Discussion
To everybody currently experiencing the #Signal messenger downtime and precariousness of digital infrastructure that relies on servers, know that #Keet exists! It can preserve network connectivity and message deliverability in very degraded and hostile network conditions due to the absence of servers in its #p2p architecture.
The world needs resilient communications for what is to come. Don't let your whole network depend on one company.
@pospi Hi, I just discovered Keet through your post, thanks! I'm just curious though: any reason you'd know why they're only on X?
@nicolasfolliot maybe just historical reasons. The community actually mainly hangs out on Keet itself, there's a large public room advertised *somewhere* (somewhere obvious enough that I found it, anyways).
You could hop in there and ask the team. They're a friendly bunch :)
@pospi isn't this just depending on a different company?
@powersource yes and no. If you have the binary it's a fully functioning app and free forever, so not in the same way that server-run apps are.
In terms of maintenance and updates, we're dependent on @holepunch_to until they open-source the app. AFAIK (could be wrong) the delay is them holding on to the market advantage that their video compression + encryption algorithm gives, cos the quality is leagues above anything else. The networking stack is already open. Maybe it's gonna be a "wait for the patent, then the source code will follow" sort of situation.
@pospi yeah I feel like we were promised the source code a few years ago, and that alone wouldn't be enough. I'm gonna need a lot more to convince me to switch
@powersource yeah, I'm not talking about switching 🙂 I'm talking about backup resilient comms infrastructure. (And knowing you, maybe you're talking about #Scuttlebutt when you're talking about "switching", so 100% good point there with equivalence to #Keet- both are DHT-based handshake protocols that end in gossip peering; and one is OSS but the other is not.)
@racchio I don't know much about #Nostr, other than that it's a fascist-run project with a disastrous cultural history. But yes, #Keet is for IM and runs fully decentralised.
(I'm going to use that word rather than "distributed" as the architecture *does* actually facilitate the distribution of power as well as of compute & storage. It's also built by a pretty cool community of anarchists & anarcho-syndicalists, at least the ones I've met.)
@racchio there has been a lot of chatter about it on https://scuttlebutt.nz over the years, if you care to install Yet Another Distributed Social Network to dive deeper. It is the usual rhetoric & dog-whistles in #Nostr projects- "complete freedom of expression" "without the risk of de-platforming" predictably attracts bigots who want to shout hateful things. 'Big Tent' philosophy and the 'Nazi bar' outcome etc etc https://startup-weekly.com/Primal-launches-new-social-network-for-digital-freedom/
@racchio I've found @rabble's take on it to be a bit unfortunately underwhelming, given the antifascist work and organising that I know he does personally. I mostly read this post as deflection and free speech maximalism, but hey, one also has to wear a different hat when speaking on behalf of an organisation. In any case, I hope it's not too controversial to point out that the fact they've spoken about it publicly is indicative of the community discomfort around their political/moderation choices. https://www.nos.social/blog/on-nostr-fascism-and-the-ability-to-build-an-inclusive-digital-space
@pospi @racchio fiatjaf’s politics aren’t great but I think they’re also less coherent and thought out than the coverage makes out. It definitely is problematic. But the reason I work on permissionless social protocols is I don’t want to be dependent on the politics of one person or company. I do think there is good reason to kick someone out of your server or group or community if they don’t follow your values. But I’ll use tech from people I disagree with.
@pospi I certainly welcome decentralized alternatives to Signal, but it cannot seem to find the source code? I.e. how do I know the security guarantees they proclaim are true? (I did not audit signal myself, I should add, but I do trust the multiple different & independent reviews, like from soatok)
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