FBXL Social

Lots of exciting #decentralization protocols and technology out there. Some are not ready for usage, others are not following the paradigm I prefer, I love that we're spoiled for choice.

IMO I still love #SecureScuttlebutt, for me it is still the best offline-first local-first gossip protocol out there. Yes, it has dangerous corners and design issues, but it works and I can build apps with it for my friends.

@soapdog

what is you preferred paradigm and what is your take on dat? 🙂

@serapath I see a lot of federation attempts or decentralization that can't work without relay nodes. I prefer how SSB works in which it can work without any of that.

@soapdog
hm, dat works without relay nodes and without "pubs".

if you run it on your device it connects directly to others leveraging state of the art distributed/assisted holepunching through random nods in the p2p network.

there is only one place where relays are required, but they can run on localhost, and thats when you want to use dat in a mainstream web browser 🙂

@serapath I like dat/hyper.

I was mainly thinking about ActivityPub, Nostr, ATProto

@soapdog

yeah all crap imho.
i mean - its a bit harsh, but... maybe its just my standards and having experienced ssb in the past.

now nostr is just build around a very particular community and technically more of a toy... in some way thats what also caused problems for ssb, even though it was much less a toy than nostr.

...but what i do like about nostr is that its the only ecosystem woth a plethora of clients and tools where your account is a keypair.

...makes it easy to explore good UX

@soapdog

but imho ssb's cousin is dat and it is still going - unlile ssb (sadly) .. and maybe it can finally hit prime time 😁 ...its about time and it took long enough, just because everyone was always obsessing about optimizing every part of dat before moving to the next layer, so it took for f*** ever to get it to a battle tested mature stack whoch can buils stuff like ssb 🙂

@serapath isn't dat and hyper the same thing?

Also, SSB is doing fine, not sure if you've seen what I been doing:

https://andregarzia.com/2026/01/three-months-of-poncho-wonky.html

@soapdog
> SSB is doing fine

If not totally extinct is not the same thing as doing fine then AngularJS is doing fine too, as is Internet Explorer ; )

@serapath

@soapdog Do you happen to know of any pubs or rooms for new SSB users?

@reaversion technically you don’t need them but they do make life much easier. The room hosted by tildefriends.net is one I been using lately ✨

@soapdog
> technically you don’t need them

... unless you want to do something weird and unexpected like ... find someone to talk to ; )

@reaversion

@soapdog oh yes, i think i saw you said not long ago to revive patchwork?

...will have to check.

and regardimg `dat`:
"hyper-*" are some of the most important modules of the dat stack, but there is an entire ecosystem of projets all making contributions and there is a 501c3 non profit public good company around dat too and there is a visi9n/mission to work towards a sustainable decentralized ecosystem with certain values all documented in a manifesto.

@strypey @soapdog

i am happy that ssb is alive then... wished though dat would be embraced by more instead, but it is what it is 🙂

@cy
> What was that non-blockchain network... Briar I think?

Briar is a neat experiment, but they've never shipped apps for anything but Android. The problem with depending on one OS ought to be obvious, Goggle's recent decision to start farming Android app devs is a good example;

https://keepandroidopen.org/

So until it's cross-platform, Briar is a fun toy, but not suitable for production use.

@soapdog

@strypey @reaversion lots of strong opinions there which I'll beg to disagree in a polite way. :)

(1/?)

@soapdog
> lots of strong opinions there which I'll beg to disagree in a polite way

I'm open to changing my mind. Here's my reasoning.

SSB is not quite extinct;

Most of the devs championing SSB have moved on. The Patchwork author moved on to ATProto. André abandoned SSB even before he abandoned ManyVerse. @rabble pivoted to Nostr. Other devs have also pivoted to replacements (Earthstar, Willow, P2Panda). I can't find any signs that even Dominic Tarr is still involved.

@reaversion

(2/?)

SSB is not quite extinct (cont'd);

Until I learned about your Poncho Wonky Patchwork fork in this thread, the only SSB app I knew that was still being actively developed was Tilde Friends. Which I've installed, but can't make head nor tail of how to use it. I've been teaching myself to use GUI software with no manual since I was a child, so if I can't figure out how to use it, I'd be surprised if anyone can without knowing the dev in person.

(3/?)

SSB is not quite extinct (cont'd);

Since there's no way to transfer my identity to a new app (one of the many reasons devs abandon SSB), I still open my unmaintained copy of ManyVerse every now and then. There's still a few people chatting there, but when I post, even to ask for help, I get ignored.

In summary, it would be unfair to say SSB is extinct. There are still 2 apps being developed, and some people using the network. But it is fair to say it's obsolete and mostly abandoned.

