Alternatives to online censorship

[dequire]

I canceled my G+ & YouTube and Gmail account a couple weeks ago after Google, Facebook and Twitter announced a "combined effort" to censor politically incorrect posts.

I've been looking into a neat P2P communication system called IPFS. It's at https://ipfs.io/

Please keep us posted on your experiences there. My guess is it will take a while to gain traction, but it could prove to be an invaluable asset down the road. Maybe even sooner than later!

[GreyGeek]

Please keep us posted on your experiences there. My guess is it will take a while to gain traction, but it could prove to be an invaluable asset down the road. Maybe even sooner than later!

Hard to say. There have been a gazzilion P2P networks arise over the years and they've either failed due to lack of users or they'be been sued out of existence. Here is a video demonstrating it:

I've got the IPFS firefox extension which, when firefox is connnected to the IPFS gateway, tells me how many peers I'm connected to, gives me my home page, my peer list, my files and my configuration.
. Last night I started with the 4 base peers and within an hour I had 72. I did the "ipfs diag net" command and got hashes for nearly 43,000 connections ("servers"), which I captured in a text file that is 3.5Mb. Connections are both ipv4 and ipv6. My SIXXS tunnel is seen as a native IPv6 connnection and is very fast. Using either the CLI or the "http://localhost:5001/ipfs/<your 2048 byte hash ID goes here>/#/" in FireFox's URL presents a browser connection to your connected peers. Everything and everybody is identified by a 2048 byte hash key and one does a lot of cut and pasting of hash keys to access files, pics and videos. It allows the creation of snapshots, both locally and on some peer somewhere (could be your own remote server) much like Btrfs's snapshots.

Here is a screen shot show the peers connected to my ID.


It will take some getting used to. With those hashes you really can't tell who you are connected to. You will need a photographic memory or a local database that tuples the human identity of the server, directory, or file with its 2048 byte hash so that you find known stuff. Browsing and posting like you were on Drudge, Facebook or G+ isn't there yet. It reminds me of the old BBS bulletin board service.

[GreyGeek]

Here is a short video explaining IPFS's hash.

And, the reason for IPFS:

[GreyGeek]

Here is why we need a national and international P2P.
https://stream.org/how-google-facebo...conservatives/

[GreyGeek]

I found yet another P2P system called "ZeroNet".
A reddit post describes the difference between it and IPFS:

Zero Net will probably have some IPFS support in the future. Zero Net acts more like a database/website and IPFS acts more like file storage.

Here is how to install it:

and here is a proxy address which you can look at in your browser without having to install Zeronet.
https://proxy1.zn.kindlyfire.me/1HeLLo4uzjaLetFxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ZeroNet allows access to onion websites as well. The latest ZeroNet documentation is here.

What is ZeroNet?

ZeroNet uses Bitcoin cryptography and BitTorrent technology to build a decentralized censorship-resistant network.
Users can publish static or dynamic websites into ZeroNet and visitors can choose to also serve the website. Websites will remain online even if it is being served by only one peer.
When a site is updated by its owner, all nodes serving that site (previous visitors) will receive only the incremental updates done to the site content.
ZeroNet comes with a built-in SQL database. This makes content-heavy site development easy. The DB is also synced with hosting nodes with incremental updates.
...
Features

• Easy, zero configuration setup.
• Password-less BIP32 based authorization: Your account is protected by the same cryptography as your Bitcoin wallet.
• Real-time updated sites.
• Namecoin .bit domains support.
• SQL Database support: Allows for easier site development and faster page load times.
• Anonymity: Full Tor network support with .onion hidden services instead of ipv4 addresses
• TLS encrypted connections.
• Automatic, uPnP port opening.
• Plugin for multiuser (openproxy) support.
• Works with any browser/OS.

...
How does it work?

• After you install and run ZeroNet, you open a site by visiting: http://127.0.0.1:43110/{zeronet_site_address} (eg. http://127.0.0.1:43110/1HeLLo4uzjaLe...PMwFP3qbRbTf3D).
• ZeroNet will then use the BitTorrent network to find peers that are seeding the site and will download the site content (HTML, CSS, JS...) from these peers.
• Each visited site becomes also served by you.
• Every site contains a list of all files used in the site in a SHA512 hash and a signature generated using the site owner private key.
• If the site owner modifies the site, then he/she signs a new list and publishes it to the peers. After the peers have verified the files list integrity (using the signature), they download the modified files and publish the new content to other peers.
  

IF I understand the docs correctly then with ZeroNet I eventually become a server for all the content of all the sites I visit! If that is true then I need a FAST machine with a TB drive and more than 1GB of Internet bandwidth from my ISP. I hope I am wrong, otherwise this seems too impractical.

