4 ms·

I often wonder if people have forgotten that you can send information through the internet without HTTP(S)

embedding-shape 6mo ago
Since others starting intercepting and eavesdrop on non-authenticated traffic, it got a lot less comfy to do so though. It's not like people are adding encryption to stuff for the fun of it.
- mghackerlady 6mo ago
  it's not impossible to implement encryption elsewhere, gemini pretty famously requires it
  - embedding-shape 6mo ago
    Of course not, the context here is ATProto which literally stands for "Authenticated Transfer Protocol", and it uses other protocols than just http/tls, so of course there are other ways :)
- riffic 6mo ago
  it seems the parent comment isn't referring directly to encryption / TLS, but building everything on top of HTTP / HTTPS, which seems to be the default abstraction these days to build on top of.
  - rapnie 6mo ago
    I agree, it is always HTTP nowadays. The Librecast project [0] is doing interesting R&D around multicast and social networking, and has been / is being funded by multiple NLnet grants over the years. I think they have plans to use ActivityPub to demonstrate their work. Current active project is LibreCast Studio, a collaboration environment. The linked video on the page is a very interesting watch. [0] https://librecast.net/about.html https://librecast.net/about.html
- tardedmeme 6mo ago
  I often wonder if people have forgotten that you can use TLS through the internet without HTTP
qznc 6mo ago
I assume for anything else someone will run into firewall/proxy issues.
- thesuitonym 6mo ago
  That's such a non-issue, though. And using HTTP doesn't guarantee you won't run into firewall/proxy issues.
  - gavmor 6mo ago
    [dead]
wmf 6mo ago
If you ever want to implement a protocol in the browser it has to be on top of HTTP, WebSocket, WebRTC, WebTransport, etc.
miohtama 6mo ago
You can, but every non web protocol would need the user to install a binary. This is gated by Microsoft, Google and Apple today.
tptacek 6mo ago
In addition to the middlebox problem, most (not all, but most) of the things that send information over the Internet that aren't HTTP-shaped (incl. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3) are worse than the best HTTP-shaped things. This makes sense: HTTP-shaped things are where all the energy is directed.

Since others starting intercepting and eavesdrop on non-authenticated traffic, it got a lot less comfy to do so though. It's not like people are adding encryption to stuff for the fun of it.

mghackerlady 6mo ago
it's not impossible to implement encryption elsewhere, gemini pretty famously requires it
- embedding-shape 6mo ago
  Of course not, the context here is ATProto which literally stands for "Authenticated Transfer Protocol", and it uses other protocols than just http/tls, so of course there are other ways :)
riffic 6mo ago
it seems the parent comment isn't referring directly to encryption / TLS, but building everything on top of HTTP / HTTPS, which seems to be the default abstraction these days to build on top of.
- rapnie 6mo ago
  I agree, it is always HTTP nowadays. The Librecast project [0] is doing interesting R&D around multicast and social networking, and has been / is being funded by multiple NLnet grants over the years. I think they have plans to use ActivityPub to demonstrate their work. Current active project is LibreCast Studio, a collaboration environment. The linked video on the page is a very interesting watch. [0] https://librecast.net/about.html https://librecast.net/about.html
tardedmeme 6mo ago
I often wonder if people have forgotten that you can use TLS through the internet without HTTP

qznc 6mo ago

I assume for anything else someone will run into firewall/proxy issues.

thesuitonym 6mo ago
That's such a non-issue, though. And using HTTP doesn't guarantee you won't run into firewall/proxy issues.
- gavmor 6mo ago
  [dead]

wmf 6mo ago

If you ever want to implement a protocol in the browser it has to be on top of HTTP, WebSocket, WebRTC, WebTransport, etc.

miohtama 6mo ago

You can, but every non web protocol would need the user to install a binary. This is gated by Microsoft, Google and Apple today.

tptacek 6mo ago

In addition to the middlebox problem, most (not all, but most) of the things that send information over the Internet that aren't HTTP-shaped (incl. HTTP/2 and HTTP/3) are worse than the best HTTP-shaped things. This makes sense: HTTP-shaped things are where all the energy is directed.