(4/4)

SSB apps needs pubs or roomservers;

In practice, an SSB app needs pubs or roomservers to maintain sufficient connections to get new posts and syndicate your own. Let alone to find anyone to talk to. *Unless* people you have in-person relationships with use SSB, and you see them frequently enough to exchange data sneakernet style. Which is the use case the protocol was designed for.

Without pubs or roomservers, or regular in-person data sync, you have a social app with no network ; )

@cy
> Dunno what one would be good though

Depends on your use case/ threat model. Ask yourself questions like; who do I want to communicate with and why? Are you looking for software for an existing group/ network of people who can make and action decisions about where to communicate? Are you wanting to adopt an app to make new contacts among its current network? How sensitive are the communications? Etc, etc.

@soapdog

@strypey Thanks, I appreciate the context! It's interesting that some of the SSB devs moved onto Bluesky and Nostr; afaik those are more centralized (even if federated) than SSB, which is highly distributed and P2P. I wonder if there any successor projects to SSB that have a similar distributed P2P design

(1/2)

@reaversion
> It's interesting that some of the SSB devs moved onto Bluesky and Nostr

Indeed. Maybe they offer features SSB can't?

> afaik those are more centralized (even if federated) than SSB

That's not really fair comment. Nostr has a very similar network structure, when you account for the fact that it's not really practical to use SSB without pubs/ roomservers as relays. Same with ATProto, as a protocol, although the current network structure is highly centralised around BS.

(2/2)

@reaversion
> I wonder if there any successor projects to SSB that have a similar distributed P2P design

I mention some above; Earthstar, Willow, P2Panda. André was developing another one before he abandoned ManyVerse but I'm not aware or any active use since 2024;

https://www.manyver.se/blog/2024-07-03/

But AFAICT this is all bleeding edge experimentation that could end at any time, with no warning. There's no obvious sign of adoption outside a tight dev community dogfooding their apps.

@cy
> I just use the Fediverse, nothing else seems worth bothering with

Same. Other than email and SMS, and occasional use of Matrix and even less often XMPP.

@soapdog

@strypey @cy the fediverse is indeed cool, but it is not the p2p I aim for. It is very costly to run an instance in terms of bandwidth and also it is server to server and that is just federation, which is cool in its own way but not comparable. It has the best of both worlds and also the worst.

@soapdog
> the fediverse is indeed cool, but it is not the p2p I aim for

Pure P2P networks have been the holy grail of every new generation of cypherpunks since the 90s. They've never worked out. Everything that's turned out to be practical for use beyond dogfooding has some kind of supernode, and that's not even a bad thing;

https://bridgeseat.substack.com/p/in-defence-of-servers

> It is very costly to run an instance in terms of bandwidth

If you use Mastodon, sure. There are much more efficient fediverse servers.

@cy

@reaversion @strypey Reaversion, just be aware that strypey opinions might not be representative of what other SSB users experience.

@soapdog
> strypey opinions might not be representative of what other SSB users experience

Indeed. Don't take my word for it. Ask Dominic, or André, or pfraze, or Rabble, or any of the other app developers who were totally onboard with SSB, and have moved on to other protocols. SSB is never going to be a practical comms tool for anyone but hobbyists.

That saidz I'm glad Soapdog and the Tilde Friends devs are enjoying their hobby projects. All power to them : )

@reaversion

@strypey @soapdog @cy

dat works now.
ppl keep ignoring it, but its battle tested and mature.

@strypey

younknow whats not experimental?

dat. dat works. its the oldest and most advanced and mature p2p system out there since bittorrent 🤷‍♀️

(1/3)

@cy
> gatekeeping supernodes

The option is there to be your own gatekeeper, eg with a GoToSocial instance. Most people *choose* to outsource this work. But no one is forced to.

> with no deniability

Huh?

> we're tied to one specific supernode

Not if you use Hubzilla, Streams, Forte, or other apps in theZot/Nomad branch of the 'verse.

Folks are working on FEPs for enabling other AP apps to become nomadic;

https://wedistribute.org/2024/03/activitypub-nomadic-identity/

@soapdog

(2/?)

@cy
> Also substack are Nazis so don't read them

I'm aware of the issues with SS;

https://disintermedia.net.nz/ghosting-substack/

Haven't yet had the time and spoons to republish those Bridge Seat posts so I can stop linking to SS. Hope you'll make an exception for the sake of this discussion.