[GreyGeek]

Here is another explanation I found:

ZeroNet

ZeroNet is a decentralized network of peer-to-peer users. It is built in Python and fully open source. Sites have specific addresses which can be accessed through a browser when using its client. ZeroNet is not anonymous by default, but users can hide their IP address by using the built in Tor-functionality. ZeroNet uses Bitcoin cryptography and the BitTorrent network.
Users can publish static or dynamic websites into ZeroNet and visitors automatically serve the visited website from their computer, with the option to stop serving the website at any time by either pausing or deleting it. Sites will remain online even if it is being served by only one peer.
When changes are published by the site owner, connected nodes serving that site (previous visitors) will receive the updates done to the site's content.
ZeroNet comes with a built-in SQL database. This makes content-heavy site development easy. The database is also synced with hosting nodes.
The existence of peer-to-peer online websites had been hypothesized for some time, with The Pirate Bay suggesting they would build such network, as well as BitTorrent Inc. which created the closed source Project Maelstrom. One other similar project is MaidSafe, though it has not yet seen widespread use, and has been said to focus more on file storage.

A list of ZeroNet pages, or zites, starts here, but you have to install ZeroNet to see them because the links begin with the loopback address!

At my current level of understanding of ZeroNet, which is barely above nothing, I'd be inclined to run it inside a VB guest OS, or chroot it, or perhaps firejail.

[GreyGeek]

Another reason!

And to those of you who say, “Forget Facebook, we’ll do without it,” I say no. I am sick and tired of the suppression of our speech. We are unable to engage in the public square. And yes, Facebook is the public square; it’s where we connect. We have to fight for it. Shouting into the wilderness is not freedom of speech.

[GreyGeek]

Everything you wanted to know about VPN's but didn't know where to ask!.

[vsmmath]

Thank you GreyGeek, I had not read about it anywhere. Just registered. I am logged in, but clicking on wiki and manual is not taking me anywhere. I will try again.

[GreyGeek]

Which wiki? IPFS or ZeroNet?

[vsmmath]

ZeoNet

[GreyGeek]

http://zeronet.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

[vsmmath]

http://zeronet.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Thank you, this is awesome. I was just browsing. I will visit the above site now.

For the fun of it I installed Chrome to-day. I do not have anything to communicate with my daughter if I do not use WhatsApp. She has Hangout. From the time I downloaded Kubuntu I am exploring and reinstalling......etc. Enjoying Kubuntu really. I love this OS.

[GreyGeek]

Thank you, this is awesome. I was just browsing. I will visit the above site now.

For the fun of it I installed Chrome to-day. I do not have anything to communicate with my daughter if I do not use WhatsApp. She has Hangout. From the time I downloaded Kubuntu I am exploring and reinstalling......etc. Enjoying Kubuntu really. I love this OS.

Kubuntu is great! Best distro I've every run, and I've been running Linux since May of 1998. The site for install instructions on Linux for ZeroNet is here.
The 32 byte RSA key that you'll get when you install ZeroNet is also the "URL" of your own home page. It's IP will be something like "http://127.0.0.1/43110/1HeLLo4uzjaLetFx6NH3PMwFP3qbRbTf3D"
The vertical dots in the upper left corner of the screen, just to the right of "ZeroNet" produces a menu, and one item is "shut ZeroNet down". That will cause a scrolling button to appear in the upper right corner. Click on it to stop the ZeroNet daemon. I also noticed that sometimes the daemon doesn't die when you quit ZeroNet, so I launch KSysmonitor and look for something like "xcmb ..." and end its process. ZeroNet uses port 15441 so if you have a firewall you may want to put both a TCP and UDP hole hole through it with a source of 0.0.0.0/0 and destination of your LAN ISP (mine is 192.168.1.111 because I use my eth0 card's MAC address to create a static local IP address specifically so I can have fixed holes for Minecraft and other apps which have remote connections. My Linksys E2500 wifi router with DD-WRT firmware also has a Linux firewall and I identical hole in it as well. That way, if I take my laptop to another location I still have firewall protection.

The 15441 hole isn't necessary, but the docs says that ZeroNet will run faster with it, and that it does. However, I was never able to get the Tor connection going. It always gave me a Python script error indicating a socket problem, even thought I used the torsocket in the repository and also installed the tor-browser.

Another info bit to notice is that because you become a server for every site you visit your bandwidth may be taxed. There are settings to limit the total bytes down the pipe to 40GB and up the pipe to 40GB, making a total of 80GB per month. Or, you can refuse to serve any sites you visit and keep your bandwidth usage low. The settings are accessed through the configuration link.

[TWPonKubuntu]

I'm pleased that there is an option to not act as a peer. My bandwidth ($$$$) just won't support it.