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Show HN: An anonymous P2P social network for Android, written in Clojure

257 points by gw 14y ago

chuhnk 14y ago
Very intriguing. I was just beginning research into a server-less shared state model and this seems to solve that quite nicely.
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Polarity 14y ago
how do you solve the p2p user_id problem? everyone can be everyone when faking the id on some client.
- gw 14y ago
  It's derived from your public key, so only those with the corresponding private key can update the meta torrent for your user.
roma1n 14y ago
I would love some comments on the maturity and performance of Clojure (speed, load times, memory consumption, executable size...) for Android apps.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  While the app is interesting, I am also more interested in Clojure's feasibility for writing Android apps. Last time I looked, Dalvik's GC was so bad it took many seconds for the Clojure runtime to bootstrap.
  - pandeiro 14y ago
    There is also the possibility of using and wrapping the Apache Cordova (phonegap) API from ClojureScript. Trade-offs galore there, but one advantage is faster (still not comparable with native) startup time.
- gw 14y ago
  Things have improved quite a bit recently. Daniel Solano Gomez is the pioneer here, and Alex Yakushev made it a lot simpler by creating the lein-droid plugin for leiningen last summer. It will impose a few seconds of load time no matter what, so it is best for long-running apps where loading time isn't as important. The cost in runtime speed, memory consumption, and APK size are also present, but aren't a big issue in my experience. The same Clojure optimization rules apply. I think things will get better and better once more people use Clojure to write Android apps. It will be a signal to the core devs that it's an important platform. Currently, you must use a fork of 1.5 that includes a few necessary modifications.
  - lucian1900 14y ago
    I've just tried NightWeb and the startup latency is very high, even on my Nexus 4. Sadly I can't think of an app where 5-10secs of latency is acceptable :(
    - gw 14y ago
      Yeah I will definitely work on this, I apologize for that.
      - lucian1900 14y ago
        If you manage to get a Clojure Android app to boot up quickly, I would be very interested. For now, the only reasonable ways to not use Java for Android apps that I've found are Scala or Xamarin.
wwwtyro 14y ago
I have been waiting for this. Here's my Nightweb link for anyone interested in experimenting with me: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=5avfzwgkdzgddsv3xtt2kq5ptfgg7fn6 http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=5avfzwgkdzgddsv3... gw: It would be great to have multiple personas available to me, like an inverse of google+ circles.
- DoubleMalt 14y ago
  http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=fcx2ahb4vuobu7ejz6gjzffn3mlwkrvt&time=1364739180140 http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=fcx2ahb4vuobu7ej... That's mine ... awww feels like the beginnings of ICQ ;) But ... we can hack on it ... finally a good reason to learn Clojure.
  - goldfeld 14y ago
    Exactly, I've been both wanting to learn Clojure and develop for Android (but no Java thanks) for a while. So here's mine http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=dtvjjjuk7eai42xx7czwoibockvuqrsl http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=dtvjjjuk7eai42xx...
    - cdata 14y ago
      Here's mine, for science: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=tnaohxmxj2eg3fsf2agdokaxvoel5rp4 http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=tnaohxmxj2eg3fsf...
      - tinfoilman 14y ago
        Interesting, here is my link. I think this will suit my nature http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=q3ytnh5ci6cc72gtmljdyd57c5lw4iyv http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=q3ytnh5ci6cc72gt...
      - kvgr 14y ago
        Here is mine: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=bicbgdgdxvv5ifxay5kgs http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=bicbgdgdxvv5ifxa... kj2voujr7vk
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ge0rg 14y ago
Wow, this is just awesome! The app is really polished for an early beta release, especially that hidden markdown feature. Just three things that come to my mind: 1. how long does it take to propagate updates? 2. what is the traffic consumption on mobile? 3. what about statusbar notifications?
- gw 14y ago
  Once you've bootstrapped/integrated with the network, it takes a minute or two for a new update to reach you in my testing. The initial time to bootstrap onto the network is around five minutes. The traffic consumption is pretty high, because it becomes a full peer on the I2P network. Over a month I would expect it to consume around 1GB or more. If this becomes an issue for people, I may add the ability to be a non-contributing peer.
  - ge0rg 14y ago
    You might want to add a status text to the service notification, displaying how far bootstrapping is.. Please make the non-contributing status the default then, or at least ask the user on installation... capped data plans are still the default in many places... :(
    - DoubleMalt 14y ago
      Do android applications have access to their amount of data used? Maybe it would be possible to cap the data usage or lower the bandwith when a limit is reached.
  - maniacwhat 14y ago
    I think a setting to only use WiFi would be valuable for a lot of users.
  - Amadou 14y ago
    It might make more sense to switch between the type of peer based on the type of network connection. If the phone is currently connected to wifi, then run as a contributing peer. If the phone is only on 3G/4G/LTE/etc then switch to being a non-contributing peer.
bdr 14y ago
This is so cool. It makes me want to switch to Android just to use it. Any thoughts on a desktop client?
- ashr 14y ago
  Ditto. Definitely seems like it has the potential to be the Killer app based on the viral potential of P2P, anonymity and widely adapted OS platform. All the best.
- gw 14y ago
  I am definitely considering making a desktop client. I can re-use all the backend code but will have to make a UI from scratch, so it won't necessarily be soon.
  - bdunbar 14y ago
    Second the motion for a desktop client I _have_ an Android, but I dislike typing on it. For me, it's a phone, period.
invdevm 14y ago
What about Retroshare? I think it has android version too.
oellegaard 14y ago
I always had the idea to create a distributed social network, I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes :-) Hopefully very well, would love to delete my facebook account.
