Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.dne3.net!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Toaster Newsgroups: news.software.nntp Subject: Re: ad-hoc wifi news transport Date: Fri, 4 Apr 2025 19:21:45 -0400 Message-ID: <20250404192145.00006d0f@dne3.net> References: <20250320204547.0000274b@dne3.net> <874izak212.fsf@gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Info: news.dne3.net; logging-data="67989"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@dne3.net" Bytes: 5709 Lines: 103 On Fri, 04 Apr 2025 10:13:46 -0300 Ethan Carter wrote: > bp@www.zefox.net writes: > > > Ethan Carter wrote: > >> Toaster writes: > >> > >>> Posting this here (was on comp.misc) > >>> > >>> I was researching NNTP and came across this project: > >>> > >>> https://github.com/nntpchan/nntpchan/ > >>> > >>> Using NNTP as a base protocol for other services. Personally, I > >>> think it's a great idea, and it got me thinking. > >>> > >>> Wireless ad-hoc mesh networks are an interest of mine. Normally > >>> the purpose of the network is to route traditional TCP/IP > >>> protocol stacks on top of whatever routing technology (like > >>> babel). But for radios, they broadcast out naturally, it seems > >>> like a service like news/store and forward message sending would > >>> be a natural fit. > >>> > >>> The idea is to use a smart flooding algorithm, like uflood > >>> (https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/~jaya/uflood_thesis.pdf) and skip all the > >>> routing/high speed packet delivery problems and just flood news > >>> articles over it. I think it would be a good fit. > >>> > >>> Usenet is already decentralized, decentralizing the > >>> infrastructure seems like a cool idea. If I were going to do it, > >>> I'd add some kind of proof-of-work scheme to prevent spamming the > >>> network. Bandwidth would be low due to the air-time of a large > >>> mesh network being saturated, but I see that as a plus, prevents > >>> abuse (spamming binaries on the net). > >>> > >>> It's half baked, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there and > >>> see if other work has already been done on something like this. > >> > >> Everything in your post looks interesting, but I'm reading it all > >> for the first time. I would have liked a slower presentation of > >> everything. For instance, nntpchan.net is down. I'm asking for > >> help on their IRC channel at Rizon. It's not clear what it aims > >> to achieve, but it looks interesting. > >> > >> What I'm working on right now is an NNTP server for a small > >> community. So far the server is not able to peer itself with > >> another one. Where am I going? I see a lot of websites hosting > >> forums. That's the wrong thing to do. These forums should have > >> an interface-independent storage that provides the data for a web > >> interface as well as others such as NNTP itself. > >> > >> I'm beginning the work with the NNTP protocol because it allows us > >> to use the system right away with all the NNTP clients out there. > >> But I plan to build an HTTP API with which people can build their > >> web preferred web interface and then power their communities. > >> > >> But I'm aware you're talking about something considerably lower > >> level here---which is also interesting. Perhaps I could keep the > >> idea in mind while I work on this project. > > > > To a degree, ad-hoc wifi bears some resemblance to the dialup > > connections used in the days of UUCP. I wonder if a UUCP-like > > approach, at some level in the stack, might be useful. > > A UUCP approach sounds nice for peering. Now, typically servers would > peer by plain TCP, so the server should plan for a UUCP-type of > exchange ahead of time. I am not there yet, but I'll keep that in > mind. I believe a UUCP-type of exchange might be too much for a > first release with peering support. I also think we should take > advantage of what's available. I think TCP plus NNTP is what the > most popular servers do. > > > AIUI, NNTP relies on always-on, always-same network connections. > > I think a server can come online, fetch all articles their peers want > to deliver and then disconnect. But, yes, I think peers register > their peers and communicate with the same ones always. I don't think > we should go towards a discovery of peers, say. > > > UUCP functions with mostly-off, manually configured connections. > > That seems like dialup. > > That makes sense. My original idea was to leverage wifi's characteristics to propagate articles in a flooding manner. It bypasses all of the complexity of ad-hoc wifi peering and uses all of the strengths of a radio based broadcast medium. It'd be anonymous and virtually uncensorable. (and free transport with no configuration or centralized anything) Using the internet, I'd just use NNTP. UUCP would work for serial links or the like, but NNTP already exists, so why not use it? But don't stop there, imo NNTPchan should have leveraged the existing usenet network instead of having another separate network of incompatible servers. Just make a top level hierarchy and use that for the service data, or under alt, who cares. I think the problem is going to be getting people to use it, as it stands alot of people like having control over their own little communities. Bad news is good data can just disappear forever. So many lost geocities pages full of content gone. :(