(3/3)

@cyd
> Secure Scuttlebutt works just fine

It works. But with *many* limitations, which is why other devs have moved on. These include;

* can't use one ID in multiple apps/ devices
* can't delete or edit posts
* rare but unavoidable netsplits that fork your ID

> My only complaint is it uses a blockchain

As @soapdog says, it doesn't. Social apps using a blockchain have been tried;

https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Blockchain_Social_Media_Apps

AFAIK they have to sync the entire network and get bogged down by chain size.

@strypey

can recommend to use `dat` all the upsides, none of the downsides.

identity works multi device too. you can delete or edit posts too and nefsplits do nothing.

its not using blockchains or token either.

@cy @strypey

then ssb is a blockchain as well, even more so than dat. i understand that one can define it like that, but imho if there is no token/cryptocurrency involved i would not call it a blockchain. usually ppl hearing blockchain think of cryptocurrency.

if you'd call dat blockchain, one should be aware it means every peer usually creates loads of them and only they can write to it and also subscribes to loads of them only writable by others. consensus then means it was signed by owner🤷‍♀️

@cy @strypey

maybe just one addition. hypercore is also a low level building block.

i think the best way to experience dat is to use 3 modules instead and make a small demo

1. `corestore` (=persists all data)
2. `hyperswarm` (=p2p network)
3. `hyperdrive` (=p2p filesystem)

and next learn `autobase` (=multiple devices, one identity) 🙂

@cy @strypey

you can use the the dat p2p network without hypercore, but alao hypercore scales perfectly well, the more peers, the better it scales, just like torrents do, but then again in peer to peer you dont need global consensus.

i feel this is not really leading anywhere though 🙂

@cy @strypey

no you dont.
you start with a hypercore's public key as its address to lookup peers and sync some log entries torrent style. you also sync a handful of "tree nodes" (=merkle proof) with a merkle root signature to verify data integrity using the pubkey you started with.

verifying means you can sync data from any random peer bittorrent style, but you know the data is exacty what the author published and wasnt accidently or maliciously changed.

@cy @strypey

plenty of apps exist. dat-ecosystem has dozens of them, multiple messengers, vpn's, radios, filesharing tools, p2p maps, p2p rss readers and even browsers and runtimes.

@cy @strypey

every dat-ecosystem project has its own community.

since the keet p2p messenger is powered by the stack, you can find some technical support there.

The p2p maps project is called Mapeo.

But if anyone wants to try to build i can give some support as well 🙂

@strypey due to the nature of SSB itself, you can't know how many people are using it. If they're more than 2 hops away from you, you won't see them at all. ManyVerse runs with hops 1 iirc so that is even more tunnel vision of the network (to save disk ofc).

There are users out there and you're conflating apps being complete for their use with them being dead.

Patchwork for example has been considered complete. It has run as good as it always has.

@strypey that is until I took over and started adding things, but software working for their users is why we do this. If it is working and there are users, then it is not dead.

(1/?)

@soapdog
> It can work fine without it

... but only if you have in person contact with other people who use SSB. Since the total pool of people using SSB is in the margin or error, that's unlikely. Otherwise, it needs pubs/ roomservers to be useful, just as much as Nostr needs relays.

You can argue that a screwdriver can be used to drill a hole, and you're technically correct (and no, that's *not* the best kind of correct). That doesn't mean it's practical to do it that way.

(2/?)

@soapdog
> you're conflating apps being complete for their use with them being dead

I'm conflating apps not being *maintained* with them being dead. There's also the fact that many of them rely heavily on equally unmaintained modules from npm. A BorgSoft owned repo subject to almost constant, large-scale supply chain attacks;

https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2025/09/23/widespread-supply-chain-compromise-impacting-npm-ecosystem

Using npm modules is a very good argument not to install an app, "complete" as it may be.

(3/3)

@soapdog
> If it is working and there are users, then it is not dead

Correct. Which is why it's accurate to say not quite extinct instead.

@serapath
> wished though dat would be embraced by more instead

DAT/ HyperCore has been around much longer than SSB and AFAICT has had even less uptake. A friend who was doing paid dev on a HoloChain app sang the praises of Keet at one point. But I tend to find that every time I try to kick the tyres on bleeding edge apps like this the install process burns me off.

@soapdog

@serapath @strypey @cy

Just read the thread and there are many good points in it. As I said before, I'm not here to attempt to convince any of yous or have a flamewar.

I disagree with many of the view points expressed in the thread around terming SSB as dead or extinct and claiming it is only valid if old time developers are still present. Don't forget, I wad there from the start as well. Find it mildly annoying to see it called hobby even if it was not intentional.

@serapath @strypey @cy

SSB worked back then and still works now. It has more features now than it had back then.