joelthelion 14y ago
>How does it avoid spam? For me a good solution would be to use machine learning, the same way spam filtering works for email. A decentralized version of Reddit could actually be pretty simple, with a flooding P2P network coupled to some machine learning on each of the nodes. The beauty is that anyone would be free to implement the content filtering measures the way they like it.
- hucker 14y ago
  How would you discern what is popular and what is not(that is, the "upvotes" of reddit/HN)? Or did you mean only machine learning?
  - joelthelion 14y ago
    People could optionally broadcast their pseudonymous votes, using cryptography to avoid impersonation. That would actually be a lot richer than the current "one vote is one vote" systems, since you could learn which people you tend to agree with.
pandeiro 14y ago
Definitely looking forward to using it and reading the code. Landing page is profesh too. Well done.
damaja 14y ago
http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=lzk6fkyifc4zhjlsuzm6xf7ceepzr3rs http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=lzk6fkyifc4zhjls... Here is mine. Great to see new work and so clean out of the box.
dmix 14y ago
Could you write a blog post about building the mobile app in Clojure?
saintx 14y ago
I wonder how they're going to get around the problem of malicious collectives and Sybil attacks, given the anonymity constraint. You should be able to set up dozens of fake accounts to vouch that you're a "good" person, or that someone else is a "bad" person, use astroturf tactics to wage malicious campaigns against other parties, and basically sow havoc.
- DoubleMalt 14y ago
  So far it is only distributed twitter ... you don't have control about who's following you. The network does not really have a trust component yet.
pudquick 14y ago
One thing that wasn't clear in the protocol or explanation page was the favorite-of-a-favorite discovery. I'm assuming this works by including your personal favorites in your meta torrent, so when people get your new content, they also get a list of who you've favorited? Does this also mean that the meta update notification gets sent out when I favorite / de-favorite someone?
- gw 14y ago
  Yeah, your favorites are stored in your meta torrent, so it will be updated every time you add a favorite user or post.
  - pudquick 14y ago
    Thanks, figured that was the case. Nice take on announce_meta, btw. I had mused over something similar (though not as well fleshed out) to the Nightweb concept but kept bumping my ahead against the notion of how to announce additional content when the bittorrent protocol ties info hashes (and magnet links) to a direct hash of the content - meaning you could never update something already announced for a specific key. And since the hashes are content based, it's not like you could say "my next content will be <<previous hash plus 1>>". Extending the protocol to include a new announcement method side-steps this very nicely :) Kudos.
fruscon 14y ago
Please bring this to FDroid! In the meantime an APK for download would be nice.
sklivvz1971 14y ago
Why do you say it's a "killer app" for Android? I think it's a great idea, but it does not use the fact that it lives on a mobile phone, so it's certainly not a killer app for it. Can we haz a desktop or web version?
- danneu 14y ago
  I only saw this on their website: > The goal of Nightweb is to be a "killer app" > for anonymous networking
  - fakeer 14y ago
    >> > for anonymous networking It suggests me to share my profile and posts with others(with rest of sharing apps like Twitter). How am I anonymous then? Besides, after installing the app and creating a profile - I just had to enter a name, how do I make first contact? I searched and it didn't work. Looks like there's sth that I am not doing right.. ?
    - gw 14y ago
      You have to find people externally, such as through the links people shared on this page. There is a bug preventing links in a browser from being openable in the app, but I just released an update that fixes this. There is no way to discovered people internally right now, though I did make it auto-add my user so you can at least see some content after it runs for a little while.
    - goldfeld 14y ago
      I don't think of it as "anonymous" networking, but more as a network that can't be controlled or brought down. Especially by relying on bluetooth and future, improved peer-to-peer connection technology, we could be free from carriers and ISPs.
- DoubleMalt 14y ago
  The main advantage of the application running on phones is that everybody has one (hyperbole intended) and that phones are always on. For a web version to be fully distributed it would need to be run on a server, so people would have to hook up a RaspberryPi at home, rent a VPS or trust some big Nightweb farm (the diaspora model). It's infinitely easier for most users to just install an app on their phone. A Desktop version would probably not be "always on", which would limit the usability as a social platform seriously.
motter 14y ago
Here goes: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=4zfhmwiio7kdp5ocvgrqpt6ktsgp3hgm http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=4zfhmwiio7kdp5oc... How does the protocol differ from, say, tent.io? Just in case anyone has the same issue: on my device (Nexus 4) it took a while for the UI to become responsive when first opening the app. Patience solved this one :)
- gw 14y ago
  The word "decentralized" is a pretty loaded term unfortunately. I think tent.io and other similar projects are decentralized in the sense of who controls the servers, but they are still fundamentally client-server protocols. Nightweb (and I2P specifically, which it uses) is fully peer-to-peer, so there is no distinction between clients and servers. I think that's the most important difference. Sorry about the non-responsive loading, I will work on that in the future.
jcfrei 14y ago
had the same idea a while back and was pondering how I would get past NAT if you are on a mobile network. does it work there as well? I'm assuming it will continue to work as long as your carrier doesnt block the respective ports. also, don't take this personally - but if you're looking at targeting a broader crowd, you might have to update the UI to make it look more like traditional social apps.
- fulafel 14y ago
