On Tuesday 16 June 2009 22:17:44 Evan Daniel wrote: > >> > > >> > Agreed. The closest thing we have at the moment is Thingamablog. It > >> > doesn't have a forum. > >> >> > >> >> Third, Twitter seems to be a very popular way to communicate there. > >> >> How hard would it be to create a Twitter equivalent over Freenet? ?How > >> >> low could the latency be? ?The 160 character limit on messages is > >> >> probably helpful here -- along with some metadata and a couple links > >> >> to other tweets, it should all fit in a single 1KiB SSK. ?As always, > >> >> searching and spam resistance are potential problems. > >> > > >> > Page-embedded forums could be close IMHO. Of course they would be > >> > slowish. > >> > >> Could something designed specifically as a twitter replacement be > >> faster? ?Of course, properly cloning twitter requires the ability to > >> search on hashtags, which is probably nontrivial. > > > > No, because of spam. IMHO the fundamental design issue is spam. However, it > > doesn't have to be hideously slow. > > Well, we've already established that I think spam is a more tractable > problem than some people do :) > > It would use the same WoT plugin as Freetalk, right? Shouldn't the > spam problem be equally tractable (or intractable) for Freetalk and a > twitter clone?
Sure. And equally slow with outbox polling. But IMHO outbox polling can be fairly fast even now (with ULPRs), and with passive requests could be very fast. What is the difference between a Twitter clone and a blog wizard with an embedded Freetalk forum? > > >> >> Fourth, distribution of Freenet itself is important. ?That means an > >> >> offline installer. ?I think we should consider going back to serving > >> >> the bundle of offline installer + noderef from the web interface. > >> > > >> > We ship an offline installer for all platforms as of before releasing > >> > 0.7.5. Redistribution over HTTP would be easy to block, and would > >> > require forwarding an HTTP port. > >> > >> Suppose the main project page is blocked, but I have a friend running > >> Freenet. ?How do I run Freenet? ?If his nodes' web interface had a > >> link that said "click here to download a redistributable installer" > >> then he could easily give it to me, even if the node doesn't serve > >> external html. ?IMHO, the case where a user manages to get Freenet > >> running behind such a wall and then has even a small amount of > >> difficulty helping his friend set it up is *bad*. > > > > Even if he got his friend to run it, a single darknet connection makes for > > very poor performance/reliability. > > > > But yes, inserting the two main installers into an SSK sequence and having > > nodes download them and allow users to download them *locally* is a good > > idea; this isn't a distribution servlet, it isn't open to the wider world, > > but it allows them to get an installer to send to their friend, even if > > they installed months ago, lost the original installer, and the route by > > which they obtained the installer is now closed. > > > > So the proposal is that we insert the installers along with the update > > jars, and have *all* nodes download them, and make them available to the > > user? At least as a first approximation? If you think this is a good idea I > > will file a bug for it. > > Yes, that's my basic proposal. Good, there is a bug filed for this. > For the more general case, consider if > there's a small network of Freenet users inside Iran, and *then* the > big newsworthy event happens, causing a simultaneous increase in the > amount of censorship and in the interest in installing Freenet. > Having the installers readily available, even if the user deleted the > one they installed from (or downloaded the Windows installer when > their friend runs Linux) is a good thing. And in that scenario, it's > not hard to imagine getting several darknet connections, but still > having trouble finding a copy of the installer if the new users vastly > outnumber the established ones. Right. They used Tor to get it but are having difficulty getting that to work at the moment because of restrictions imposed by the authorities. > > Presumably they could be updated on a slightly slower schedule than > the update jars, if the size of the upload is problematic for you when > releasing a new build. No, it's not. They just get pushed at a lower priority level, so they complete after everything else. > > >> >> Fifth, how well would Freenet work with wifi mesh networking (not a > >> >> subject I know much about...)