I also think that people in this thread are pushing requirements and constraints in SSB that were NEVER a part of SSB protocol.

SSB is a network for connecting friends. It follows the same semantics of real life social interactions and groups.

It has never been a privacy oriented protocol for adversarial situations.

@cy @strypey @soapdog

this could be fixed by rebuilding ssb on top of dat which inherently allows for sparse replication

@serapath @strypey @cy

SSB p2p connections have secret handshake but SSB is not private or deniable.

Messages are a chain because it is important for the designers that they can attest that a given message was posted by a given identity.

You don't want such chain or need more privacy, there are other protocols.

This thread feels like a king of the hill where people are throwing unrelated protocols against each other trying to see who comes up on top regardless of that protocol objective.

@serapath @strypey @cy

Federation is a whole different ecosystem. ActivityPub servers are servers mostly on ther web and that comes with other needs.

SSB can work without the internet or the web. Tiny SSB can work over BT and LoRa.

This is not a competition, these are the decisions made by the protocol designers and they were made for a reason even if the reason was "yolo this is cool".

Certain things only become apparent in hindsight though, and that's life.

@cy @serapath @strypey you are doing nothing wrong, this is a limitation.

It uses a lot of disk space so it can be offline first. You have all the data. It shouldn't become super slow forever. On the new version, I added a better search engine but it takes a while until it indexes everything and also it takes longer to load on launch, but once it is running it is very good.

You can't delete cause you can't modify the signature chain. That is the secure part of secure scuttlebutt.

(1/2)

@cy @serapath @strypey

most of that data are actually blobs, which are images and other attachments, those can be deleted and will be fetched again from the network if needed.

I will add a blob manager in the next version.

@soapdog @cy @strypey

i love ssb.
i just wish p2p enthusiasts would embrace it to rebuild ssb just the way it is, but now you can sync only the tip of feeds and drop old data because it inherently supports sparse but verifiable replication, which would alleviate one of ssb's limitations

@cy @soapdog @strypey
//A.js
swarm = new Hyperswarm()
store = new Corestore()
feed = store.get({name:'ssb-feed'})
console.log(feed.key)
swarm.join(feed.discoverKey)
swarm.on('connection', socket => feed.replicate(socket))
feed.append('hello')
feed.append('world')

//B.js
swarm = new Hyperswarm()
store = new Corestore()
const [,,key] = process.args
feed = store.get({key})
swarm.join(feed.discoverKey)
swarm.on('connection', socket => {
feed.replicate(socket)
console.log(feed.get(1)) // world
})

@cy
both.
you of course only validate the parts you sparsly replicate and validate the rest later on.
this is what merkle proofs enable

@cy
you can delete branches from the tree and then nobody can get that data anymore. if you just evict it from your cache, you can re-download it from the p2p network given somebody still seeds the data.

you can also build applications where you rewrite history (feed.truncate()) ...that will increase the hypercores `.fork` counter and its detectable. use cases are when you use `autobase` to have multi writer hypercores

@cy

its not about nothing has been deleted, its just if somebody has the data, you can verify it is part of the log (=hypercore) ...but doesnt mean the data has to be there `feed.clear(...)` drops data

@cy the latest signed root verifies all data of the log, because after appending, the new signed merkle root still includes the entire older merkle tree too.

it is immutable, because change can be detected. it would change the merkle tree hashes.

@cy ...also dat has nothing to do wih cryptocurrencies or bitcoin

@cy
no, nothing to do with "nft" which means non fubgible token and dat has nothing to do with tokens. tokens need global consensus, but dat doesnt have any of that - it is peer to peer.

@cy
yes, given root hash always leads log version.

deleting post33 means, if you try to download it you'll wait forever or timeout, because its not available. there is no new hash.

if you actually `fork` and override post33, the `feed.fork` counter increases and yes, you trying to download 33 will always know it was changed, because hash doesnt check out.

for html pages i'd use hyperdrive instead of hypercore directly. ...a hyperdrive base web makes internet archive trivial 🙂

@soapdog
> claiming it is only valid if old time developers are still present

That's a strawman. My argument is that vast majority of former devs departed for *good reasons*, do to with inherent limitations of the protocol that break UX for most use cases, and that they were unable to hack around despite trying their darnedest.

> I was there from the start as well

That's important context, thanks for clarifying. Good on you for sticking with it, I guess.

@serapath @cy

@serapath
> dat works now. ppl keep ignoring it

Why do you think that is? Maybe it's because the early adopters who've tried developing on it, or testing DAT apps, found it impractical to use in production, as with FreeNet, BitMessage, Tox, Jami, HoloChain, etc, etc?

