I've finally gotten around to publishing part 4 of my series on post-collapse computing.
https://blogs.gnome.org/tbernard/2023/01/10/post-collapse-computing-4
While this is the end of the series it's hopefully only the beginning of a larger resilience initiative within GNOME and free software more broadly. If you're interested in working on this I'd be very happy to hear from you.
Why not mentioning @matrix? It's not just a protocol for instance messaging, it's de facto a decentralized database with built-in access control lists and most importantly for your scope, if the network fragments because some servers go offline they will merge back seamlessly later, reintegrating the data and ensuring its consistency. And they are even working on P2P.
Also #IPFS seems like a well-established way to share files in a resilient way. It's like BitTorrent but with built-in deduplication because files are identified on the network by their own unique hash.
These plus mesh networks would already provide a very robust solution.
@post @tbernard Matrix is great.
But IPFS? Isn't that "Web3" Blockchain garbage associated with the worst of cryptocurrency crap, including NFTs? These things are actually anti-environment and speed up global warming and the collapse.
Their website @ https://ipfs.tech/ highlights this... I've attached a screenshot of the relevant part here.
@post @tbernard Oh, they make it sound like IPFS is Blockchain stuff. It's hard to know without digging further into it.
(Promoting "Web 3", Blockchain, and NFT stuff is not a good look though and concerning.)
Is it like "Secure Scuttlebutt" / "ManyVerse" (powered by SSB) and the link where you can't edit or delete anything? That would also be problematic.
Indeed it is a common misunderstanding to associate IPFS with the blockchain also because a cryptocurrency, Filecoin, was created together with IPFS, based on storage rather than on computing (therefore less energy-intensive I suppose) which was supposed to allow an economy that encourages the redundancy of data and therefore the resilience of the network. It is true that it is used in conjunction with NFTs but just because it is convenient to "own" just the IPFS address to an image.
About deleting data, it's really just like BitTorrent: as soon as there is someone that shares it it will be available to others, they just need to know the address instead of a .torrent file.
To be clear, I resisted cryptocurrencies from the very beginning thanks in part to the #ModernMonetaryTheory, whose proponents had framed Bitcoin as a speculative financial security (as opposed to actual money) as early as around 2010, when Bitcoin was still the plaything of techno-anarchists.
P.S. here there is a recent video on Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, NTFs and web3 that is worth sharing even with people who know nothing about these:
"Crypto: The World’s Greatest Scam."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORdWE_ffirg
It does a good job of revealing the speculative nature of this world in an entertaining way.
@garrett @tbernard
Also it's worth noting that Protocol Labs (the ones who invented and develop #IPFS) has hosted over the years a lot of conferences about research on protocols, check their YouTube channel, it has a great variety of high-level content:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJvMzILpV3b4AWXTEeQjcng
The focus of Protocol Labs, rather than supporting the world of cryptocurrencies, is to promote the development of protocols rather than services. #ProtocolsOverPlatforms #ProtocolsOverServices
We can say that #Fediverse is precisely this concept: a set of protocols like #ActivityPub as opposed to a centralized service.
Also notice that many are interested in taking advantage of IPFS both in #Matrix and in the Fediverse, in particular in #PeerTube that is currently based on #WebTorrent but it could also take advantage from IPFS deduplication and ease of helping with seeding.