protocol and reference server functioning for general use. We're mindful of the notes made here: http://liberationtech.tumblr.com/post/13377461578/how-the-next-generation-diaspora-should-be-built-to http://liberationtech.tumblr.com/post/13377461578/how-the-ne.... We have some thoughts on adoption tactics and strategy, but the master plan is still under development. All insights are welcome. edit: wow, wrong link.
ivan_ah 14y ago
This would be the "killer protocol" for the freedombox, if combined with some smart dyndns management. Here is a use case scenario I am imagining. I define two servers for myself: home.me.com and cloud.me.com. Where home.me.com is a dyndns to the freedombox. Dyndyns being unreliable, if a tent msg cannot get to my home server, then the messages are sent to cloud.me.com and then pushed to home.me.com when it comes back online (think POP mail). The facebook killer then, is a hosted service like cloud.me.com for non-tech people, but a seamless transition to the hosted at home service as soon as you buy a freedombox. This way you have the best of both worlds. Your face in the cloud, and long term storage at home. Other app wishlist: tent to smtp and smtp to tent adapters for gmail killing
- danielsiders 14y ago
  hosted service within one month. email apps VERY high on our to do list, been watching freedombox for a while, we'll reach out to them after initial release.
  - jancborchardt 14y ago
    Since you mention Freedombox – did you also check out ownCloud as well as the unhosted movement, with the remoteStorage protocol? There is a proof-of-concept social network build on unhosted: http://friendsunhosted.com http://friendsunhosted.com Do you have an IRC channel? Feel free to also join our channel at #unhosted. :)
mratzloff 14y ago
What took you so long? I've been waiting for someone to finally get around to building this for a long time.
- wmf 14y ago
  Appleseed, OneSocialWeb, StatusNet/OStatus, Disapora...
sidcool 14y ago
"Tent servers can also be run as Tor hidden services to create a social darknet for at-risk organizers and activists."
- mcantelon 14y ago
  So can anything, but it's awesome that they are promoting this. Speaking of which, does anyone know if there's a hidden service Twitter clone? This would be fun.
  - robertfw 14y ago
    TorStatusNet: http://lotjbov3gzzf23hc.onion.to/ http://lotjbov3gzzf23hc.onion.to/
    - mcantelon 14y ago
      Rad... thank you!
EGreg 14y ago
We're building something like this for a while at Qbix. It's not an easy problem to solve when it comes to privacy and security: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120110469#b http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120110469#b Eventually to arrive at this: http://myownstream.com http://myownstream.com
- webwanderings 14y ago
  Looks ambitious in liberating the user and their data, but it seems you've taken too long and have stumbled upon substantive problems on your own. The screenshot of the platform seems old fashioned, but eventually by liberating the user/data, you are making them stand on their own island, hence there will be no "networking" or connections in the true sense, as it is currently happening on a single platform like Facebook or Twitter. By attempting to set the data and user free in such manner and by eliminating the single and cohesive platform, we risk excluding ourselves out.
  - EGreg 14y ago
    What do you mean
jasonkolb 14y ago
Awesome. I've wanted this forever, glad someone is finally picking up the ball and running with it. I'll be happy to beta test!
- danielsiders 14y ago
  How do you feel about alpha? please join the mailing list (on the bottom of http://tent.io http://tent.io) so we can let you know
nikunjk 14y ago
Website is down?
rshm 14y ago
Instead of sub domain, email address would have been a better choice. user@provider.tld Where provider.tld provides specification/api.. like robot.txt/tent.json that would specify actual api endpoints for given user.
- zoowar 14y ago
  This exists, The Discovery Protocol Stack http://hueniverse.com/2009/11/the-discovery-protocol-stack-redux/ http://hueniverse.com/2009/11/the-discovery-protocol-stack-r...
- icebraining 14y ago
  I think both are unfortunate, since it ties your identity to your current provider. I'd much rather see a truly decoupled system, even if it didn't provide a "friendly" user id, but only an hidden fingerprint. People can just search for name and other data anyway.
smacktoward 14y ago
Random thought: it might be helpful to give Tent-the-protocol a different name than Tent-the-server-implementation. In other words, "Tent" means either the protocol you're specifying, or the server software you're planning on releasing, but not both. An analogue would be the naming distinction between HTTP, the protocol, and httpd, the first Web server (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd). That naming split made it easier for people to understand what part of the system others were talking about, and helped make it clear that the two pieces were not tightly coupled to each other. Maybe you're already planning on doing this when you release the server, it's not clear from the web site. If that's the case, feel free to ignore...
- mortenjorck 14y ago
  Kind of a usability-meets-marketing problem. The good thing is that the word "tent" is a versatile one – maybe the server could become "Tentpole" or something along those lines.
  - roop 14y ago
    Hey, I thought of tentpole too (that's what's getting the tent up and running).
- danielsiders 14y ago
  Definitely-- The first "Tent server implementation" will have it's own name, TBD. We spent a lot of time on nomenclature and still aren't 100% with any of the terms, they're effectively all in flux until v1.0. The wackier issue is whether users call their "Tent-servers" "Tents". If you have any suggestions on names for this or any other terms, we'd love to hear them! edit: when the hosted version launches it will be on a different domain, to make clear tent.io is the protocol alone and we aren't monopolizing the hosting space (we're doing it more as a community service than as a business).
  - gizzlon 14y ago
    I think you should call your server TBD and then make up what it stands for :) It's harder than I thought, but the "T" is obviously Tent ..
pacala 14y ago
Thanks guys. Not a moment too soon. Humbly quoting the motivation: > What is wrong with other social services? Centralized Social Service Providers limit what you can share and who you can share with. They only allow users to interact with other users on the same network. Because their products are centralized and maintained by a company, users are left in the cold when the company changes its products or shuts down. There's nothing wrong with a company offering users social services. But users shouldn't be limited by those companies. Imagine if you could only email other customers of your Internet Service Provider. Unfortunately Centralized Social Service Providers have done just that. You can only communicate directly with other users of their closed network. > If you don't like a bank you can withdraw your money and deposit it somewhere else, including your own home. You could even start a new bank where you and your friends felt safe. You can still pay your bills and maintain your financial relationships, just tell them about your new account. We aren't talking about money. Your data is far more valuable– your family and friends' photos, locations, and private communications. You should be able to store them somewhere you trust, move them when you want, control who can and can't see them.
kennywinker 14y ago
This is the Twitter replacement gotham needs. Repo starred, eagerly awaiting runnable stuff.
arscan 14y ago
This looks great guys. I'll definitely put up a server and hook up the content I traditionally expose through my personal website. Question: what features that are taken for granted on today's popular social networks are difficult/impossible in this kind of distributed system? for example, i suspect something like "friend suggestions" might be difficult, since you only have access to a part of the network. Auto-friend tagging in pictures would be tough too. I'm seeing a lot of upsides listed, but there must be some things you just can't do. A candid discussion of the drawbacks would be helpful.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- gjulianm 14y ago