But OK, let's say it just hasn't had fair shakes. What DAT-based app(s) do you recommend I try? Happy to install from F-Droid or any GNU/Linux method that doesn't make me cry and want to eat my laptop ; )

#DAT

@soapdog @cy

@strypey @soapdog @cy

given dat works very similar to ssb, but without the shortcomings - has sparse verifiable replication and also supports seed phrase based multi-device identity - wouldnt it be cool and/or easier to hack together a UI a la patchwork and migrate?

it means also big files can now be shared trivially using hyperdrive 🙂

if there was interest, i'd be very happy to help

@serapath
> dat has nothing to do wih cryptocurrencies or bitcoin

Something can be a blockchain without having anything to do with those, eg;

https://jami.net/the-jami-blockchain-switches-from-proof-of-work-to-proof-of-authority/

Also, as I've said before SSB is *not* a blockchain. If it was, it wouldn't be possible to delete old media ("blobs" as @soapdog called them). They would all be immutable parts of the chain, as they are in social apps that do use blockchains;

https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Blockchain_Social_Media_Apps

@cy

@strypey @soapdog @cy

dat exists for 13+ years and has plenty of apps build on top of it. e.g. https://cabal.chat https://keet.io https://holesail.io https://maps.mapeo.app https://sher.fm
https://agregore.mauve.moe

...list goes on. there are dozens listed in https://dat-ecosystem org and those are anyway just the tip of the icerberg.

it totally hasnt had its fair shake in some circles imho

try all the above if yoy want.

@strypey @soapdog @cy

so yes. dat can delete old blocks/blobs/data, thus not a blockchain.

blocks in dat do NOT point with a hash to a previous block like blockchains do.

the merkle tree is a parallel data structure, so dat is at most as blockchainy as ssb, but imho arguably less blockchain than dat

@strypey @soapdog @cy

also, all the alternatives you mentioned are toys compared to dat. it might sound harsh, but imho none of the above has the performance to build alternatives to popular mainstream apps.

yeah, i know its a mouthful, but imho existing dat apps prove it compared to others.

leading the pack is of course `keet` (which has a proprietary UI) ...but just to get an impression i can still recommend to at least try it - and then delete it again

@soapdog
> images and other attachments ... can be deleted

Good to know.

> I will add a blob manager in the next version

That sounds useful : )

@cy @serapath

@strypey @soapdog @cy

i guess feature and UI wise, it would be possible to make the same app on top of dat, but the p2p stack as such is incompatible and i dont have a good idea how to make them interoperable or if that wpuld even be useful... i just wish ssb and dat could somehow join forces.

i perceived them as "cousin projects" since forever, because both communities had so much overlap 🙂

@strypey you keep repeating yourself and yet, SSB does not REQUIRE pubs or room servers. It was meant to connect people who already know each other or who are friends with people who have people in the ecosystem. You seem to be forgetting what it is all about.

Nostr must use relays. That is ok but that is a different set of constraints.

(1/2)

@soapdog
> you keep repeating yourself

Perhaps because you keep repeating yourself, and ignoring this point I'm clearly trying to make. Which is that there's a big difference between what's theoretically possible and what's actually practical in the world as it is.

IF != in-person contacts already using SSB
THEN need pubs/roomservers

You can deny this until you're blue in the face, but it's a practical fact for anyone trying to get started using SSB.

(2/2)

@soapdog
> Nostr must use relays

In theory someone could probably design NIPs allowing it to be used over Meshtastic or BlueTooth or SneakerNet or whatever. Just like in theory you can use SSB without supernodes.

Again, my point is what's theoretically possible is one thing, what's actually possible in real world use is another.

I think we do actually understand each other, so I'm not going to repeat myself on this again, even if you do.

@strypey as I repeatedly said, you can have your opinions. I hope you find protocols and ecosystems you like.

@soapdog
> you can have your opinion

Wow. Calling the well-documented supply chain attacks on npm, which have been going on for years, an "opinion" is a whole new level of denial.

> I hope you find protocols and ecosystems you like

The problem here is not the protocol or the ecosystem. It's the dodgy technical foundations most SSB software is built on. Maybe another reason why most devs have moved on, to avoid deep refactoring on a protocol they didn't find practical.

@cy @strypey @soapdog

i dont know what you mean. ..or which presentation...

keet? ...keet runs on "pear runtime" which works on mobile and desktop. ...electron works only on desktop.
pear runtime is chromium based, but also all of that has nothing to do with dat.

