"vs." being an abbreviation for versus carries an entirely different meaning than the intended version.
Then it starts off saying that you're going to need a "vtree", and for that obviously you need a "V-tron" and that's about where I gave up.
It was like trying to read something from a parallel world.
> Pest is a peer-to-peer network protocol intended for IRC-style chat. It is designed for decentralization of control, resistance to natural and artificial interference, and fits-in-head mechanical simplicity -- in that order.
> Pest explicitly rejects the inherently-centralizing concepts of IRC
> An IRC server is typically inhabited by a multitude of casual users and policed by a small group of privileged curators. A Pest station, on the other hand, is under the exclusive control of one person: its operator.
> 1.2.2. Nets Instead of Channels.
> Pest stations organize into nets. A net is formed by a group of station operators with a common interest. An operator who wishes to join a net must peer with at least one of the stations in that net. A broadcast message is sent to every member of a station's net. Nets may easily and organically undergo schismatic splits, or, on the contrary, combine into larger nets, whenever the individual station operators so desire.
This is interesting stuff. The basic model seems kind of elegant and should be relatively straightforward to implement. It also seems like it should be relatively easy to set up a station that "bridges" to other chat platforms like Matrix, IRC, etc.
However I suspect that moderation being nonexistent could pose a problem. Un-peering with somebody is equivalent to blocking them, which is certainly a valid tool for dealing with troublemakers, but it doesn't carry the same weight as being able to centrally found somebody. But I suppose that's part of the deliberate design here.
> 1.2.4. Messages are Authenticable, but not Opposable.
> All Pest messages are authenticable -- a station will only process a message if it carries a valid signature from a peer (though in some cases, the message may not have been authored by that peer.)
> However, they are also repudiatable (i.e. non-opposable) -- since all packet signatures are produced with symmetric keys, the recipient of a message cannot, at any point in time, prove to a third party that he was not in fact the author of that message.
So basically there is intentionally no way to prevent message forgery by the recipient. Why?
Also tbh. how can I trust a person who in 2021 still hasn't understood that/why HTTPS is important for security even if you only provide read only content with making proper crypto/security decisions?
This flame is doubly funny given how the article specifically concerns algorithms for possible decentralized cryptonets.
HTTPSism is deliberately broken on my WWW, to annoy unthinking servants of the PKI Reich.
For the thick: at the start, there is a PGP-signed copy of the text offered. And yes I in fact live and die by my PGP identity. And not Verisign et al's NSA-controlled PKI horror, no.
This stops stuff you say in chat from following you around, unless you choose to sign it with your regular private key.
I would want a system where I cannot repudiate messages that I sent, but I must repudiate (i.e. cannot claim authorship of) messages that I did not send.
As far as I understand, isn't that how asymmetric encryption typically works? What's the advantage of symmetric encryption in this case?
Do I allow a hearsay message to fork one of my peers? Can a rouge peer just come in, fork everyone, and leave?
Also: there is a claim of being DDOS-proof, but I haven't found an explanation as to how.
Also: is there actual implementation or even a mock?