  Maybe anything that requires knowledge of the whole network would be pretty difficult. For example, showing the full list of the photos that are being posted. You can't just follow every user that posts photos. The best solution that comes to mind now is building a server with a database of all the users and their respective servers. But, of course, that would break the decentralized purpose of Tent. It's an interesting problem to solve. EDIT: Another big problem, how do I search users? A DNS-like solution would be feasible?
  - icebraining 14y ago
    A DNS requires people to agree about who owns a certain identifier, which would be problematic in a decentralized system (though there are proposals like namecoin). I think a better system could be publishing a triple (name, keyfingerprint, current-server) on a shared datastore (e.g. DHT). The user doing the search would still need to find some out-of-protocol way to identify the right person, though. EDIT: Kadmelia on Emule is a working implementation of a similar system to what I described, but for files instead of users.
    - yesbabyyes 14y ago
      Telehash would be pretty for the messaging, too. ;) http://telehash.org http://telehash.org
biomechanica 14y ago
I like how they support Tor hidden services. Though I wish they would go a step further and support I2P. It's really nice to see people are working on ways to sort of "replace" the current centralized services out there. Let us hope they are attractive enough to developers and users.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
zoowar 14y ago
What happens when my server is down when you try to post a notification?
- bct 14y ago
  From the docs: "If the app does not respond with 2XX, then the server should try again later." "Shirley has her client in maintenence mode; jerrold.me will attempt to deliver the notification later using an exponential backoff algorithm."
teeeler 14y ago
"His server sends a notification to every server following him or mentioned in the post with permission to see the post." The protocol seems to have some fundamental limitations. For my money I'd rather go with FETHR (see http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/ http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/ and this paper: http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/doc/iptps-fethr/ http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/doc/iptps-fethr/) and its implementation - which has code available right now (https://bitbucket.org/dsandler/brdfdr/ https://bitbucket.org/dsandler/brdfdr/).
- foobarqux 14y ago
  Too bad that project never caught on, it seems really interesting and useful.
enobrev 14y ago
A few years back, I started getting interested in a similar idea. I'm definitely intrigued in seeing how well it goes. Good luck to you. Of course, as ideas go, I allowed myself to think further into the possibilities, and found some interesting avenues. For instance, why allow the facebooks, twitters, etc to own domain over our content? Let people store their own data, and offer API endpoints giving facebook, twitter, etc access. They essentially become frontends and search engines to our shared content. We get control of our own data (and privacy therein), they get to provide an interface to that data in a way that fits what they're trying to offer their "customers". And then if you take that even further, why allow anyone control over your data? Why not store all my purchase data and credit info on my own servers, and allow authorized companies access as needed? Census time? Popup shows up on my phone asking if i'd like to allow the government access to some of my data for census - I pick what data is allowed, and it's done. Electric company's system automatically logs in to get my electric usage. Phone provider does the same. Publishing a book literally allows access by readers to your own servers. Releasing an album - same deal. We still have "stores", but those stores are merely search engines offering a service to both the content creators and consumers. It went further, and weirder (in interesting ways). I'm not sure such a system would truly be beneficial, but I love the idea of allowing people to Truly Own their own data. Apologies for the tangent. Good luck to you. I'm a fan of the idea as it's presented and I hope you're successful.
- darkhorn 14y ago
  You mean like using Gmail as email client similar to Thunderbird and Outlook. (You know, where you add POP3-SMTP address ... ) Why not, it will go to that point.
- ninetax 14y ago
  I have also thought about this idea that users of a social network could keep all their data and just let different clients (Facebook, Twitter) access it. I think it would be a great idea! If I want to change my email address? Change it in one place. If I want to let my friends know something? Update it in one place. It's very DRY you know? But then I think, why even let Facebook use my data? If we have these data stores let's build a peer to peer network to let trusted friends access our information. In real life, if I want to tell my friend something I don't pass it through a 3rd party first, I tell them directly! This can let us have really fine grained control over who we share with by authenticating the users that request the information. And with the authentication can come encryption. This move to the cloud is, frankly, annoying. Why should we have to trust our data to all these people we don't know? They pretend that they give us "free" service, while actually using that data for profit. Good UI shouldn't have to come at such a cost. I have been thinking about this for a while, if there are other people interested in building such a web I would love to know.
mxuribe 14y ago
I'm digging this!
yk 14y ago
I wonder about the rationale to use HTTPS for everything, especially about the SSL part. It seems that by the choice of SSL over a web of thrust (WOT [1]) approach one imports the problems of certificates and CAs into the protocol. Especially it would be possible for a server with a root CA to impersonate other people. On the other hand, a social network is about social relations, which could also directly serve to sign and validate public keys in a WOT. This could then serve as a authentication against the same social network that is stored. For example a chat software could show Alice that the person she is chatting with is indeed Charly, the friend of Bob ( Bob signed Charlies key). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust
ricardobeat 14y ago
Who is building this? Who designed the protocol, and will publish/veto the standard?
lucaspiller 14y ago
If anyone is looking to get involved I have (unoffically) started a project to write a testsuite against the protocol. Contributions would be appreciated. https://github.com/lucaspiller/tent-testsuite https://github.com/lucaspiller/tent-testsuite
khet 14y ago
"How is Tent licensed? Tent will be completely free and open and treated as a standard. To prevent fragmentation before launch, the original authors currently retain copyright. This is a temporary situation which will be remedied immediately after a governance model is chosen. We decided it would be best to share what we could as soon as possible, releasing early and often. We are entirely committed to free and open software and protocols with open governance models leading to a ratified standard. Tent will be released under an open license in the immediate future." I am curious as to how retaining copyright will help them prevent fragmentation? Can they not elect themselves as project leaders of the opensource project and prevent fragmentation?
- morsch 14y ago
  Retaining copyright means that you can't fork their code to easily establish a working but slightly incompatible version, which is what fragmentation is. Project leader is not a formalized position (or even a meaningful concept, really) in free software and doesn't come with the power to prevent forks or fragmentation. I guess their thinking is once a community of users and developers is brought together, they can be trusted to establish a model that retains compatibility since it is in everybody's interest. While at the moment, an incompatible fork would have the same "network effect" as the original. Either way, the copyright only covers the software, not the protocol.
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    Retaining copyright isn't what matters. The license they choose on the copyright they (naturally) retain does. It is possible that they could craft a license such that protocol-incompatible changes are not allowed, but I don't think that would be in their best interest. This is a starting point. The risk isn't fragmentation, it's crickets (ie nobody cares) and an untested protocol that may need multiple versions to get right.