@cy @soapdog @strypey

i am not sure everyone would agree with your definition of blockchain.

you are saying "git" is a blockchain.

i'm not saying its not a possible (very literal) definition, but imho most ppl think of "global consensus" mechanism where everyone can contribute blockchain inputs permisionlessly based on the rules.

...that definition makes neither dat nor ssb a blockchain

(1/2)

@soapdog
> This is not a competition

If you're talking about protocols as a fun toy to tinker with, it's not. Let a thousands flowers bloom.

But when it comes to getting broad adoption it is. Because of a thing called network effects. A protocol that only one person uses might be technically brilliant, but it's also useless in social software until they can convince others to use it. The same is true to a lesser extent, of protocols used only by a handful of hobbyists.

@serapath @cy

(2/3)

To be socially useful beyond that, a social network protocol needs broad adoption. Add to that the fact that people can only manage so many social apps on our devices, and only so many accounts/ IDs.

So fragmenting the potential audience for a decentralised social protocol, across multiple incompatible and non-interoperable protocols, runs directly against the goal of achieving a network effect sufficient to replace the platforms that are wrecking democracy and thus our environment.

(3/3)

At this level of concern, social protocol choice is not just a matter of personal style. It's not an exaggeration to say it's an existential issue for humanity. So yes, it *is* a competition, and the stakes are *very* high. In 2026, Presenting hobby software based on obsolete protocols as being interchangeable with social software based on robust and evolving technical standards is irresponsible

@strypey @soapdog @cy

yeah, all roads lead to dat.

its the oldest and also the best system we have.

...but just like bluesky, ppl first need to go through all the distractions before they finally ran into all the problems that make them want true peer to peer and then they try all the p2p systems until they figure out the only one with universality and performance is dat.

..its fine - i can wait. we are early in the adoption curve 🤷‍♀️

@cy

yeah, there is no byzantines general problem to solve in dat, because dat is not about consensus of global state - imho thats why its not a boockchain.

git, ssb, dat
...chain blocks ... git and ssb by literally including hashes in blocks to point to previous blocks. dat doesnt, so its even less blockchain. dat has merkle tree metadata to order log entries, but thats not part of the independent log entries as such.

nine of them solve global state consensus or byzantine general issues

@strypey be careful to extrapolate personal subjective experience as truth. Tilde Friends is quite unique, you could for example have reached to the developer asking for guidance.

We write manuals for a reason and if you're facing challenges using something, you defo should reach out to the reference materials or people involved in it.

@soapdog
> be careful to extrapolate personal subjective experience as truth

Agreed, thus the qualifiers.

> Tilde Friends is quite unique, you could for example have reached to the developer asking for guidance

I could. Or I could move on to another app with a more self-teaching interface. Which is what the vast majority of people will do. Which is why I said;

> I'd be surprised if anyone can without knowing the dev in person

... and you seem to be agreeing with this.

@cy @strypey it is not a blockchain, they are just linked post with a digital signature.

You can delete stuff the same way you can’t delete an email after sending. It is the nature of systems in which messages fly away from your device.

Forking your feed can and might happen, there is no way around that with that protocol. It is indeed a limitation but it is quite rare.

@soapdog
> You can delete stuff the same way you can’t delete an email after sending

With email you can't delete an email from other people's clients. With SSB you can't even delete them from your own. With the ActivityPub, Matrix, and many other social protocols, you can do both.

Maybe this limitation doesn't matter to some people or in some use cases, but it's undeniably it's a pretty major limitation. One of many that led to devs who were deeply in SSB moving on to other tech.

@cy

@cy
> Append-only log is a blockchain

This is an all fish are trout fallacy. All blockchains are append-only logs. But there are many different kinds of append-only logs. Many of them are not blockchains (including SSB and DAT/HyperCore), and don't use global consensus algorithms. So they don't have the same scaling limitations.

@serapath
> if there is no token/cryptocurrency involved i would not call it a blockchain

This is also an all trout are fish. A "cryptocurrency" is just one application of a blockchain. There are others that have nothing to do with decentralised finance, eg JamiNS;

https://docs.jami.net/en_US/user/jami-distributed-network.html#the-jamins-blockchain

@cy

@serapath
> There's no obvious sign of adoption outside a tight dev community dogfooding their apps

> dat works. its the oldest and most advanced and mature p2p system out there since bittorrent

Taps previous post.

The option is there to be your own gatekeeper

Huh?

@cy
> As long as you're not sharing your private signing key

The details of how it works are in the draft FEPs, which are linked in the article. Have a skim and see what you think.

(1/2)

You raise some valid concerns about the costs (financial and otherwise) of self-hosting. But my point remains; the option is there.