  There are IETF standardized NAT traversal mechanisms, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUN#NAT_traversal_solutions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUN#NAT_traversal_solutions I don't know how widespread NAT is on mobile networks, my operator just started using it and I've been meaning to switch.. not a real internet connection anymore IMO. And lots of people are doing self-inflicted NAT on their home wifi. So it might actually be that mobile connections are less likely to be NATted.
rurban 14y ago
Not yet indexed by Play Store, but can be found by going to the http url. Oops, the problem is: My 2 T-Mobile HTC 4G phones are not compatible with this app. Neither T-Mobile Samsung SGH-T679, and Vodaphone Samsung GT-I9000. Only works on Asus Nexus 7.
- gw 14y ago
  It requires version 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above, so that may be the issue.
  - rurban 14y ago
    Guess it will not turn out as killer app then. This suggests other fixes, such as apk sizes < 50MB: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10475954/why-does-the-google-play-store-say-my-android-app-is-incompatible-with-my-own-de http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10475954/why-does-the-goo...
    - goldfeld 14y ago
      It's not like it will suddenly see mainstream adoption in any case. The project is young and the early adopters will be the nerds and the geeks who don't mind the bumps. It's always like this. Organically it can spread and by then it could both be a robust app and have prerequisites pretty much anybody fulfills.
SergeG 14y ago
Great stuff but will it really scale? See secushare.org/2011-FSW-Scalability-Paranoia Did anyone try to save Nightweb's data directory encrypted in Dropbox or ownCloud? Would it be possible to add something like a reply option to a post? This would give us twitteresque chat. Would love to be able to share posts with certain persons only. PS: Can someone provide a download link for those avoiding Google Play? TIA
- Spittie 14y ago
  It would be way better if the author just provided a download link on it's page, but in the meanwhile: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g98p4nn2j33tr8t/net.nightweb.apk https://www.dropbox.com/s/g98p4nn2j33tr8t/net.nightweb.apk (version 0.05)
- gw 14y ago
  You can already reply to posts. Just hit the new post button when viewing a post, and your post will link back to it. I'm considering adding an APK download link, but my site doesn't use SSL so I didn't feel comfortable doing it there.
  - Fice 14y ago
    Also would be great to have it in F-Droid repo (http://f-droid.org/ http://f-droid.org/). They have direct APK download over https.
fosap 14y ago
Android 4? That's a pity. But why a mobil app? Why not a .war app for the i2p router? IMO Social networks are something that are mostly used on desktop computers. Also it seems to me like you want to fork i2p. I think that's a very bad idea. First since you should be very confident in your skills if you roll your own crypto. Second because a split seems not necessary and harmful in the long run for the network. The i2p networks could be bigger aswell, and this could help.
- gw 14y ago
  I didn't actually modify the core or router code at all, I only needed to modify the I2PSnark code (i.e. the BitTorrent component). I did not roll my own crypto at all, other than the digital signing of meta torrents which is an application-level concern. It is technically a fork because I have a separate copy of the I2P codebase in my repo, but I will always update it to the latest versions as they come out.
  - fosap 14y ago
    >but it will pay big dividends later if I need to rewrite parts of the I2P backend. I'm all for clojure, open source, innovation and forking. But i urge you to stay part of i2p and not create incompatible releases. Maintaining your private branch will result in a lot of extra work, and I'm 100% sure that this will result unfixed security holes. The i2p project on the other hand would probably gladly accept your java patches.
    - gw 14y ago
      Understood; I actually was moreso referring to rewriting I2PSnark, not I2P itself. The BitTorrent codebase is pretty old and I know I can improve it if I had time. I agree that touching the core/router code itself is dicey, but keep in mind the I2P developers themselves have encouraged people to make alternative implementations. I don't plan on that right now, though.
      - robert_foss 14y ago
chacham15 14y ago
> the goal is to have uncensorable, untraceable communication and file-sharing on mobile devices." This is really interesting. How is this uncensorable? From what I've read, i2p requires defined servers to resolve addresses which themselves can be taken down.
- gw 14y ago
  I do not use I2P's domain name system at all. Everything is just fully-qualified base32 hostnames underneath.
  - chacham15 14y ago
    What do you mean by base32 hostnames? ips? If you mean ips, then, especially on a phone, wont the ip change often. If you mean some actual hostname (presumably not the reverse lookup) then who translates that hostname? If it is provided by nightlyweb servers, then if that server gets taken down, you have no more network, right?
    - gw 14y ago
      I mean the hostnames used by I2P itself. They behave like normal hostnames, but they don't require any DNS-style resolution because they contain your public keys inside the hostname itself. They are equivalent to .onion addresses in Tor, except a lot longer.
      - chacham15 14y ago
        I understand that, you are saying that you have an id of who you want to talk to. The problem is, where do you start looking? Even with .onion you need an entry point to the tor network. It can be a DNS server, a web server, or whatever; but it must be hard coded (unless you start broadcasting on the local network looking for an entry, which I havent seen an example of). That is the problem. The first entry point can easily be taken down.
        14y ago
mikecane 14y ago
Could this be a practical tool for groups such as Occupy Wall Street and the various groups of "Arab Spring"?
w1ntermute 14y ago
Does this have a particularly adverse effect on phone battery life, when compared to a well-written app for a centralized social network (aka, not the Facebook Android app; perhaps the G+ app)? I can imagine that a lot of uploading of social network content to your peers would take place. Also, what is the bandwidth utilization like compared to an app for a centralized network? With a lot of us on tiered data plans now, this is a crucial concern.
- cdata 14y ago
  I ran the app for most of this morning on my Nexus 4, after adding most of the links in this HN post as favorites. Between 9 and 11 my battery lost 40% of its charge. Ordinary usage tends to yield 14 to 17 hours of battery life from a charge. This kind of impact on battery life will be a deal breaker for most people until resolved.
