Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Scuttlebutt off-grid peer to peer social network
This week I was introduced to Scuttlebutt (https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/) which is described as "an off-grid social network."
I'm really fascinated by it as a decentralized option for social networking. It uses the gossip protocol to find and exchange copies of messages with peers on the local network, and the physical movement of people/computers between different groups will help copy the messages around. You can also connect to a "pub" or well-know public servers that will connect people who are not on the same local network. These pubs are helpful, but not in any way required and they can come and go without impacting any of the content on the network. You can be simultaneously connected to multiple pubs, or none at all.
One important thing: Even though it utilizes a lot of cryptography, it seems to be designed for distributing information, not protecting anonymity. Most of the cryptography is to make sure that messages are not tampered with or forged. It does support private messages, but it isn't clear to me that it would prevent someone from figuring out who you send private messages to and how often.
Another important thing: The current protocol doesn't support edit or delete after you have posted messages. The Scuttlebutt network is a "global mesh of append-only logs." Essentially you have a local database or log of your messages plus messages of people you follow (and the people they follow), and whenever people connect they exchange content with each other. There isn't a big central server that stores all the content, so there isn't a single place you could go to change or delete messages. Instead, participants in the Scuttlebutt network all store copies of parts of the Scuttlebutt network.
Currently, it has clients for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. There is a phone client called Manyverse (https://www.manyver.se/) that currently only support Android phones. I can't imagine that this network would become too popular without mobile clients for both major phone platforms.
Things I have tried so far:
I installed the basic client called Patchwork, and created an identity. (For privacy, I didn't use my real name or picture.) You don't use a username/password, as your identity is stored as a "secret" on your computer. As long as you have that secret file, you are that identity on the Scuttlebutt network. As I was the only one on my local network that was running a Scuttlebutt client, there really wasn't much to see. Note: because you are identified by that "secret" file, you end up having a different identity for each computer you are using. You might be "me_laptop" and "me_desktop".
I connected to a pub using an automatic invite code that was given to me when I went to the web page of the pub. Suddenly I was able to see all kinds of posts, and also a bunch of "Channels" which you can think of as discussion groups. This also means that my computer had downloaded a bunch of content into my local database, which had grown to about 270MB in size. This is where the "off-grid" part comes in. I turned off my wifi and the Patchwork client essentially remained the same. I could continue to read through different discussions groups and post messages to my local database. After connecting again, my local database would "gossip" with the pub server or other local clients and exchange any new messages or content.
Another interesting feature of this "global mesh of append-only logs" is that I could wipe out my local database and then get my content back from the network of people I had exchanged messages with. I made a copy of my "secret" file, deleted my local Scuttlebutt database, and started up the Patchwork client again. Instead of creating a new identity, I then closed the Patchwork client and copied the secret file into my Scuttlebutt database directory, and started the Patchwork client up again. After connecting to the pub again, my Patchwork client downloaded the logs of the people I had connected with in the past, and those logs included all my messages and content. I was back in business.
It is a really neat system, but I do have some questions and concerns. After a long time, will my local database be way too huge? I'd have copies of all my stuff, all my friend's stuff, and all their friend's stuff, plus content from channels. Another worry I have is objectionable content. I don't want my computer to be storing pictures or messages of illegal stuff. I'm not sure how to prevent that unless I'm only ever connecting to a small group of very trusted people.
I'm really fascinated by it as a decentralized option for social networking. It uses the gossip protocol to find and exchange copies of messages with peers on the local network, and the physical movement of people/computers between different groups will help copy the messages around. You can also connect to a "pub" or well-know public servers that will connect people who are not on the same local network. These pubs are helpful, but not in any way required and they can come and go without impacting any of the content on the network. You can be simultaneously connected to multiple pubs, or none at all.
One important thing: Even though it utilizes a lot of cryptography, it seems to be designed for distributing information, not protecting anonymity. Most of the cryptography is to make sure that messages are not tampered with or forged. It does support private messages, but it isn't clear to me that it would prevent someone from figuring out who you send private messages to and how often.
Another important thing: The current protocol doesn't support edit or delete after you have posted messages. The Scuttlebutt network is a "global mesh of append-only logs." Essentially you have a local database or log of your messages plus messages of people you follow (and the people they follow), and whenever people connect they exchange content with each other. There isn't a big central server that stores all the content, so there isn't a single place you could go to change or delete messages. Instead, participants in the Scuttlebutt network all store copies of parts of the Scuttlebutt network.
Currently, it has clients for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. There is a phone client called Manyverse (https://www.manyver.se/) that currently only support Android phones. I can't imagine that this network would become too popular without mobile clients for both major phone platforms.
Things I have tried so far:
I installed the basic client called Patchwork, and created an identity. (For privacy, I didn't use my real name or picture.) You don't use a username/password, as your identity is stored as a "secret" on your computer. As long as you have that secret file, you are that identity on the Scuttlebutt network. As I was the only one on my local network that was running a Scuttlebutt client, there really wasn't much to see. Note: because you are identified by that "secret" file, you end up having a different identity for each computer you are using. You might be "me_laptop" and "me_desktop".
I connected to a pub using an automatic invite code that was given to me when I went to the web page of the pub. Suddenly I was able to see all kinds of posts, and also a bunch of "Channels" which you can think of as discussion groups. This also means that my computer had downloaded a bunch of content into my local database, which had grown to about 270MB in size. This is where the "off-grid" part comes in. I turned off my wifi and the Patchwork client essentially remained the same. I could continue to read through different discussions groups and post messages to my local database. After connecting again, my local database would "gossip" with the pub server or other local clients and exchange any new messages or content.
Another interesting feature of this "global mesh of append-only logs" is that I could wipe out my local database and then get my content back from the network of people I had exchanged messages with. I made a copy of my "secret" file, deleted my local Scuttlebutt database, and started up the Patchwork client again. Instead of creating a new identity, I then closed the Patchwork client and copied the secret file into my Scuttlebutt database directory, and started the Patchwork client up again. After connecting to the pub again, my Patchwork client downloaded the logs of the people I had connected with in the past, and those logs included all my messages and content. I was back in business.
It is a really neat system, but I do have some questions and concerns. After a long time, will my local database be way too huge? I'd have copies of all my stuff, all my friend's stuff, and all their friend's stuff, plus content from channels. Another worry I have is objectionable content. I don't want my computer to be storing pictures or messages of illegal stuff. I'm not sure how to prevent that unless I'm only ever connecting to a small group of very trusted people.