? ?Is there a way to use Freenet's > >> >> routing to create long useful links over multiple wifi hops? ?Normally > >> >> the problem with making mesh networking useful is routing -- but > >> >> Freenet already has a fairly good architecture in place to handle > >> >> that. ?It should just be a matter of setting up darknet links on > >> >> different interfaces easily, right? > >> > > >> > Maybe. > >> > >> IMHO testing of this scenario, and copious documentation on how to get > >> Freenet running in it, would be a good thing. > > > > Possibly. One serious issue is that it doesn't really fit with the required > > topology: lots of short links and a few long links. For a small darknet > > that's not a big problem, but for a small darknet there may be other tools > > that fit better. > > What if the topology of the mesh network was a bunch of nodes that > mostly only had short local connections, but that some nodes had > managed to get an illicit Internet connection? I suspect that in the > interesting scenarios, connections to the Internet are neither > nonexistent nor common. Yeah, it *might* work. Note that wifi meshes generally use ad hoc mode and omnis. Freenet doesn't change this hardware fact. You will have scaling issues because of routing table updates, even if you are not actually routing any data. But it should be acceptable. A seriously heterogenous network like this might benefit significantly from more flexible load management i.e. token passing... > > >> >> We've already discussed it to death in the past, so I'd prefer to > >> >> avoid an in-depth discussion on the technical aspects, but I think > >> >> this is a situation where Freenet over sneakernet might be useful -- > >> >> limited but nonzero network connectivity, combined with a > >> >> geographically compact and motivated user base, and a desire to send > >> >> large amounts of data (photos and videos from protests can be much > >> >> more powerful than mere descriptions of them, for example). ?The > >> >> bandwidth represented by swapping relatively cheap USB keys is > >> >> significant, even in comparison to a wifi link. > >> > > >> > Agreed. But most people here disagree. However, the current long term > >> > plans (bloom filters in 0.8, new load management in 0.9, persistent and > >> > passive requests in 0.10) fit very nicely with Sneakernet and other > >> > non-constant-connectivity / non-end-to-end transports being introduced > >> > some time around 1.0. > >> >> > >> >> Have I covered the major points? ?Are there any other must-have > >> >> features? ?Also, giving some thought to funding might be appropriate. > >> >> Are there organizations we could approach with a specific list of > >> >> features we want to add, and just need funding / developer time / > >> >> translator time to make possible? ?Things like a freesite insertion > >> >> wizard would probably take a bit of effort from a competent developer, > >> >> but unless I'm mistaken that developer wouldn't have to be intimately > >> >> familiar with Freenet. > >> > > >> > We have tried to do that with SoC in the past, without much success - > >> > the Echo plugin for example. > >> > > >> > If you have any suggestions for funding applications, talk to Ian. > >> > >> I'll give it some thought. ?Having clear written proposals about what > >> we could do with the money is probably a prerequisite to requesting > >> it, and probably only marginally dependent on who we ask. > > > > Great. > > > > Re creating websites, IMHO a wizard to upload existing content is > > important, and fairly easy. Creating new sites using templates, being a > > combined blog, forum, picture and filesharing site, should not be that > > difficult, we just need some code to steal... and we need a working forums > > system. IMHO Freetalk is more urgent and more important. > > I'm inclined to agree about Freetalk being more important. A simple > way to add content in freesite form should be not far behind it, > though. (And for a more mundane reason: right now, a lot of our new > users look around and decide there isn't much content. They never set > up Frost or FMS. Having an active collection of blogs would give them > something to explore when first setting up Freenet.) Yeah... well, I dunno if any of us is really competent to write from scratch a blog-with-forum-with-files-with-pictures-with-lots-of-nice-themes-to-choose-from thing... Surely there is something we could adapt? Thingamablog, but it's an external application... > > Evan Daniel -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 835 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part. URL: <https://emu.freenetproject.org/pipermail/tech/attachments/20090617/2397490f/attachment.pgp>