@cy
> Can you afford to buy a domain name? How about an SSL certificate? Both of the financial barriers involves paying rent to some parasite who doesn't even do anything.

Not with SSL certificates, thanks to Let's Encrypt. But sure, domain names can only be leased not bought and that's annoying. But $20 is much less than the cost of a net connection.

(2/?)

True, domain names can only be leased not bought and that's annoying. I proposed one way around that here;

https://disintermedia.net.nz/a-free-online-birth-certificate/

But a domain name costs about NZ$20-$50 a year. That's about what we pay per month to be connected to the net here. It's hardly a high barrier.

> there isn't much of a choice for many people, who only have a phone on a flaky network at best

They could use managed hosting;

https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fediparty/wiki/Hosting-services-offering-managed-fediverse-servers

(3/?)

Flaky phones are just as much of a problem in pure P2P networks, as the dev of ManyVerse found out the hard way.

Anyway, remember the context; my argument is not that everyone ought to self-host. My opinion is kind of the opposite, for reasons laid out in that Bridge Seat post about the value of servers. I'm just pointing out that using someone else's server isn't compulsory.

(4/?)

OK, I understand what you mean by deniability. I agree that the fediverse is not a suitable place for sensitive non-public discussions. *Unless* you and all your correspondents are self-hosting, or trust all the admins/ mods of the servers you're all using.

That's something that Matrix or XMPP+OMEMO is better for. See;

https://disintermedia.substack.com/p/get-a-room

But that doesn't mean the fediverse isn't useful in general. Clearly you think otherwise, because here you are ; )

(5/5)

Also worth noting that SocialCG (W3C Social Community Group) has a taskforce working on using (D)MLS to make it possible to send E2EE private messages over ActivityPub;

https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/12/19/implementing-encrypted-messaging-over-activitypub/

@lispi314
> It's not as featured as the mobile one or as finished

Last time I check this out it was basically a desktop companion to the Android app, like with Signal. It couldn't be used for most of the functions of the mobile app. I'd love to hear there's been progress on that front.

@cy @soapdog

@lispi314 thanks for the details. Pretty much confirms what I said in the post you're replying to though, doesn't it.

@cy @strypey @soapdog And Nostr is also getting in on the paygating relays so... same problem but worse.

@lispi314
> And Nostr is also getting in on the paygating relays

That's been a thing from early on. The argument is that this is better than paying with your data and your eyeballs. I'm sceptical but happy to see people run the experiment.

There are still plenty of gratis relays run by outfits like Nos.social. Even if there weren't its possible to self-host them.

> same problem but worse

Same problem as what?

@cy @soapdog

@strypey @cy @soapdog GoToSocial doesn't provide hosting so the privilege problem still applies.

I haven't had time to look into the "Nomadic" stuff yet though.

@lispi314
> GoToSocial doesn't provide hosting

Why should a software developer pay for hosting for everyone who wants to use their software?

> the privilege problem still applies

Me:
> The option is there to be your own gatekeeper, eg with a GoToSocial instance. Most people *choose* to outsource this work. But no one is forced to.

@cy @soapdog

@cy
> guy who created SSB lived in a houseboat in New Zealand

FWIW I knew Dominic when he was active in a Maker Space in central Wellington, before he got he houseboat (AFAIK) and certainly before he created Scuttlebutt. As a result I knew quite a few of the folks involved in SSB dev/ use early on, since we were all part of the same social network (loosely clustered around Enspiral).

I was really keen on the idea of SSB at first, but like many of them, I've moved on.

@soapdog @lispi314

@sj_zero @cy @strypey @soapdog You're considerably understating it.

You need a reliable connection, a reliable machine and a reliable electrical grid (I don't have that and I'm privileged enough to have UPS, which I care very much about for that same reason, it means I ride through minor disruptions and at least get to shut things down properly for major ones) for low-latency clearnet self-hosting, at the minimum.

(Unless your use-case, like that solar-powered website (without battery), doesn't expect considerable uptime nor reliability. And even then, it has the two other points besides power.)

@serapath
> there are dozens listed ... try all the above if you want

That sounds like months of unpaid testing work. How about you recommend me the one most likely to make me agree with you that DAT apps are underrrated?

> `keet` has a proprietary UI

That's certainly off the table then. I might as well run Keet on Sailfish ; )

> keet runs on "pear runtime"

> pear runtime is chromium based

Which is poor engineering for the same reason Electron is;

https://drewdevault.com/2016/11/24/Electron-considered-harmful.html

@cy @soapdog

@serapath
> all the alternatives you mentioned are toys

Yes. This is precisely my point.

