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   Mark Hughes (markhughes@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2023 06:12:19 JST Mark Hughes

   • Ryan Barrett

   @snarfed.org the weakness of both is the reliance on servers.

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     Blake Leonard (blake@fosstodon.org)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2023 06:21:51 JST Blake Leonard

     in reply to

     • Ryan Barrett

     @markhughes @snarfed.org Servers provide a significant efficiency benefit, among other things. Even Nostr uses servers, although it could probably be done peer-to-peer. "Real" P2P distributed services/apps tend to drop too much data, and are not reliable for connections or history either.

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   • Embed this notice
     Mark Hughes (markhughes@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 20-May-2023 07:02:51 JST Mark Hughes

     in reply to

     • Blake Leonard
     • Ryan Barrett

     @blake @snarfed.org
     That existing p2p has weakness doesn't negate the problems which are inherent in servers. Efficiency in centralisation is no compensation for its downsides.

     p2p on the other hand is being improved and I believe can solve the issues you mention.

     Nostr uses servers. Bluesky uses servers. Matrix, fedi, Solid🤦♂️

     Let's get real. What are they all playing at?l 🤷♂️

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     Éamonn (eob@social.coop)'s status on Monday, 05-Jun-2023 12:48:16 JST Éamonn

     in reply to

     • Blake Leonard
     • Ryan Barrett

     @markhughes @blake @snarfed.org I wish it were possible to avoid servers, but I don't think it is

     I think you need servers involved in at least the initial connection setup

     Most people's devices are behind gateways and don't have their own globally accessible IP address, so you cannot just reach out and connect to them

     And then there is the key exchange problem. How do you set up a secure channel without a server-based key exchange protocol?

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     Mark Hughes (markhughes@mastodon.social)'s status on Monday, 05-Jun-2023 20:07:49 JST Mark Hughes

     in reply to

     • Blake Leonard
     • Éamonn
     • Ryan Barrett

     @eob @blake @snarfed.org

     You don't need a public IP address to use p2p. Take a look at NAT traversal (eg in libp2p) which supports connection over TCP behind hike routers.

     As for setup, once you have an autonomous network this performs the rule of a server, but using p2p nodes rather than a centralised server.

     You can also authenticate with such a network without storing credentials on the network.

     There is no reason you can't do away with servers. It is hard, but solvable.