  - cbhl 14y ago
    Spotify's desktop app is P2P, but their mobile app is server-client. Perhaps advanced users could mitigate the battery life issue in the short run by setting up a "proxy" on a server that joins I2P, while presenting the front-end on a mobile device -- like you would with, say, an IRC bouncer.
  - pandeiro 14y ago
    Fell out of my chair reading those "ordinary usage" numbers. Reading a book for a couple hours drops my N4 by 50%, easy.
    - mncolinlee 14y ago
      I own a Nexus 4 and agree with the parent poster. 14 or more hours mostly idle is normal. I get even more if I dim the screen for normal use. Fortunately, Android JellyBean provides all the data you need to fix your problem. If you are getting worse battery life, you need to check Settings -> Battery and determine which apps are unreasonably eating up your battery life.
gr359 14y ago
Anyone else having trouble adding pics? They seem to attach properly but don't show up after I hit send.
- gw 14y ago
  I'll look into this. EDIT: Ugh, yep, a bug I introduced recently. I am issuing another update, 0.0.6.
  - gr359 14y ago
    Great!
  - roberttomsons 14y ago
    Nice! But i have another problem, I upload a picture and this turned one left.
    - gw 14y ago
      Can you elaborate? I'm not sure what you mean.
      - roberttomsons 14y ago
        Hmm, wait. If I upload a picture file, this rotate 90° left. (See screenshhot) http://s14.directupload.net/images/130401/asanfblz.png http://s14.directupload.net/images/130401/asanfblz.png You now what I mean?
        roberttomsons 14y ago
        I can concrete the problem. If i take a picture with my smartphone camera, this pic rotate. If i take a screenshot with my smartphone this pic don't rotate. I use a samsung galaxy s3 mini with android 4.1.2. I hope it helps (Sorry for my bad english) I'am native Kraut speaker ;)
        14y ago
gr359 14y ago
Anyone having trouble attaching pics to posts? They just vanish after I hit send.
deleted 14y ago
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rtra 14y ago
OT: One thing I don't yet understand is why security-critical software is usually written in C instead of a language like SML.
JBiserkov 14y ago
Here is mine URL http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=eyynvzrb4npqnrrtqau2wwawbxai2sgc http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=eyynvzrb4npqnrrt... I decided to add a photo as well
projectmeshnet 14y ago
Have you considered Cjdns, an alternative to I2P that does not require the internet?
- gw 14y ago
  I wouldn't say it's an alternative, because CJDNS and I2P operate at different levels of the stack. In other words, you could theoretically run I2P on top of CJDNS. I like the project very much, though integration into Nightweb isn't likely because it requires the creation of a TUN device, which is a kernel-level facility and thus requires root permissions.
robert_foss 14y ago
This app is pretty well polished and from an ideological standpoint very awesome. If you have any feedback/requests for I2P, I'm sure that zzz would be very interested since he did all of the I2P@Android work. Catch him on zzz.i2p or #i2p-dev on the I2P irc net.
- gw 14y ago
  Yep I've spoken with him a few times on his forum. I announced Nightweb there a week ago but I don't think I ever got any replies. I am definitely willing to incorporate any changes he suggests, as he knows the I2P codebase as well as anyone.
trixjo 14y ago
awesome thought behind this, I downloaded the app but it crashed. How do I find my public key? 1) I dont see how this is anonymous. My cellphone carrier or my home wifi (via my phone) will track the data. Tor is trackable. Why I can see how this may add a layer or anonymity I fail to see how it is completely anonymous. 2) gw, why would you attach your name to this? aren't you putting yourself at risk?
sweis 14y ago
"Nightweb starts its life by generating a DSA-SHA1 key pair" Just a note for the authors, as of 2010 NIST recommends not using SHA-1 for new digital signature generation and "disallows after 2013". See section 9 here: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-131A/sp800-131A.pdf http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-131A/sp800-13...
- gw 14y ago
  Yeah I chose that because I2P uses it. The devs are already discussing upgrading, and once they do I will upgrade it in Nightweb as well.
drifting 14y ago
This app looks awesome. Reminds me of mit roof net. Can't wait to try this out
doctoboggan 14y ago
I've joined, here is my link for anyone interested: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=3c6mdngahryip52nwi5lgwlp5nx3ggur http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=3c6mdngahryip52n...
- dopamean 14y ago
  Same. http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=xcrwasje7ojqdf3kbaectcszdjpop2wf http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=xcrwasje7ojqdf3k...
Jach 14y ago
http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=6pocouo5pxv6wwntwcvl2lmpub7x2bjx http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=6pocouo5pxv6wwnt... is mine, though I can't promise I'll do anything with it. ;P
challymoore 14y ago
Is there country restriction? It says incompatible for my country
- gw 14y ago
  Do you mind telling me what country you live in? I selected every possible country in the dev console so I'm not sure why it would say that.
unlogic 14y ago
Lein-droid author here. A few commenters asked about the performance and maturity of Clojure for Android, so I decided to answer in the top level. The main problem of Clojure for Android right now is the large size of Clojure runtime. This leads to two issues: a) long loading time (can take a few seconds even for the basic app), b) applications often gets closed by the OS once switched to another, in order to free that memory. Since ProGuard is no help in optimizing Clojure-compiled code, the issues should be addressed in some other way. One that is possible is to write source-shaking compiler that will strip the final APK of the unused functions. It's pretty hard to do with the current compiler, but if we eventually write Clojure-in-Clojure compiler (there is a proposal for this year's GSoC by the way), it may be feasible to add these optimizations to it. And finally a shameless plug: if you are interested in trying Clojure for Android, here are the links to get you started: https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/lein-droid https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/lein-droid https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/neko https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/neko