SCdF 14y ago
I'm damn excited about this. I've been mulling this concept over in the last couple of years, because I really we need something post-blogs that isn't the walled garden facebook / twitter / G+ / et al model. For the me the ultimate social network would be just blogs, RSS and a feed reader, with people either managing the blog themselves or using a third party to do it for them-- the point is it doesn't matter. The problem is that blogging is complicated, anything with multiple options is complicated, and discovery is complicated. I know where to look to find a friend on facebook, I don't know where to look to find his blog. I don't have time right now (work) to look into Tent in more detail, but it sounds like it's a definite step in the right direction.
webwanderings 14y ago
"Every user decide which other users can follow them and what information will be shared with each of their followers." This effectively makes each person an island in h/herself and hence the model of social-web breaks down. It wouldn't work and people know it. In order to liberate the data, you're throwing the baby out with the bath water.
- arscan 14y ago
  I'm not following your rationale. Isn't that Facebook's default model? I explicitly choose who is allowed to see my content, and I have control over how much of that content they can see through privacy settings / lists. The problem with Facebook is that I simply don't trust them with my data.
  - webwanderings 14y ago
    Yes, that's correct, hence Facebook's user feed is not really based on, or helping, the social-web part of the user's life. The user feed or stream is there as an advertisement, a selling product, for the product and services to advertise to (it is sort of a loop, isn't it - you are selling yourself to the one who is also selling to you). The real social-web aspect of the Facebook is in their Groups, or Pages, where users collaborate, converge "together" on a single entity (of any particular Group or Page). Do you follow my logic now? I am against the idea of making users standing independent on their own because they then become an island in themselves. It is fine if you are making them a product, a brand, or portfolio, but none of this is helpful for the authentic social-interaction. You don't need a brand or portfolio to be social, that's not its original purpose. The original purpose of the user (individual human being) is to communicate, be social, create communities.
ojr 14y ago
"Not Invented Here" syndrome is manifested as an unwillingness to adopt an idea or product because it originates from another culture - Wikipedia The culture of decentralized web doesn't bode well, not enough capitalism, which might in turn effect the quality of the product.
darkhorn 14y ago
PHP support is vital.
- zerostar07 14y ago
  really
darkhorn 14y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_(protocol) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_(protocol)
mgualt 14y ago
I would be interested to read a 'big-picture' description of what Tent is. Forgetting for the moment how it compares with competitors, what is the idea? I read the introduction but I feel that I don't understand it. From what I can tell, the idea is to create a standard set of objects and rules for interacting with these objects. Of course that is how protocols tend to look. What are some of the new objects/concepts proposed by Tent? For example, is there a distinction between "home" and "users" akin to server/client? Are there several types of messages, compared to email? Is there a standard cookie-like object? What is the conceptual model for sharing? Any insight would be appreciated.
hammock 14y ago
> Tent is specifically designed to be usable by high-risk activists and people in countries that block other social networks. I can't help but read that and think, "terrorists." Then again, there will always be that tradeoff and you are probably on the right side.
- mratzloff 14y ago
  Osama denied my friend request! :-( (Sad terrorist)
- jsilence 14y ago
  Think Sea Sheperd.
tagawa 14y ago
But how does this differ to StatusNet/OStatus? If we have several similar solutions to a problem it makes it more difficult for one to gain traction. Seems like reinventing the wheel, or am I missing something?
dj2stein9 14y ago
I hope this crew is looking at WebRTC. The true killer app for a distributed social network is going to be a global decentalized video chat network. Imagine Google hangouts without Google. Even just to implement a voice-only chat without a centralized system would be pretty phenomenal. Also, I really think they're making a mistake by not using secure Websockets for their protocol. Plain HTTP has too much overhead for what needs to be an efficient messaging protocol and the potential need for persistent connections.
alistairbayley 14y ago
How does this compare to Mr Social? : http://mobisocial.stanford.edu/papers/mrprivacy.pdf http://mobisocial.stanford.edu/papers/mrprivacy.pdf
kindalu 14y ago
I'm thinking about every smart phone as a tent server. P2P camping site will establish when you are waiting the bus, taking the boring meeting, or camping at the river bank. I tried to use wifi-direct/bluetooth, but I found iPhone and Android system set device default to non-discoverable for security issue. But I do found a lot of Nokia/LG phone in discoverable mode on subway. I hope the tent will be successful. Be an application to make strangers knowing each other and people to go outdoor.
victorNicollet 14y ago
I believe this is a great idea, but I disagree with some points of your implementation. I actually started writing a lengthy comment about this, and after about two hours of writing I decided it might look better as a blog post, so there you go: http://www.nicollet.net/2012/08/tent-the-right-goals-the-wrong-perspective/ http://www.nicollet.net/2012/08/tent-the-right-goals-the-wro...
- mgualt 14y ago
  I find your post interesting, and it goes some way to answering my own questions. However, your post is based on the premise "There are four issues with decentralized, large-scale sharing of content between non-technical people..." and you claim those four issues are 1. Identity Persistence 2. Data Persistence 3. Publishing 4. Access Restrictions I do not see why this is so. But even if it is, it is not even clear if the main point, at this stage, is to identify the atomic components of the "social web" -- perhaps what is sought after now is a slightly higher-level conceptual framework which puts these together. For example, "publishing" may be missing the point - perhaps we need a finer grained concept: different kinds of collaboration, delegation of authority, distribution of tasks, self-communication, electronic cloud prayer...
mparlane 14y ago
Please make more social networks.
- lwat 14y ago
  Every day I wake up and I think 'If only we had more social networks!'
deleted 14y ago
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eps 14y ago
Who's behind Tent, does anyone know? I can swear I saw a section with names on the site, but can't seem to find it now. It looks like it was taken out.
chanux 14y ago
Where's the donate button when I really need it?
EternalFury 14y ago
Friendica does that already. No one cares. Potato chips are potato chips. No one cares about the brand, but everyone loves them, even though they are not free.
najamkhn 14y ago
stupid idea, fuck it..
liotier 14y ago
> OStatus [..] stopped short of actual decentralization. How so ? It looks quite decentralized to me.
maked00 14y ago
To a normal person, this article is just a collection of fuzzy well meaning ideas wrapped around a bunch of technical network jaron. The fact that there is no working demo is rather damming.
BerislavLopac 14y ago
In my opinion, there isn't much point in decentralizing servers -- it's been tried and failed a number of times. What we need is decentralized clients, e.g. a true P2P social network. Essentially, imagine that your contacts app could exchange messages over the Internet directly with any -- or all, or any combination -- of the contacts stored within.
eschulte 14y ago
Why not use the OpenPGP standard? PGP public and private keys seem to be the natural solution for both, 1. signing data so that the source can be verrified 2. encrypting messages so that they can only be read by particular recipients
aj 14y ago
How is the different from identi.ca? Isn't this pretty much what their premise is/was? (ignoring implementation differences)

