WORD5 #751 4/6* (Hard Mode) ⬛🟧🟧⬛🟪 🟧🟪⬛⬛🟪 ⬛🟪⬛🟧🟪 🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪

WORD5

This is the exact kind of situation in which #FIPS over AWDL would prove useful, perhaps combined with Nostr VPN or Toll Gate. Bluetooth meshes are useful for sending a few bits of data like the text messages from bitchat, there’s no denying that. But it is not a general purpose network and can’t replace nor bridge the old internet. AWDL stands for Apple Wireless Direct Link, it is an ad-hoc protocol which enables direct, device-to-device communication without relying on a central coordinator (such as a WiFi access point). It is mostly known for its role in AirDrop transfers, allowing people connected to different wireless networks (or not connected to one at all, such as when sharing photos in a concert) but it can do much more than that. The protocol has already been reverse engineered and multiple Linux implementations exist. Depending on your hardware you can get away with a single WiFi radio, just like the Apple devices themselves, otherwise you might need a second WiFi adapter. FIPS, as many of you may already know, is a link independent mesh network protocol with end to end encryption, IPv6 compatibility (a huge advantage over Reticulum, meshtastic or really any mesh network requiring specialized applications) and a highly scaleable routing, which should be able to handle as many nodes as the whole internet currently does - similar to Yggdrasil (a research project that branched out of the scaling concerns with CJDNS), it challenges the claim that the shortest route is always the best route and opts for a greedy routing algorithm in which nodes get assigned coordinates relative to a root node (it doesn’t matter which node gets elected) and thus don’t need to keep a view of the whole network in memory, only care for its immediate peers. While it is true that these networks can and do run as an overlay on top of the existing internet, contrary to tor or i2p, they do not require that to work at all, as far as the protocol is concerned, an internet peer looks just like a physical peer over ethernet, wifi, Bluetooth etc. It exists as a means of bootstrapping the network and FIPS in particular takes a more aggressive approach to this with automatic peer discovery over nostr relays while Yggdrasil and CJDNS expect operators to manually pick a few, geographically close, public internet peers (and preferably only peer from the node closest to the border, i.e. a linux router), so that the peerings mirror the physical reality as much as possible. Both views are valid IMO, but regardless of that, Contrary to traditional networks where connecting the wrong cable to the wrong port can lead to routing loops and lost packets, FIPS allows any arbitrary network topology. This means you can connect nodes using multiple links, not worrying about any sort of hierarchy, and things just work. Nostr VPN leverages FIPS as its transport and routing, and among other things, it allows nodes to provide “internet exits”, similar to a tor exit node except that there is some manual arrangement to be done. Given that triple lettered agencies run the majority of tor exit nodes (and the recent honey potting discoveries), I would say that knowing your exit is feature, not a bug. So, back to the baguette at hand: how could you arrange all that to help the French people? Or literally anyone in a country threatening the internet? The most astute minds may already know where this is going. People can connect their computers, phones and networking equipment using FIPS, over AWDL, ethernet, normal WiFi, Bluetooth, hell even fiber through “internet peering” may still work here: assuming that ISPs only cut their BGP peerings with the outside world, a country wide network would still exist (even though that would effectively take down the traditional, centralized, always online services), that would be similar to the scenario Iran faced not long ago. People on “the border” would be able to connect this mesh to the broader FIPS network through a number of means: - people with starlink (assuming Elon doesn’t feel like following the government orders. Unlikely, but possible) - a cross border peering to someone on a different country (lora, wifi, a really long cable… the link doesn’t matter) - someone with insider access willing to leak internet access (happened on Iran) could set a FIPS node somewhere. So “internet” access would still be down, only the larger FIPS network would be reachable Finally, the last step would be connecting to a Nostr VPN exit node and getting access to the old internet. Now the better news is that, for some services, the last two steps would be entirely optional. Decentralized protocols, offline first and/or p2p applications and others would work just fine over a partitioned network. From Lightning Network and cashu transactions to Minecraft servers, Nostr to Mastodon… hell, even torrenting would continue unbothered. Only centralized, mostly big tech, services would be bothered by this, really. Overall, Bitchat has proven to us that, when push comes to shove, people will learn about and reach for decentralized technologies as long as they work out of the box on mainstream hardware. There is still work to be done though. For instance, we don’t yet have a zeronet-like daemon capable of connecting to a nsite over a fips-only network (afaik). But it is something viable, just like @Nostr Vault embedding a whole nostr relay with blossom in an iPhone app. #mesh #p2p View quoted note →

WORD5 #749 3/6* (Hard Mode) 🟪⬛⬛⬛🟪 🟪⬛🟧⬛🟪 🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪

WORD5

Another reason to adopt TGS: since the vector file is so small, you could probably get away with embedding the stickers into the pack event instead of relying on a blossom server to serve the media. Also pictured: ditto (like many clients) not verifying the checksum of images and displaying nostr.build 404 placeholders View quoted note →

I have two very serious proposals for nostr client devs: 1. Add support for TGS (telegram sticker format). Because it is a widespread, animated, vector format 2. Give us some tool to import Telegram sticker packs into nostr by their URL (i.e.

Telegram

Add sticker set on Telegram

#asknostr