> Pest is a peer-to-peer network protocol intended for IRC-style chat. It is designed for decentralization of control, resistance to natural and artificial interference, and fits-in-head mechanical simplicity -- in that order.
> Pest explicitly rejects the inherently-centralizing concepts of IRC
> An IRC server is typically inhabited by a multitude of casual users and policed by a small group of privileged curators. A Pest station, on the other hand, is under the exclusive control of one person: its operator.
> 1.2.2. Nets Instead of Channels.
> Pest stations organize into nets. A net is formed by a group of station operators with a common interest. An operator who wishes to join a net must peer with at least one of the stations in that net. A broadcast message is sent to every member of a station's net. Nets may easily and organically undergo schismatic splits, or, on the contrary, combine into larger nets, whenever the individual station operators so desire.
This is interesting stuff. The basic model seems kind of elegant and should be relatively straightforward to implement. It also seems like it should be relatively easy to set up a station that "bridges" to other chat platforms like Matrix, IRC, etc.
However I suspect that moderation being nonexistent could pose a problem. Un-peering with somebody is equivalent to blocking them, which is certainly a valid tool for dealing with troublemakers, but it doesn't carry the same weight as being able to centrally found somebody. But I suppose that's part of the deliberate design here.
> 1.2.4. Messages are Authenticable, but not Opposable.
> All Pest messages are authenticable -- a station will only process a message if it carries a valid signature from a peer (though in some cases, the message may not have been authored by that peer.)
> However, they are also repudiatable (i.e. non-opposable) -- since all packet signatures are produced with symmetric keys, the recipient of a message cannot, at any point in time, prove to a third party that he was not in fact the author of that message.
> However, they are also repudiatable (i.e. non-opposable) -- since all packet signatures are produced with symmetric keys, the recipient of a message cannot, at any point in time, prove to a third party that he was not in fact the author of that message.
So basically there is intentionally no way to prevent message forgery by the recipient. Why?
Also tbh. how can I trust a person who in 2021 still hasn't understood that/why HTTPS is important for security even if you only provide read only content with making proper crypto/security decisions?
"Firefox does not trust this site because it uses a certificate that is not valid for www.loper-os.org. The certificate is only valid for the following names: *.nfshost.com, nfshost.com"
The concept of the "SelfChain" confuses me. It sounds like it would fall apart completely for anything except direct messages. If one person goes offline and all other people continue to talk, does that mean the next day my station considers all other speakers "forked"? And I have to unfork all of them? It's not like I can catch up since all messages are stale and discarded after 15 minutes.
Do I allow a hearsay message to fork one of my peers? Can a rouge peer just come in, fork everyone, and leave?
I also don't see much DDOS proofing in this. Best I can find is that you can unpeer people, but since every message is rebroadcasted by everyone, that doesn't seem like much of a protection. Especially since, if the DDOSer has a lot of peers, it seems can be pretty imposible to know who the attacker even is, since there is no singed journal of hops or something.
hermitdev|4 years ago
"vs." being an abbreviation for versus carries an entirely different meaning than the intended version.
saurik|4 years ago
unwind|4 years ago
Then it starts off saying that you're going to need a "vtree", and for that obviously you need a "V-tron" and that's about where I gave up.
It was like trying to read something from a parallel world.
dafoex|4 years ago
lixtra|4 years ago
> Pest is a peer-to-peer network protocol intended for IRC-style chat. It is designed for decentralization of control, resistance to natural and artificial interference, and fits-in-head mechanical simplicity -- in that order.
> Pest explicitly rejects the inherently-centralizing concepts of IRC
nerdponx|4 years ago
> An IRC server is typically inhabited by a multitude of casual users and policed by a small group of privileged curators. A Pest station, on the other hand, is under the exclusive control of one person: its operator.
> 1.2.2. Nets Instead of Channels.
> Pest stations organize into nets. A net is formed by a group of station operators with a common interest. An operator who wishes to join a net must peer with at least one of the stations in that net. A broadcast message is sent to every member of a station's net. Nets may easily and organically undergo schismatic splits, or, on the contrary, combine into larger nets, whenever the individual station operators so desire.
This is interesting stuff. The basic model seems kind of elegant and should be relatively straightforward to implement. It also seems like it should be relatively easy to set up a station that "bridges" to other chat platforms like Matrix, IRC, etc.
However I suspect that moderation being nonexistent could pose a problem. Un-peering with somebody is equivalent to blocking them, which is certainly a valid tool for dealing with troublemakers, but it doesn't carry the same weight as being able to centrally found somebody. But I suppose that's part of the deliberate design here.
eru|4 years ago
> 1.2.4. Messages are Authenticable, but not Opposable.
> All Pest messages are authenticable -- a station will only process a message if it carries a valid signature from a peer (though in some cases, the message may not have been authored by that peer.)
> However, they are also repudiatable (i.e. non-opposable) -- since all packet signatures are produced with symmetric keys, the recipient of a message cannot, at any point in time, prove to a third party that he was not in fact the author of that message.
dathinab|4 years ago
So basically there is intentionally no way to prevent message forgery by the recipient. Why?
Also tbh. how can I trust a person who in 2021 still hasn't understood that/why HTTPS is important for security even if you only provide read only content with making proper crypto/security decisions?
kwhitefoot|4 years ago
edave64|4 years ago
Do I allow a hearsay message to fork one of my peers? Can a rouge peer just come in, fork everyone, and leave?
ur-whale|4 years ago
Also: there is a claim of being DDOS-proof, but I haven't found an explanation as to how.
Also: is there actual implementation or even a mock?
edave64|4 years ago
pabs3|4 years ago
https://scuttlebutt.nz/about/
rhn_mk1|4 years ago
asciilifeform|4 years ago
inquist|4 years ago
unknown|4 years ago
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