469 points by Titanous 14y ago

Meldryn 14y ago

How does this compare with Diaspora?

mike-cardwell 14y ago
Diaspora is mentioned in the article in the "What about the federated social web?" section. Apparently it is more decentralised than Diaspora. Although I can't see what that means at the moment as implementation details are fairly sparse.
- benwerd 14y ago
  Diaspora and some other platforms are federated communities - in other words, they federate between collections of multiple people. Here, the decentralized social activity occurs between individuals. It's decentralized all the way down.
danielsiders 14y ago
Diaspora* is a federated open source social network. It does not have a protocol specification or an API for app support/integration. Diaspora* is not intended to be run as one server/user, but by clustering users on pods with pod administrators, etc.
- Meldryn 14y ago
  Reading the API docs, it seems that every user needs their own URI to be uniquely identified. I wonder how this will work with the average user, just IP address? What about users with shared internet?
  - danielsiders 14y ago
    You're correct-- we anticipate users either registering their own domains (i.e. http://danielsiders.com http://danielsiders.com) or using a hosted service that provides subdomains (http://danielsiders.tent.io http://danielsiders.tent.io). If you're hosting at home (dream solution here is plug computers), then dynamic DNS pointing to your home IP/computer.
    - kevingranade 14y ago
      PageKite (pagekite.net) is another solution for self-hosted from a household. plug
  - mmahemoff 14y ago
    This was the mistake Open ID made, which they later realised complicated things way too much for the average user. Regular users want to identify as an email address, not a URI.

mike-cardwell 14y ago

Sounds almost too good to be true. Looking forward to being able to download some software.

knowtheory 14y ago
They've got a github repo they're working out of it looks like: https://github.com/tent/tent.io https://github.com/tent/tent.io
- spolu 14y ago
  Argghhh. Ruby.
  - danielsiders 14y ago
    Only the site generator is in Ruby. While most of our core team are Rubyists, someone is working on a C++ implementation, too. It's a protocol which means you can write an implementation in any language you want. We hope to see many server implementations with different optimal use cases in different languages. For libraries, Ruby and Javascript are our top priorities with Java and Obj-C/iOS to follow. We'd love help if there are other languages you'd like to write libs for.
    - benwerd 14y ago
      Confirming that I intend to write one for (gasp) PHP. NB: I am the technical cofounder of elgg.org, and I believe software like Tent is (part of) the future of the social web.
    - darkhorn 14y ago
      Okay but there are more PHP users out there. If you had one PHP server I would start to run it right now. My (and many others) shared hostings do not provide Ruby, Java, C++ support.
danielsiders 14y ago
We'll have a reference server implementation and a couple of sample apps up in the next 1-2 weeks for those who want to self host and a hosted version within a month for those who aren't so inclined.

mbreese 14y ago

Why is it that every new protocol seems to want to piggy back on HTTP? It seems to me that maintaining state would be a useful feature for a social protocol. Another issue is that this assumes that the web will be the client of choice in the future... with mobile apps being as big as they are in the social space, this seems a bit shortsighted. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea behind having a "social server", but I don't necessarily think that starting with HTTP is the way to go. I don't have any particular argument with using JSON for data transfer though... I think that is probably a good choice. Also using SSL for all connections is probably a good call too.

deleted 14y ago
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- mbreese 14y ago
  These aren't meant to be run from personal workstations behind firewalls, they are meant to run on servers. Firewalls in this instance shouldn't be an issue. If firewalls were actually an issue, you could always run the service on port 443. I don't know how you'd tell anyone else that you're running on a non-standard port, but it would be possible. That's actually another potential problem... this is a server that is masquerading as an HTTPS server... I hope that it plays nice with non-Tent HTTP clients. It isn't nice to hijack ports like that. They are seem to be assuming a web-based client, so that traffic (which does need to worry about firewalls), should pass though a firewall without issue. Edit: parent got deleted, it was One word: Firewalls
pwf 14y ago
They describe it as a 'protocol' on top of HTTP; I don't think that assumes much about the 'client of choice'. Most apps I've worked with already use HTTP and JSON anyway.
Titanous 14y ago
HTTP accomplishes all of our design constraints via REST and long-lived streaming connections. It is a very reliable, mature protocol, and the security and performance are very well understood. Also, if we invented a new binary protocol, users wouldn't be able to host their Tent servers on easy-to-use platforms like Heroku. Developers may implement other protocols in the future, but we are targeting HTTP as an accessible starting point. We are definitely anticipating heavy mobile use, both through mobile web apps as well as native. There will eventually be iOS and Android frameworks to handle all of the communication with Tent servers.

gjulianm 14y ago

My first thought was "Well, Diaspora with another name". But after reading and understanding it (it's not very well explained there) seems like a much more abstract thing. They want to build an abstraction layer to the social web, not a social network. The idea seems pretty good. It's just the basics: you follow people and receive their content (text, images, whatever), and people follow you and you share content with them. The most amazing thing is that, just using these simple concepts the possibilities are infinite. As they said, every social network out there can be implemented in this way. ¿Twitter? It's trivial, just make the format description and you're ready. ¿Facebook? The only thing you should specify is that the relationships are symmetric (you can follow me only if I decide to follow you too, that is, we are mutual friends). To me, the idea seems absolutely great. The problem will be execution: what apps are created using this protocol. I have also the doubt if apps will be interoperable. Example: I build a twitter-like app named Foo and another guy builds another twitter-like app named Bar. Both use similar formats, so, can an user using Foo see the contents posted with Bar? I imagine that this will be possible as long as they share the same post format, but I'm not sure. Anyways, good work. I would really like to see Tent to expand and grow.

Titanous 14y ago
We are putting together a wiki-style solution for community-curated post types. Common types are expected to be standardized so that apps are interoperable. For example status/microblog would be a standardized post type. We will launch with common types specified, so that everyone doesn't reinvent the wheel. After that, community managers will help keep the devs in line.
- jsilence 14y ago
  Maybe you should get in touch with the OpenSocial movement: http://www.opensocial.org/ http://www.opensocial.org/ Combine forces.
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  It sounds like a very nice idea. I'm putting together a "multi-protocol social client". I'd love to be able to use Tent. I am correct in assuming there isn't currently a reference implementation?

pwf 14y ago

It seems like this will use up a crapton of bandwidth with its 'push' style notifications. If someone with a million Facebook followers makes a new post, one entry is made in the database and then users pull it down as they visit their own pages. If a million people decide to 'camp in my tent' (?), my server is suddenly pushing out gigs of data every time I make a post.

danielsiders 14y ago
We anticipate follower counts similar to the levels seen on Twitter today. Managing 1 few hundred followers isn't too difficult, thousands can be managed by cranking up the dynos on heroku. But yeah, Justin Bieber is going to need a hosted solution to handle that kind of load (like he has now with Twitter, YouTube, etc). We also have a setting in subscriber settings that control which types of posts are pushed in their entirety to different followers vs just a notification being sent vs nothing at all. So blog entries and status updates might get pushed to all 1M, but you probably wouldn't push an HD video update to all of them without some more serious server architecture.
- Torgo 14y ago
  What about allow a publisher to delegate a subscription endpoint via something like pubsubhubub? Then publisher just has to push to the aggregator, everybody does their pulls from them.
  - mappu 14y ago
    That only moves the load problem, doesn't solve it - given a decentralised system you're likely to be responsible for load on the aggregator server as well.
- pwf 14y ago
  What arguments do you have against a 'pull' style for notifications? Something like a GET to /latest that passes in the last time the client checked for updates and only gets back the URI of the last 10 or so posts since then. An HD video post could contain simply a URI that points to the video, so the video isn't even downloaded until the 'app' within tent asks for it. This way you could have a path with all the videos on it that you could proxy off to a server with more bandwidth. It would get the user a lot more control over how their content is accessed. Edit: And what if my server is down when one of my friends makes a post? Will I never see it?

Torgo 14y ago

I am not convinced that this needs a new protocol as they claim. Facebook-style functionality be done on top of activity streams, pubsubhub, salmon, webfinger et al. They indicate they have investigated existing systems and found them lacking. I would rather have something like this built on protocols that a bunch of people have discussed out in the open first. That said, I am interested to see more details as they arise, as this type of thing is needed.

danielsiders 14y ago
We considered the protocols you're mentioning. There are a few huge problems for our use cases: PSH is built on Atom which means all feeds are public. That's fine for your public feed ala Twitter, but unacceptable for private messages. We also think it's critical for users to be able to take their relationships with them when they move to another server/provider. OStatus and PSH don't make that possible. They also don't have a standard application access API, so developers have to work around different providers' specifications if they exist at all. The federated social net was a great first step, but the lack of support for access control/private messages and account portability means that you end up with lots of proprietary implementations of basic features which can create vendor lock-in.
- e12e 14y ago
  How does using atom make things public? Just use client certs over https -- and it's as private and secure as anything over http(s) ever is? Alice gets her updates from Bob via something like: https://bob.example.com/private/alice/<type>.rss https://bob.example.com/private/alice/<type>.rss You'd of course need to synchronize access passwords/keys/tokens somehow -- but that could be part of "friending" someone? Integrate with something like cacert.org so you don't have to manage certs (as part of this project). A friend request includes the requesters cert (could be self signed, or via a trusted authority, like cacert), encrypted with the public cert of whomever the request is sent to. When a friendship is accepted on the other end, store the cert, and use that for authentication. Add your own authorization rules (Alice is a close friend). It might be a benefit to set it up as follows: everyone has a personal cert. They generate and sign a proxy cert for their tent server. The public "top" cert is used for user management and federation -- numerous such "downstream" certs could be generated, along with revocation certs.

adrianbg 14y ago

This looks really neat. How are you going to get people to start using it? Anything more active than hoping that an app/user ecosystem develops?

Titanous 14y ago
We are starting with an easy-to-use hosted service that will launch in a few weeks. We are catering to the development community by offering a simple, standardized API that will be easy to use. Privacy is a first-class feature, and Tent is specifically designed to be usable by high-risk activists[1] and people in countries that block other social networks. [1] http://liberationtech.tumblr.com/post/13377461578/how-the-next-generation-diaspora-should-be-built-to http://liberationtech.tumblr.com/post/13377461578/how-the-ne...
- bct 14y ago
  I don't mean this in a cruel way (I'd really like this to succeed), but that's a list of features, not a plan for getting adoption. Figuring out how to bootstrap network effects is critical.
  - benwerd 14y ago
    A hosted service, extremely simple APIs and libraries, and some really great end-user clients will go a long way. Make it easy, in other words, and don't make it technical (except for the people who want it to be).
    - bct 14y ago
      Having a good product is necessary, but far from sufficient.
  - danielsiders 14y ago
    You're right-- Our plan is to get the protocol and reference server functioning for general use. We're mindful of the notes made here: http://liberationtech.tumblr.com/post/13377461578/how-the-next-generation-diaspora-should-be-built-to http://liberationtech.tumblr.com/post/13377461578/how-the-ne.... We have some thoughts on adoption tactics and strategy, but the master plan is still under development. All insights are welcome. edit: wow, wrong link.