257 points by gw 14y ago

Very intriguing. I was just beginning research into a server-less shared state model and this seems to solve that quite nicely.

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Polarity 14y ago

how do you solve the p2p user_id problem? everyone can be everyone when faking the id on some client.

gw 14y ago
It's derived from your public key, so only those with the corresponding private key can update the meta torrent for your user.

roma1n 14y ago

I would love some comments on the maturity and performance of Clojure (speed, load times, memory consumption, executable size...) for Android apps.

lucian1900 14y ago
While the app is interesting, I am also more interested in Clojure's feasibility for writing Android apps. Last time I looked, Dalvik's GC was so bad it took many seconds for the Clojure runtime to bootstrap.
- pandeiro 14y ago
  There is also the possibility of using and wrapping the Apache Cordova (phonegap) API from ClojureScript. Trade-offs galore there, but one advantage is faster (still not comparable with native) startup time.
gw 14y ago
Things have improved quite a bit recently. Daniel Solano Gomez is the pioneer here, and Alex Yakushev made it a lot simpler by creating the lein-droid plugin for leiningen last summer. It will impose a few seconds of load time no matter what, so it is best for long-running apps where loading time isn't as important. The cost in runtime speed, memory consumption, and APK size are also present, but aren't a big issue in my experience. The same Clojure optimization rules apply. I think things will get better and better once more people use Clojure to write Android apps. It will be a signal to the core devs that it's an important platform. Currently, you must use a fork of 1.5 that includes a few necessary modifications.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  I've just tried NightWeb and the startup latency is very high, even on my Nexus 4. Sadly I can't think of an app where 5-10secs of latency is acceptable :(
  - gw 14y ago
    Yeah I will definitely work on this, I apologize for that.
    - lucian1900 14y ago
      If you manage to get a Clojure Android app to boot up quickly, I would be very interested. For now, the only reasonable ways to not use Java for Android apps that I've found are Scala or Xamarin.

wwwtyro 14y ago

I have been waiting for this. Here's my Nightweb link for anyone interested in experimenting with me: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=5avfzwgkdzgddsv3xtt2kq5ptfgg7fn6 http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=5avfzwgkdzgddsv3... gw: It would be great to have multiple personas available to me, like an inverse of google+ circles.

DoubleMalt 14y ago
http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=fcx2ahb4vuobu7ejz6gjzffn3mlwkrvt&time=1364739180140 http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=fcx2ahb4vuobu7ej... That's mine ... awww feels like the beginnings of ICQ ;) But ... we can hack on it ... finally a good reason to learn Clojure.
- goldfeld 14y ago
  Exactly, I've been both wanting to learn Clojure and develop for Android (but no Java thanks) for a while. So here's mine http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=dtvjjjuk7eai42xx7czwoibockvuqrsl http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=dtvjjjuk7eai42xx...
  - cdata 14y ago
    Here's mine, for science: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=tnaohxmxj2eg3fsf2agdokaxvoel5rp4 http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=tnaohxmxj2eg3fsf...
    - tinfoilman 14y ago
      Interesting, here is my link. I think this will suit my nature http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=q3ytnh5ci6cc72gtmljdyd57c5lw4iyv http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=q3ytnh5ci6cc72gt...
    - kvgr 14y ago
      Here is mine: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=bicbgdgdxvv5ifxay5kgs http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=bicbgdgdxvv5ifxa... kj2voujr7vk

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

ge0rg 14y ago

Wow, this is just awesome! The app is really polished for an early beta release, especially that hidden markdown feature. Just three things that come to my mind: 1. how long does it take to propagate updates? 2. what is the traffic consumption on mobile? 3. what about statusbar notifications?

gw 14y ago
Once you've bootstrapped/integrated with the network, it takes a minute or two for a new update to reach you in my testing. The initial time to bootstrap onto the network is around five minutes. The traffic consumption is pretty high, because it becomes a full peer on the I2P network. Over a month I would expect it to consume around 1GB or more. If this becomes an issue for people, I may add the ability to be a non-contributing peer.
- ge0rg 14y ago
  You might want to add a status text to the service notification, displaying how far bootstrapping is.. Please make the non-contributing status the default then, or at least ask the user on installation... capped data plans are still the default in many places... :(
  - DoubleMalt 14y ago
    Do android applications have access to their amount of data used? Maybe it would be possible to cap the data usage or lower the bandwith when a limit is reached.
- maniacwhat 14y ago
  I think a setting to only use WiFi would be valuable for a lot of users.
- Amadou 14y ago
  It might make more sense to switch between the type of peer based on the type of network connection. If the phone is currently connected to wifi, then run as a contributing peer. If the phone is only on 3G/4G/LTE/etc then switch to being a non-contributing peer.

bdr 14y ago

This is so cool. It makes me want to switch to Android just to use it. Any thoughts on a desktop client?

ashr 14y ago
Ditto. Definitely seems like it has the potential to be the Killer app based on the viral potential of P2P, anonymity and widely adapted OS platform. All the best.
gw 14y ago
I am definitely considering making a desktop client. I can re-use all the backend code but will have to make a UI from scratch, so it won't necessarily be soon.
- bdunbar 14y ago
  Second the motion for a desktop client I _have_ an Android, but I dislike typing on it. For me, it's a phone, period.

invdevm 14y ago

What about Retroshare? I think it has android version too.

oellegaard 14y ago

I always had the idea to create a distributed social network, I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes :-) Hopefully very well, would love to delete my facebook account.

joelthelion 14y ago

>How does it avoid spam? For me a good solution would be to use machine learning, the same way spam filtering works for email. A decentralized version of Reddit could actually be pretty simple, with a flooding P2P network coupled to some machine learning on each of the nodes. The beauty is that anyone would be free to implement the content filtering measures the way they like it.

hucker 14y ago
How would you discern what is popular and what is not(that is, the "upvotes" of reddit/HN)? Or did you mean only machine learning?
- joelthelion 14y ago
  People could optionally broadcast their pseudonymous votes, using cryptography to avoid impersonation. That would actually be a lot richer than the current "one vote is one vote" systems, since you could learn which people you tend to agree with.

pandeiro 14y ago

Definitely looking forward to using it and reading the code. Landing page is profesh too. Well done.

damaja 14y ago

http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=lzk6fkyifc4zhjlsuzm6xf7ceepzr3rs http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=lzk6fkyifc4zhjls... Here is mine. Great to see new work and so clean out of the box.

dmix 14y ago

Could you write a blog post about building the mobile app in Clojure?

saintx 14y ago

I wonder how they're going to get around the problem of malicious collectives and Sybil attacks, given the anonymity constraint. You should be able to set up dozens of fake accounts to vouch that you're a "good" person, or that someone else is a "bad" person, use astroturf tactics to wage malicious campaigns against other parties, and basically sow havoc.

DoubleMalt 14y ago
So far it is only distributed twitter ... you don't have control about who's following you. The network does not really have a trust component yet.

pudquick 14y ago

One thing that wasn't clear in the protocol or explanation page was the favorite-of-a-favorite discovery. I'm assuming this works by including your personal favorites in your meta torrent, so when people get your new content, they also get a list of who you've favorited? Does this also mean that the meta update notification gets sent out when I favorite / de-favorite someone?

gw 14y ago
Yeah, your favorites are stored in your meta torrent, so it will be updated every time you add a favorite user or post.
- pudquick 14y ago
  Thanks, figured that was the case. Nice take on announce_meta, btw. I had mused over something similar (though not as well fleshed out) to the Nightweb concept but kept bumping my ahead against the notion of how to announce additional content when the bittorrent protocol ties info hashes (and magnet links) to a direct hash of the content - meaning you could never update something already announced for a specific key. And since the hashes are content based, it's not like you could say "my next content will be <<previous hash plus 1>>". Extending the protocol to include a new announcement method side-steps this very nicely :) Kudos.

fruscon 14y ago

Please bring this to FDroid! In the meantime an APK for download would be nice.

sklivvz1971 14y ago

Why do you say it's a "killer app" for Android? I think it's a great idea, but it does not use the fact that it lives on a mobile phone, so it's certainly not a killer app for it. Can we haz a desktop or web version?

danneu 14y ago
I only saw this on their website: > The goal of Nightweb is to be a "killer app" > for anonymous networking
- fakeer 14y ago
  >> > for anonymous networking It suggests me to share my profile and posts with others(with rest of sharing apps like Twitter). How am I anonymous then? Besides, after installing the app and creating a profile - I just had to enter a name, how do I make first contact? I searched and it didn't work. Looks like there's sth that I am not doing right.. ?
  - gw 14y ago
    You have to find people externally, such as through the links people shared on this page. There is a bug preventing links in a browser from being openable in the app, but I just released an update that fixes this. There is no way to discovered people internally right now, though I did make it auto-add my user so you can at least see some content after it runs for a little while.
  - goldfeld 14y ago
    I don't think of it as "anonymous" networking, but more as a network that can't be controlled or brought down. Especially by relying on bluetooth and future, improved peer-to-peer connection technology, we could be free from carriers and ISPs.
DoubleMalt 14y ago
The main advantage of the application running on phones is that everybody has one (hyperbole intended) and that phones are always on. For a web version to be fully distributed it would need to be run on a server, so people would have to hook up a RaspberryPi at home, rent a VPS or trust some big Nightweb farm (the diaspora model). It's infinitely easier for most users to just install an app on their phone. A Desktop version would probably not be "always on", which would limit the usability as a social platform seriously.

motter 14y ago

Here goes: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=4zfhmwiio7kdp5ocvgrqpt6ktsgp3hgm http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=4zfhmwiio7kdp5oc... How does the protocol differ from, say, tent.io? Just in case anyone has the same issue: on my device (Nexus 4) it took a while for the UI to become responsive when first opening the app. Patience solved this one :)

gw 14y ago
The word "decentralized" is a pretty loaded term unfortunately. I think tent.io and other similar projects are decentralized in the sense of who controls the servers, but they are still fundamentally client-server protocols. Nightweb (and I2P specifically, which it uses) is fully peer-to-peer, so there is no distinction between clients and servers. I think that's the most important difference. Sorry about the non-responsive loading, I will work on that in the future.

jcfrei 14y ago

had the same idea a while back and was pondering how I would get past NAT if you are on a mobile network. does it work there as well? I'm assuming it will continue to work as long as your carrier doesnt block the respective ports. also, don't take this personally - but if you're looking at targeting a broader crowd, you might have to update the UI to make it look more like traditional social apps.

fulafel 14y ago
There are IETF standardized NAT traversal mechanisms, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUN#NAT_traversal_solutions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUN#NAT_traversal_solutions I don't know how widespread NAT is on mobile networks, my operator just started using it and I've been meaning to switch.. not a real internet connection anymore IMO. And lots of people are doing self-inflicted NAT on their home wifi. So it might actually be that mobile connections are less likely to be NATted.

