So now that decentralized forums are more than an intellectual exercise..

[IamnottheNSA]

Just to sperg a bit: to my mind, at least half the issues revolve around the fact that the physical layer of the network (cabling and associated switchgear) are in the hands of a comparatively small number of highly influential individuals. As those people are subject to the legal and financial systems of society, a point of attack opens up for activists, politicians and other assorted despicable human scum to force corruption into the network.

Decentralizing ownership of that physical layer would remove the vulnerability.

As it stands right now, the only way around this problem is AX.25. But that only can go as fast as 9600bps and only as far as your amateur radio can transmit/receive.

 

[hundredpercent]

Decentralizing ownership of that physical layer would remove the vulnerability. Superficially, mesh networking deployed on wide scale appears that it could offer that. I'm not acquainted with the technology, however, and remember there being known flaws in routing protocols last time I looked into it. Perhaps some of you are better able to comment.

How are you gonna build P2P mesh networking cables over the ocean? Those are huge capital investments, it's not just something you do as a hobby.

 

[Stabmaster Arson]

How are you gonna build P2P mesh networking cables over the ocean? Those are huge capital investments, it's not just something you do as a hobby.

You'd have to hack a satellite I guess.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

As I mentioned on poa.st, the poa.st and other twitter-style threads could be displayed instead as a Forum thread. I mean, really, it's just a top level reply and then everyone's replying to that top level reply, that data model works both for twitter threads and forum threads. As a bonus, subforums and even forums themselves could just be another "post" in the "thread."

I believe there might be challenges in data loading, but who knows?

I don't know how the Fediverse handles shit when a node dies. Do all of their posts vanish, but the replies survive? Some redundancy could be engineered, perhaps, if people are engineering a Fediverse-Forum-Threadview.

I try to think as little as possible, can't be healthy, but here's a thought... Remember how the idea of 4chan started? Moot had an index pointing to different boards(all 2chan of course), the board names were translated, that was it.

So what if kiwifarms were cut into pieces and hosted in different locations with an index that works as a frontpage? On Tor or something like it of course. Subforums would have their own server and address if needed and super-threads could be spun out to have their own server/address if needed. But all of it looks and acts like it does now unless you look at the url. Except credentials would be a pain in the ass to manage as you move around forums and threads.

 

[hundredpercent]

I try to think as little as possible, can't be healthy, but here's a thought... Remember how the idea of 4chan started? Moot had an index pointing to different boards(all 2chan of course), the board names were translated, that was it.

So what if kiwifarms were cut into pieces and hosted in different locations with an index that works as a frontpage? On Tor or something like it of course. Subforums would have their own server and address if needed and super-threads could be spun out to have their own server/address if needed. But all of it looks and acts like it does now unless you look at the url. Except credentials would be a pain in the ass to manage as you move around forums and threads.

What's the point? KF on Tor is already a solved problem. This won't solve the DDoS protection issues, and load balancers already exist.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

What's the point?

To make something similar to Fediverse except it looks and acts like this forum instead of twitter.

 

[Ridikikity]

There's nothing stopping us from doing that right now on Xenforo to give it a test drive. We could defrock all our mods, enable guest posting, encourage use of the "Ignore User" feature, and maybe even make up an "Ignore Post" feature to supplement it. People could make up a new version of BlockTogether to share their blocklists. Do you think it would be an improvement?

We're being stopped by how bad actors "somehow" always have a stash of CP ready to upload to any site they want taken down. We'd need decentralized infrastructure too, otherwise get the whole system would get taken down before we could even decide if the new model was unbearable or not.

 

[Slime Tube]

I try to think as little as possible, can't be healthy, but here's a thought... Remember how the idea of 4chan started? Moot had an index pointing to different boards(all 2chan of course), the board names were translated, that was it.

So what if kiwifarms were cut into pieces and hosted in different locations with an index that works as a frontpage? On Tor or something like it of course. Subforums would have their own server and address if needed and super-threads could be spun out to have their own server/address if needed. But all of it looks and acts like it does now unless you look at the url. Except credentials would be a pain in the ass to manage as you move around forums and threads.

Something similar to nntpchan?

 

[Mittens]

For those mentioning usenet, there was also FIDONet, which iirc was moderated at the node level before being sent along.

I think all you'd need is a pretty front end that uses the usenet/fidonet protocols without giving users flashbacks to the compuserv days. They don't have to interact with it directly.

 

[Spasticus Autisticus]

As it stands right now, the only way around this problem is AX.25. But that only can go as fast as 9600bps and only as far as your amateur radio can transmit/receive.

No need to use ancient tech to transport TCP/IP over radio. 802.11 can work just fine, and there are already hams out there using it for high-speed links e.g. HamWAN. But ham bands aren't going to be useful for shitposting about lolcows. You need a license and encryption isn't allowed so you're basically self-doxing with every transmission. There is LoRa which is quite slow but works with weak signals and there's plenty of hardware out there that works on unlicensed spectrum.