ivan_ah 14y ago

This would be the "killer protocol" for the freedombox, if combined with some smart dyndns management. Here is a use case scenario I am imagining. I define two servers for myself: home.me.com and cloud.me.com. Where home.me.com is a dyndns to the freedombox. Dyndyns being unreliable, if a tent msg cannot get to my home server, then the messages are sent to cloud.me.com and then pushed to home.me.com when it comes back online (think POP mail). The facebook killer then, is a hosted service like cloud.me.com for non-tech people, but a seamless transition to the hosted at home service as soon as you buy a freedombox. This way you have the best of both worlds. Your face in the cloud, and long term storage at home. Other app wishlist: tent to smtp and smtp to tent adapters for gmail killing

danielsiders 14y ago
hosted service within one month. email apps VERY high on our to do list, been watching freedombox for a while, we'll reach out to them after initial release.
- jancborchardt 14y ago
  Since you mention Freedombox – did you also check out ownCloud as well as the unhosted movement, with the remoteStorage protocol? There is a proof-of-concept social network build on unhosted: http://friendsunhosted.com http://friendsunhosted.com Do you have an IRC channel? Feel free to also join our channel at #unhosted. :)

mratzloff 14y ago

What took you so long? I've been waiting for someone to finally get around to building this for a long time.

wmf 14y ago
Appleseed, OneSocialWeb, StatusNet/OStatus, Disapora...

sidcool 14y ago

"Tent servers can also be run as Tor hidden services to create a social darknet for at-risk organizers and activists."

mcantelon 14y ago
So can anything, but it's awesome that they are promoting this. Speaking of which, does anyone know if there's a hidden service Twitter clone? This would be fun.
- robertfw 14y ago
  TorStatusNet: http://lotjbov3gzzf23hc.onion.to/ http://lotjbov3gzzf23hc.onion.to/
  - mcantelon 14y ago
    Rad... thank you!

EGreg 14y ago

We're building something like this for a while at Qbix. It's not an easy problem to solve when it comes to privacy and security: http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120110469#b http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120110469#b Eventually to arrive at this: http://myownstream.com http://myownstream.com

webwanderings 14y ago
Looks ambitious in liberating the user and their data, but it seems you've taken too long and have stumbled upon substantive problems on your own. The screenshot of the platform seems old fashioned, but eventually by liberating the user/data, you are making them stand on their own island, hence there will be no "networking" or connections in the true sense, as it is currently happening on a single platform like Facebook or Twitter. By attempting to set the data and user free in such manner and by eliminating the single and cohesive platform, we risk excluding ourselves out.
- EGreg 14y ago
  What do you mean

jasonkolb 14y ago

Awesome. I've wanted this forever, glad someone is finally picking up the ball and running with it. I'll be happy to beta test!

danielsiders 14y ago
How do you feel about alpha? please join the mailing list (on the bottom of http://tent.io http://tent.io) so we can let you know

nikunjk 14y ago

Website is down?

rshm 14y ago

Instead of sub domain, email address would have been a better choice. user@provider.tld Where provider.tld provides specification/api.. like robot.txt/tent.json that would specify actual api endpoints for given user.

zoowar 14y ago
This exists, The Discovery Protocol Stack http://hueniverse.com/2009/11/the-discovery-protocol-stack-redux/ http://hueniverse.com/2009/11/the-discovery-protocol-stack-r...
icebraining 14y ago
I think both are unfortunate, since it ties your identity to your current provider. I'd much rather see a truly decoupled system, even if it didn't provide a "friendly" user id, but only an hidden fingerprint. People can just search for name and other data anyway.

smacktoward 14y ago

Random thought: it might be helpful to give Tent-the-protocol a different name than Tent-the-server-implementation. In other words, "Tent" means either the protocol you're specifying, or the server software you're planning on releasing, but not both. An analogue would be the naming distinction between HTTP, the protocol, and httpd, the first Web server (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd). That naming split made it easier for people to understand what part of the system others were talking about, and helped make it clear that the two pieces were not tightly coupled to each other. Maybe you're already planning on doing this when you release the server, it's not clear from the web site. If that's the case, feel free to ignore...

mortenjorck 14y ago
Kind of a usability-meets-marketing problem. The good thing is that the word "tent" is a versatile one – maybe the server could become "Tentpole" or something along those lines.
- roop 14y ago
  Hey, I thought of tentpole too (that's what's getting the tent up and running).
danielsiders 14y ago
Definitely-- The first "Tent server implementation" will have it's own name, TBD. We spent a lot of time on nomenclature and still aren't 100% with any of the terms, they're effectively all in flux until v1.0. The wackier issue is whether users call their "Tent-servers" "Tents". If you have any suggestions on names for this or any other terms, we'd love to hear them! edit: when the hosted version launches it will be on a different domain, to make clear tent.io is the protocol alone and we aren't monopolizing the hosting space (we're doing it more as a community service than as a business).
- gizzlon 14y ago
  I think you should call your server TBD and then make up what it stands for :) It's harder than I thought, but the "T" is obviously Tent ..

pacala 14y ago

Thanks guys. Not a moment too soon. Humbly quoting the motivation: > What is wrong with other social services? Centralized Social Service Providers limit what you can share and who you can share with. They only allow users to interact with other users on the same network. Because their products are centralized and maintained by a company, users are left in the cold when the company changes its products or shuts down. There's nothing wrong with a company offering users social services. But users shouldn't be limited by those companies. Imagine if you could only email other customers of your Internet Service Provider. Unfortunately Centralized Social Service Providers have done just that. You can only communicate directly with other users of their closed network. > If you don't like a bank you can withdraw your money and deposit it somewhere else, including your own home. You could even start a new bank where you and your friends felt safe. You can still pay your bills and maintain your financial relationships, just tell them about your new account. We aren't talking about money. Your data is far more valuable– your family and friends' photos, locations, and private communications. You should be able to store them somewhere you trust, move them when you want, control who can and can't see them.

kennywinker 14y ago

This is the Twitter replacement gotham needs. Repo starred, eagerly awaiting runnable stuff.

arscan 14y ago

This looks great guys. I'll definitely put up a server and hook up the content I traditionally expose through my personal website. Question: what features that are taken for granted on today's popular social networks are difficult/impossible in this kind of distributed system? for example, i suspect something like "friend suggestions" might be difficult, since you only have access to a part of the network. Auto-friend tagging in pictures would be tough too. I'm seeing a lot of upsides listed, but there must be some things you just can't do. A candid discussion of the drawbacks would be helpful.

deleted 14y ago
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gjulianm 14y ago
Maybe anything that requires knowledge of the whole network would be pretty difficult. For example, showing the full list of the photos that are being posted. You can't just follow every user that posts photos. The best solution that comes to mind now is building a server with a database of all the users and their respective servers. But, of course, that would break the decentralized purpose of Tent. It's an interesting problem to solve. EDIT: Another big problem, how do I search users? A DNS-like solution would be feasible?
- icebraining 14y ago
  A DNS requires people to agree about who owns a certain identifier, which would be problematic in a decentralized system (though there are proposals like namecoin). I think a better system could be publishing a triple (name, keyfingerprint, current-server) on a shared datastore (e.g. DHT). The user doing the search would still need to find some out-of-protocol way to identify the right person, though. EDIT: Kadmelia on Emule is a working implementation of a similar system to what I described, but for files instead of users.
  - yesbabyyes 14y ago
    Telehash would be pretty for the messaging, too. ;) http://telehash.org http://telehash.org

biomechanica 14y ago

I like how they support Tor hidden services. Though I wish they would go a step further and support I2P. It's really nice to see people are working on ways to sort of "replace" the current centralized services out there. Let us hope they are attractive enough to developers and users.

deleted 14y ago

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zoowar 14y ago

What happens when my server is down when you try to post a notification?

bct 14y ago
From the docs: "If the app does not respond with 2XX, then the server should try again later." "Shirley has her client in maintenence mode; jerrold.me will attempt to deliver the notification later using an exponential backoff algorithm."

teeeler 14y ago

"His server sends a notification to every server following him or mentioned in the post with permission to see the post." The protocol seems to have some fundamental limitations. For my money I'd rather go with FETHR (see http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/ http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/ and this paper: http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/doc/iptps-fethr/ http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/doc/iptps-fethr/) and its implementation - which has code available right now (https://bitbucket.org/dsandler/brdfdr/ https://bitbucket.org/dsandler/brdfdr/).

foobarqux 14y ago
Too bad that project never caught on, it seems really interesting and useful.

enobrev 14y ago

A few years back, I started getting interested in a similar idea. I'm definitely intrigued in seeing how well it goes. Good luck to you. Of course, as ideas go, I allowed myself to think further into the possibilities, and found some interesting avenues. For instance, why allow the facebooks, twitters, etc to own domain over our content? Let people store their own data, and offer API endpoints giving facebook, twitter, etc access. They essentially become frontends and search engines to our shared content. We get control of our own data (and privacy therein), they get to provide an interface to that data in a way that fits what they're trying to offer their "customers". And then if you take that even further, why allow anyone control over your data? Why not store all my purchase data and credit info on my own servers, and allow authorized companies access as needed? Census time? Popup shows up on my phone asking if i'd like to allow the government access to some of my data for census - I pick what data is allowed, and it's done. Electric company's system automatically logs in to get my electric usage. Phone provider does the same. Publishing a book literally allows access by readers to your own servers. Releasing an album - same deal. We still have "stores", but those stores are merely search engines offering a service to both the content creators and consumers. It went further, and weirder (in interesting ways). I'm not sure such a system would truly be beneficial, but I love the idea of allowing people to Truly Own their own data. Apologies for the tangent. Good luck to you. I'm a fan of the idea as it's presented and I hope you're successful.

darkhorn 14y ago
You mean like using Gmail as email client similar to Thunderbird and Outlook. (You know, where you add POP3-SMTP address ... ) Why not, it will go to that point.
ninetax 14y ago
I have also thought about this idea that users of a social network could keep all their data and just let different clients (Facebook, Twitter) access it. I think it would be a great idea! If I want to change my email address? Change it in one place. If I want to let my friends know something? Update it in one place. It's very DRY you know? But then I think, why even let Facebook use my data? If we have these data stores let's build a peer to peer network to let trusted friends access our information. In real life, if I want to tell my friend something I don't pass it through a 3rd party first, I tell them directly! This can let us have really fine grained control over who we share with by authenticating the users that request the information. And with the authentication can come encryption. This move to the cloud is, frankly, annoying. Why should we have to trust our data to all these people we don't know? They pretend that they give us "free" service, while actually using that data for profit. Good UI shouldn't have to come at such a cost. I have been thinking about this for a while, if there are other people interested in building such a web I would love to know.

mxuribe 14y ago

I'm digging this!

yk 14y ago

I wonder about the rationale to use HTTPS for everything, especially about the SSL part. It seems that by the choice of SSL over a web of thrust (WOT [1]) approach one imports the problems of certificates and CAs into the protocol. Especially it would be possible for a server with a root CA to impersonate other people. On the other hand, a social network is about social relations, which could also directly serve to sign and validate public keys in a WOT. This could then serve as a authentication against the same social network that is stored. For example a chat software could show Alice that the person she is chatting with is indeed Charly, the friend of Bob ( Bob signed Charlies key). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust

ricardobeat 14y ago

Who is building this? Who designed the protocol, and will publish/veto the standard?

lucaspiller 14y ago

If anyone is looking to get involved I have (unoffically) started a project to write a testsuite against the protocol. Contributions would be appreciated. https://github.com/lucaspiller/tent-testsuite https://github.com/lucaspiller/tent-testsuite

khet 14y ago

"How is Tent licensed? Tent will be completely free and open and treated as a standard. To prevent fragmentation before launch, the original authors currently retain copyright. This is a temporary situation which will be remedied immediately after a governance model is chosen. We decided it would be best to share what we could as soon as possible, releasing early and often. We are entirely committed to free and open software and protocols with open governance models leading to a ratified standard. Tent will be released under an open license in the immediate future." I am curious as to how retaining copyright will help them prevent fragmentation? Can they not elect themselves as project leaders of the opensource project and prevent fragmentation?

morsch 14y ago
Retaining copyright means that you can't fork their code to easily establish a working but slightly incompatible version, which is what fragmentation is. Project leader is not a formalized position (or even a meaningful concept, really) in free software and doesn't come with the power to prevent forks or fragmentation. I guess their thinking is once a community of users and developers is brought together, they can be trusted to establish a model that retains compatibility since it is in everybody's interest. While at the moment, an incompatible fork would have the same "network effect" as the original. Either way, the copyright only covers the software, not the protocol.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Retaining copyright isn't what matters. The license they choose on the copyright they (naturally) retain does. It is possible that they could craft a license such that protocol-incompatible changes are not allowed, but I don't think that would be in their best interest. This is a starting point. The risk isn't fragmentation, it's crickets (ie nobody cares) and an untested protocol that may need multiple versions to get right.