rurban 14y ago

Not yet indexed by Play Store, but can be found by going to the http url. Oops, the problem is: My 2 T-Mobile HTC 4G phones are not compatible with this app. Neither T-Mobile Samsung SGH-T679, and Vodaphone Samsung GT-I9000. Only works on Asus Nexus 7.

gw 14y ago
It requires version 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and above, so that may be the issue.
- rurban 14y ago
  Guess it will not turn out as killer app then. This suggests other fixes, such as apk sizes < 50MB: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10475954/why-does-the-google-play-store-say-my-android-app-is-incompatible-with-my-own-de http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10475954/why-does-the-goo...
  - goldfeld 14y ago
    It's not like it will suddenly see mainstream adoption in any case. The project is young and the early adopters will be the nerds and the geeks who don't mind the bumps. It's always like this. Organically it can spread and by then it could both be a robust app and have prerequisites pretty much anybody fulfills.

SergeG 14y ago

Great stuff but will it really scale? See secushare.org/2011-FSW-Scalability-Paranoia Did anyone try to save Nightweb's data directory encrypted in Dropbox or ownCloud? Would it be possible to add something like a reply option to a post? This would give us twitteresque chat. Would love to be able to share posts with certain persons only. PS: Can someone provide a download link for those avoiding Google Play? TIA

Spittie 14y ago
It would be way better if the author just provided a download link on it's page, but in the meanwhile: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g98p4nn2j33tr8t/net.nightweb.apk https://www.dropbox.com/s/g98p4nn2j33tr8t/net.nightweb.apk (version 0.05)
gw 14y ago
You can already reply to posts. Just hit the new post button when viewing a post, and your post will link back to it. I'm considering adding an APK download link, but my site doesn't use SSL so I didn't feel comfortable doing it there.
- Fice 14y ago
  Also would be great to have it in F-Droid repo (http://f-droid.org/ http://f-droid.org/). They have direct APK download over https.

fosap 14y ago

Android 4? That's a pity. But why a mobil app? Why not a .war app for the i2p router? IMO Social networks are something that are mostly used on desktop computers. Also it seems to me like you want to fork i2p. I think that's a very bad idea. First since you should be very confident in your skills if you roll your own crypto. Second because a split seems not necessary and harmful in the long run for the network. The i2p networks could be bigger aswell, and this could help.

gw 14y ago
I didn't actually modify the core or router code at all, I only needed to modify the I2PSnark code (i.e. the BitTorrent component). I did not roll my own crypto at all, other than the digital signing of meta torrents which is an application-level concern. It is technically a fork because I have a separate copy of the I2P codebase in my repo, but I will always update it to the latest versions as they come out.
- fosap 14y ago
  >but it will pay big dividends later if I need to rewrite parts of the I2P backend. I'm all for clojure, open source, innovation and forking. But i urge you to stay part of i2p and not create incompatible releases. Maintaining your private branch will result in a lot of extra work, and I'm 100% sure that this will result unfixed security holes. The i2p project on the other hand would probably gladly accept your java patches.
  - gw 14y ago
    Understood; I actually was moreso referring to rewriting I2PSnark, not I2P itself. The BitTorrent codebase is pretty old and I know I can improve it if I had time. I agree that touching the core/router code itself is dicey, but keep in mind the I2P developers themselves have encouraged people to make alternative implementations. I don't plan on that right now, though.
    - robert_foss 14y ago

chacham15 14y ago

> the goal is to have uncensorable, untraceable communication and file-sharing on mobile devices." This is really interesting. How is this uncensorable? From what I've read, i2p requires defined servers to resolve addresses which themselves can be taken down.

gw 14y ago
I do not use I2P's domain name system at all. Everything is just fully-qualified base32 hostnames underneath.
- chacham15 14y ago
  What do you mean by base32 hostnames? ips? If you mean ips, then, especially on a phone, wont the ip change often. If you mean some actual hostname (presumably not the reverse lookup) then who translates that hostname? If it is provided by nightlyweb servers, then if that server gets taken down, you have no more network, right?
  - gw 14y ago
    I mean the hostnames used by I2P itself. They behave like normal hostnames, but they don't require any DNS-style resolution because they contain your public keys inside the hostname itself. They are equivalent to .onion addresses in Tor, except a lot longer.
    - chacham15 14y ago
      I understand that, you are saying that you have an id of who you want to talk to. The problem is, where do you start looking? Even with .onion you need an entry point to the tor network. It can be a DNS server, a web server, or whatever; but it must be hard coded (unless you start broadcasting on the local network looking for an entry, which I havent seen an example of). That is the problem. The first entry point can easily be taken down.
      - 14y ago

mikecane 14y ago

Could this be a practical tool for groups such as Occupy Wall Street and the various groups of "Arab Spring"?

w1ntermute 14y ago

Does this have a particularly adverse effect on phone battery life, when compared to a well-written app for a centralized social network (aka, not the Facebook Android app; perhaps the G+ app)? I can imagine that a lot of uploading of social network content to your peers would take place. Also, what is the bandwidth utilization like compared to an app for a centralized network? With a lot of us on tiered data plans now, this is a crucial concern.