I still maintain that the biggest problem is moderating a decentralized medium. The physical transport layer becomes much less of an issue if the source of the content can move between places easily.

 

[byuu]

I think all you'd need is a pretty front end that uses the usenet/fidonet protocols without giving users flashbacks to the compuserv days. They don't have to interact with it directly.

Already exists.
This regular looking forum is based on usenet groups and mailing lists: https://forum.dlang.org

 

[HTTP Error 404]

For those mentioning usenet, there was also FIDONet, which iirc was moderated at the node level before being sent along.

I think all you'd need is a pretty front end that uses the usenet/fidonet protocols without giving users flashbacks to the compuserv days. They don't have to interact with it directly.

Dude.

DUDE.

We need a Kiwi Farms WWIV BBS. With Tradewars and LORD and other door games.

(Dear god I'm old.)

 

[Pee Cola]

For those mentioning usenet, there was also FIDONet, which iirc was moderated at the node level before being sent along.

FidoNet had crossed my mind too, but there are still a few issues.

Like you said, moderation is at node level. It's been nearly 30 years since I last used FidoNet, but I'm pretty use it works like moderated Usenet newsgroups in that all posts go to a janny who needs to approve them for release.

That said, I'm pretty sure the FidoNet protocol specs are out there, so it shouldn't be too difficult for someone to come up with something offers the benefits of FidoNet i.e. decentralisation with messages stored across thousands of sites whilst mitigating some of the pitfalls i.e. nodelists that require sysops and points to dox themselves.

Going back to the first point about moderation, that could probably be solved to some extent by having certain trusted users across the network that can mark messages to be deleted. This in turn would send through a command to delete the marked post. However it could take a couple of days for all copies of this message to be deleted across the entire network.

The biggest paradigm shift would be the expectation of immediacy that current year internet has baked into its users. Getting people used to having to wait hours or days for a response could be the hardest sell of all.

Dude.

DUDE.

We need a Kiwi Farms WWIV BBS. With Tradewars and LORD and other door games.

(Dear god I'm old.)

--- WWIV BBS
* Origin: KiWi PHaRMZ BBS-41 Lines-TRADEWARS-LORD(555)555-1488(1:420/69)

 

[mindlessobserver]

Genuinely curious. Now that we have such high levels of bandwidth available world wide, isn't it theoretically possible for a discussion forum to exist via torrenting? Every users harddrive being "the host". Its probably a security nightmare, but in my head it should be technically feasible depending on how large the individual packets are and how reliant the forum would be on how many people are "hosting" it.

 

[Barry McKockner]

Genuinely curious. Now that we have such high levels of bandwidth available world wide, isn't it theoretically possible for a discussion forum to exist via torrenting? Every users harddrive being "the host". Its probably a security nightmare, but in my head it should be technically feasible depending on how large the individual packets are and how reliant the forum would be on how many people are "hosting" it.

Ok, to keep the site up and running, we all get raspberry pis and set them up as dedicated KF nodes.

 

[your stupid]

Genuinely curious. Now that we have such high levels of bandwidth available world wide, isn't it theoretically possible for a discussion forum to exist via torrenting? Every users harddrive being "the host". Its probably a security nightmare, but in my head it should be technically feasible depending on how large the individual packets are and how reliant the forum would be on how many people are "hosting" it.

This is how ZeroNet works. There's quite a few problems with the concept, but if the forum was text-only, they'd be more manageable. Aside from the issue of CSAM attacks being potentially more ruinous to users, I think the sheer size of a forum like KF would be pushing the limits of what can feasibly be done P2P.

 

[Mittens]

Already exists.
This regular looking forum is based on usenet groups and mailing lists: https://forum.dlang.org

Thanks, that's tight af, is the forum source available?

 

[Barry McKockner]

This is how ZeroNet works. There's quite a few problems with the concept, but if the forum was text-only, they'd be more manageable. Aside from the issue of CSAM attacks being potentially more ruinous to users, I think the sheer size of a forum like KF would be pushing the limits of what can feasibly be done P2P.

I think if null said "hey, let kiwifarms use part of your storage and internet for our forum", you then take on the role of a provider with 230 protections, so as long as you remove when made aware, you should theoretically be safe.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Going back to the first point about moderation, that could probably be solved to some extent by having certain trusted users across the network that can mark messages to be deleted.

Managing the "trusted users list" is where the real tricky part lies. You don't want to just say "This user has mod powers", you want to say "All users on this list have mod powers, and the mod list can changed by people with permission to change it". This is easy enough when the mod list is a table in a centralized database, but gets trickier in the distributed case.
Similarly with permissioning in general.

 

[byuu]

Thanks, that's tight af, is the forum source available?

https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed