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Twister: The Fully Decentralized P2P Microblogging Platform

Posted by Unknown on from the not-at&t-approved dept.

New submitter miguelfreitas writes "I'd like to offer for discussion with Slashdot readers this new proposal: twister is the fully decentralized P2P microblogging platform leveraging from the free software implementations of Bitcoin and BitTorrent protocols. This is not being pushed by any company or organization, it is the work of a single Brazilian researcher (me). The idea is to provide a scalable platform for censor-resistant public posting together with private messaging with end-to-end encryption. The basic concepts are described in FAQ while more in-depth technical details are available from the white paper. The twister network is running already: the client can be compiled for Linux, Mac, and Android. 2500 usernames were registered in the first 6 days."

7 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Registered? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How do you register a username in a fully decentralized environment?

    1. Re:Registered? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They have a complicated bitcoin like system to approve user registry, and provide incentives to "mine" in order to keep the system moving and deliver messages. It seems a bit odd to me - why bother with all that complexity and instead build into the system a way to quickly determine false aliases? Your user name is whatever you say it is, your identification uses standard signed credentials. Your "identity" in this system is your user name and post history. That's your identity - if the user name changes, your post history doesn't. So the important part can't be spoofed. A good client can easily cache "known" aliases - if I'm "@Dave" on this system, then folks will trust me as @Dave. If another "@Dave" posts, I can weed him out or assign him "@Dave1" or something else. All actual addressing, references, etc. should use public keys as identifiers - if you're addressing someone only they can read it. These keys are then translated into aliases based on the user's advertised alias or the local client's cache preferences.

  2. Re:2500 people added to NSA watch list by Antipater · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The more you tighten your grip, Clapper, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

    --
    Everything is better with chainsaws.
  3. Nope. by RandomUsername99 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, but your counter-troll failed harder. A company I was working for got bought out by IBM, and I was really excited about it, because from the outside they looked like they were making a huge push towards using linux as their primary OS, and open source software in general. (I ended up working for them for about 5 years.)They managed to get Notes, their primary communication tool, working almost as well on Linux as it worked on Windows... which is not particularly well... but they haven't even ported over many of their basic tools, such as their ticket tracking systems, which are used to track development as well, to Linux. As of a few years ago, they said that they were going to stop attempting to port those tools over. For server operating systems, in many applications, they're still relentlessly pushing their developers to concentrate on coding for AIX over linux.

    They've got a bright shiny image put forth from their marketing department as one big unified force pushing for workplace innovation, but the way the company actually works is much more like the government Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil.' Their linux workstation project was an underfunded, disorganized yet highly publicized project put together during their big linux marketing push. I don't even think 25% of the company directly touches linux on a daily basis, let alone the absolutely laughable assertion that 90% of the company uses linux as a primary desktop OS.

  4. Re:Same problem Bitcoin will have by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's a funded KickStarter in progress called Trsst that has very similar goals, but uses a different approach. It's not quite as distributed as this, but avoids the monster blockchain problem.

  5. Good point! by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Interesting

    then how do you stop some bot taking many usernames every second? (doesn't say in the FAQ, and it could be a real problem if multiple bots try to generate many usernames each)

    That's an interesting and insightful point.

    I'm going to forward it to Miguel and the people over at the Twister forum (unless you'd like to do it - I'll hold off for a couple of hours in case you do).

    This is exactly what they need. A nascent project looking for feedback from smart, informed, and motivated users.

  6. I hope you use /. style random-user moderation by ivi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Last time I checked, /. comments could be rated
    by randomly selected [registered] readers,

    I hope you've got a similar scheme i Twister...?