cdata 14y ago
I ran the app for most of this morning on my Nexus 4, after adding most of the links in this HN post as favorites. Between 9 and 11 my battery lost 40% of its charge. Ordinary usage tends to yield 14 to 17 hours of battery life from a charge. This kind of impact on battery life will be a deal breaker for most people until resolved.
- cbhl 14y ago
  Spotify's desktop app is P2P, but their mobile app is server-client. Perhaps advanced users could mitigate the battery life issue in the short run by setting up a "proxy" on a server that joins I2P, while presenting the front-end on a mobile device -- like you would with, say, an IRC bouncer.
- pandeiro 14y ago
  Fell out of my chair reading those "ordinary usage" numbers. Reading a book for a couple hours drops my N4 by 50%, easy.
  - mncolinlee 14y ago
    I own a Nexus 4 and agree with the parent poster. 14 or more hours mostly idle is normal. I get even more if I dim the screen for normal use. Fortunately, Android JellyBean provides all the data you need to fix your problem. If you are getting worse battery life, you need to check Settings -> Battery and determine which apps are unreasonably eating up your battery life.

gr359 14y ago

Anyone else having trouble adding pics? They seem to attach properly but don't show up after I hit send.

gw 14y ago
I'll look into this. EDIT: Ugh, yep, a bug I introduced recently. I am issuing another update, 0.0.6.
- gr359 14y ago
  Great!
- roberttomsons 14y ago
  Nice! But i have another problem, I upload a picture and this turned one left.
  - gw 14y ago
    Can you elaborate? I'm not sure what you mean.
    - roberttomsons 14y ago
      Hmm, wait. If I upload a picture file, this rotate 90° left. (See screenshhot) http://s14.directupload.net/images/130401/asanfblz.png http://s14.directupload.net/images/130401/asanfblz.png You now what I mean?
      - roberttomsons 14y ago
        I can concrete the problem. If i take a picture with my smartphone camera, this pic rotate. If i take a screenshot with my smartphone this pic don't rotate. I use a samsung galaxy s3 mini with android 4.1.2. I hope it helps (Sorry for my bad english) I'am native Kraut speaker ;)
        14y ago

gr359 14y ago

Anyone having trouble attaching pics to posts? They just vanish after I hit send.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rtra 14y ago

OT: One thing I don't yet understand is why security-critical software is usually written in C instead of a language like SML.

JBiserkov 14y ago

Here is mine URL http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=eyynvzrb4npqnrrtqau2wwawbxai2sgc http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=eyynvzrb4npqnrrt... I decided to add a photo as well

projectmeshnet 14y ago

Have you considered Cjdns, an alternative to I2P that does not require the internet?

gw 14y ago
I wouldn't say it's an alternative, because CJDNS and I2P operate at different levels of the stack. In other words, you could theoretically run I2P on top of CJDNS. I like the project very much, though integration into Nightweb isn't likely because it requires the creation of a TUN device, which is a kernel-level facility and thus requires root permissions.

robert_foss 14y ago

This app is pretty well polished and from an ideological standpoint very awesome. If you have any feedback/requests for I2P, I'm sure that zzz would be very interested since he did all of the I2P@Android work. Catch him on zzz.i2p or #i2p-dev on the I2P irc net.

gw 14y ago
Yep I've spoken with him a few times on his forum. I announced Nightweb there a week ago but I don't think I ever got any replies. I am definitely willing to incorporate any changes he suggests, as he knows the I2P codebase as well as anyone.

trixjo 14y ago

awesome thought behind this, I downloaded the app but it crashed. How do I find my public key? 1) I dont see how this is anonymous. My cellphone carrier or my home wifi (via my phone) will track the data. Tor is trackable. Why I can see how this may add a layer or anonymity I fail to see how it is completely anonymous. 2) gw, why would you attach your name to this? aren't you putting yourself at risk?

sweis 14y ago

"Nightweb starts its life by generating a DSA-SHA1 key pair" Just a note for the authors, as of 2010 NIST recommends not using SHA-1 for new digital signature generation and "disallows after 2013". See section 9 here: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-131A/sp800-131A.pdf http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-131A/sp800-13...

gw 14y ago
Yeah I chose that because I2P uses it. The devs are already discussing upgrading, and once they do I will upgrade it in Nightweb as well.

drifting 14y ago

This app looks awesome. Reminds me of mit roof net. Can't wait to try this out

doctoboggan 14y ago

I've joined, here is my link for anyone interested: http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=3c6mdngahryip52nwi5lgwlp5nx3ggur http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=3c6mdngahryip52n...

dopamean 14y ago
Same. http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=xcrwasje7ojqdf3kbaectcszdjpop2wf http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=xcrwasje7ojqdf3k...

Jach 14y ago

http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=6pocouo5pxv6wwntwcvl2lmpub7x2bjx http://nightweb.net/#type=user&userhash=6pocouo5pxv6wwnt... is mine, though I can't promise I'll do anything with it. ;P

challymoore 14y ago

Is there country restriction? It says incompatible for my country

gw 14y ago
Do you mind telling me what country you live in? I selected every possible country in the dev console so I'm not sure why it would say that.

unlogic 14y ago

Lein-droid author here. A few commenters asked about the performance and maturity of Clojure for Android, so I decided to answer in the top level. The main problem of Clojure for Android right now is the large size of Clojure runtime. This leads to two issues: a) long loading time (can take a few seconds even for the basic app), b) applications often gets closed by the OS once switched to another, in order to free that memory. Since ProGuard is no help in optimizing Clojure-compiled code, the issues should be addressed in some other way. One that is possible is to write source-shaking compiler that will strip the final APK of the unused functions. It's pretty hard to do with the current compiler, but if we eventually write Clojure-in-Clojure compiler (there is a proposal for this year's GSoC by the way), it may be feasible to add these optimizations to it. And finally a shameless plug: if you are interested in trying Clojure for Android, here are the links to get you started: https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/lein-droid https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/lein-droid https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/neko https://github.com/alexander-yakushev/neko