SCdF 14y ago

I'm damn excited about this. I've been mulling this concept over in the last couple of years, because I really we need something post-blogs that isn't the walled garden facebook / twitter / G+ / et al model. For the me the ultimate social network would be just blogs, RSS and a feed reader, with people either managing the blog themselves or using a third party to do it for them-- the point is it doesn't matter. The problem is that blogging is complicated, anything with multiple options is complicated, and discovery is complicated. I know where to look to find a friend on facebook, I don't know where to look to find his blog. I don't have time right now (work) to look into Tent in more detail, but it sounds like it's a definite step in the right direction.

webwanderings 14y ago

"Every user decide which other users can follow them and what information will be shared with each of their followers." This effectively makes each person an island in h/herself and hence the model of social-web breaks down. It wouldn't work and people know it. In order to liberate the data, you're throwing the baby out with the bath water.

arscan 14y ago
I'm not following your rationale. Isn't that Facebook's default model? I explicitly choose who is allowed to see my content, and I have control over how much of that content they can see through privacy settings / lists. The problem with Facebook is that I simply don't trust them with my data.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  Yes, that's correct, hence Facebook's user feed is not really based on, or helping, the social-web part of the user's life. The user feed or stream is there as an advertisement, a selling product, for the product and services to advertise to (it is sort of a loop, isn't it - you are selling yourself to the one who is also selling to you). The real social-web aspect of the Facebook is in their Groups, or Pages, where users collaborate, converge "together" on a single entity (of any particular Group or Page). Do you follow my logic now? I am against the idea of making users standing independent on their own because they then become an island in themselves. It is fine if you are making them a product, a brand, or portfolio, but none of this is helpful for the authentic social-interaction. You don't need a brand or portfolio to be social, that's not its original purpose. The original purpose of the user (individual human being) is to communicate, be social, create communities.

ojr 14y ago

"Not Invented Here" syndrome is manifested as an unwillingness to adopt an idea or product because it originates from another culture - Wikipedia The culture of decentralized web doesn't bode well, not enough capitalism, which might in turn effect the quality of the product.

darkhorn 14y ago

PHP support is vital.

zerostar07 14y ago
really

darkhorn 14y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_(protocol) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_(protocol)

mgualt 14y ago

I would be interested to read a 'big-picture' description of what Tent is. Forgetting for the moment how it compares with competitors, what is the idea? I read the introduction but I feel that I don't understand it. From what I can tell, the idea is to create a standard set of objects and rules for interacting with these objects. Of course that is how protocols tend to look. What are some of the new objects/concepts proposed by Tent? For example, is there a distinction between "home" and "users" akin to server/client? Are there several types of messages, compared to email? Is there a standard cookie-like object? What is the conceptual model for sharing? Any insight would be appreciated.

hammock 14y ago

> Tent is specifically designed to be usable by high-risk activists and people in countries that block other social networks. I can't help but read that and think, "terrorists." Then again, there will always be that tradeoff and you are probably on the right side.

mratzloff 14y ago
Osama denied my friend request! :-( (Sad terrorist)
jsilence 14y ago
Think Sea Sheperd.

tagawa 14y ago

But how does this differ to StatusNet/OStatus? If we have several similar solutions to a problem it makes it more difficult for one to gain traction. Seems like reinventing the wheel, or am I missing something?

dj2stein9 14y ago

I hope this crew is looking at WebRTC. The true killer app for a distributed social network is going to be a global decentalized video chat network. Imagine Google hangouts without Google. Even just to implement a voice-only chat without a centralized system would be pretty phenomenal. Also, I really think they're making a mistake by not using secure Websockets for their protocol. Plain HTTP has too much overhead for what needs to be an efficient messaging protocol and the potential need for persistent connections.

alistairbayley 14y ago

How does this compare to Mr Social? : http://mobisocial.stanford.edu/papers/mrprivacy.pdf http://mobisocial.stanford.edu/papers/mrprivacy.pdf

kindalu 14y ago

I'm thinking about every smart phone as a tent server. P2P camping site will establish when you are waiting the bus, taking the boring meeting, or camping at the river bank. I tried to use wifi-direct/bluetooth, but I found iPhone and Android system set device default to non-discoverable for security issue. But I do found a lot of Nokia/LG phone in discoverable mode on subway. I hope the tent will be successful. Be an application to make strangers knowing each other and people to go outdoor.

victorNicollet 14y ago

I believe this is a great idea, but I disagree with some points of your implementation. I actually started writing a lengthy comment about this, and after about two hours of writing I decided it might look better as a blog post, so there you go: http://www.nicollet.net/2012/08/tent-the-right-goals-the-wrong-perspective/ http://www.nicollet.net/2012/08/tent-the-right-goals-the-wro...

mgualt 14y ago
I find your post interesting, and it goes some way to answering my own questions. However, your post is based on the premise "There are four issues with decentralized, large-scale sharing of content between non-technical people..." and you claim those four issues are 1. Identity Persistence 2. Data Persistence 3. Publishing 4. Access Restrictions I do not see why this is so. But even if it is, it is not even clear if the main point, at this stage, is to identify the atomic components of the "social web" -- perhaps what is sought after now is a slightly higher-level conceptual framework which puts these together. For example, "publishing" may be missing the point - perhaps we need a finer grained concept: different kinds of collaboration, delegation of authority, distribution of tasks, self-communication, electronic cloud prayer...

mparlane 14y ago

Please make more social networks.

lwat 14y ago
Every day I wake up and I think 'If only we had more social networks!'

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

eps 14y ago

Who's behind Tent, does anyone know? I can swear I saw a section with names on the site, but can't seem to find it now. It looks like it was taken out.

chanux 14y ago

Where's the donate button when I really need it?

EternalFury 14y ago

Friendica does that already. No one cares. Potato chips are potato chips. No one cares about the brand, but everyone loves them, even though they are not free.

najamkhn 14y ago

stupid idea, fuck it..

liotier 14y ago

> OStatus [..] stopped short of actual decentralization. How so ? It looks quite decentralized to me.

maked00 14y ago

To a normal person, this article is just a collection of fuzzy well meaning ideas wrapped around a bunch of technical network jaron. The fact that there is no working demo is rather damming.

BerislavLopac 14y ago

In my opinion, there isn't much point in decentralizing servers -- it's been tried and failed a number of times. What we need is decentralized clients, e.g. a true P2P social network. Essentially, imagine that your contacts app could exchange messages over the Internet directly with any -- or all, or any combination -- of the contacts stored within.

eschulte 14y ago

Why not use the OpenPGP standard? PGP public and private keys seem to be the natural solution for both, 1. signing data so that the source can be verrified 2. encrypting messages so that they can only be read by particular recipients

aj 14y ago

How is the different from identi.ca? Isn't this pretty much what their premise is/was? (ignoring implementation differences)