> compared to dat

From my POV that's yet to be determined ; )

@soapdog @cy

@serapath
> i dont have a good idea how to make them interoperable

I presume this is impossible, because in protocols like SSB, the network layer is inseparably welded to the data layer, which is inseparably welded to the interface layer. All of which are fundamental design mistakes, which Dominic probably wouldn't have made if he'd followed the Kalashnikov Principle before he started hacking. He certainly wouldn't make the same mistakes if he was designing a protocol now.

@soapdog @cy

@cy
> Byzantine Consensus thing is also terrible. In addition to blockchains

AFAIK blockchains were defined by the BitCoin whitepaper (which I read not long after it was published). The consensus mechanism is part of the definition. If an append-only log doesn't do consensus, it isn't a blockchain.

You seem to think have a much more expansive definition, and I'm really curious to know where you're basing that on.

@serapath

@strypey @cy

i look at your link and the first thing i see is a command line where it tells me to run`geth`, the main ethereum client 😅

also, it seems rather basic and relies on ethereum as the default namespace provider. so kindq coupled with blockchain

@strypey

i mean, all of p2panda, willow & iroh grew out of ethereum/ipfs venture backed developer ecosystem and fhey are all new and not as battle tested and not at all production ready.

imho the core building blocks alao dont make them suitable for generalnpurpose high performance p2p application, especially not an Open Data or Open Web infrastructure

@strypey @cy @soapdog

i guess it depends what you want from it then.

do you want an easy to install app that show cases max capabilities? then keet - uninstall it afterwards.

if you want something thats all open source?
then any of the others.

if you want something without UI, there are useful command line tools.

maybe agregore browser is for you then?

now pear runtime improves over electron but if you want a web ui, you need something like chromium.

bare/pear runtime support others

@strypey @soapdog @cy

fair enough.

i mean, that is why i keep on recommending keet, just to see whats possible when a professional team executes full time.

@strypey @serapath @cy

Strypey,

Please stop with FUD.

> the network layer is inseparably welded to the data layer,

No it is not. The data is saved in flumedb with attachments, it is just an append-only log. Some clients don't use it at all and have other solutions.

> which is inseparably welded to the interface layer.

Different clients have different interface layers. There are git clients, npm clients, dropbox-like clients, social networks, genealogy managers all built on top of SSB.

@soapdog @strypey @cy

yes. dominic tarr is actually a brilliant developer and all about modularity. in that sense ssb is the only ecosystem that follows this approach as radically as dat does - hence xommunity overlap and i consider them "spiritual cousins" 😁

they both use libsodium as well.

they both are implemented in javascript too.

i wish there was a way to join the ecosystems it would be powerful. this wpuld mean to somehow use adapters between pull-streams and streamx and more

@serapath @strypey @cy you can simply code something to export the SSB db and then some way to import it into DAT, it should not be impossible.

@soapdog @strypey @cy

yes, but that would just be an offramp and onramp, but interoperability would be much cooler 🙂

@serapath @strypey @cy I don't think interoperability is desirable there cause SSB is supposed to work without depending on other networks...

@soapdog @strypey @cy

hmm... not saying it should chance, more like having a bridge so users of both ecosystems have an easier time interacting

@lxo
> GNU Jami

... is better than Briar in that it has apps for a range of OS. Problem is Jami doesn't work reliably. Last time I tried it the group voice chat was very good, but text message delivery was laggy and unreliable. Even when both people in the chat were online at the same time (and communicating in a backchannel about the test).

Maybe that's improved since they shipped group chats? Hmm. Did they actually ship those yet?

@cy @soapdog

@lxo @cy @strypey not sure I like Jami cause I'm not that fond of using cryptocurrency or blockchains

@soapdog
> sure I like Jami cause I'm not that fond of using cryptocurrency or blockchains

JamiNS is not a "cryptocurrency". It uses a blockchain to allow unique, human-readable names to be reserved in a P2P network. If you're happy to use strings of machine-readable gobbledygook as addresses for your contacts, and exchange them outside of Jami, it can be used without JamiNS.

@lxo @cy @lxo @cy

@lxo @cy @strypey

Alexandre,

An append-only log does not a blockchain makes.

SSB uses an append-only log that is cryptographically signed.

There is no proof of stake, no proof of work, no artificial scarcity, there are no tokens. It is not a blockchain.

Please, don't spread fud.

@lxo
> a blockchain is defined by the property that each block "contains" its predecessors

That's how @cy is defining the term too. I'm wondering what this is based on, because I agree with @soapdog here, my understanding has always been that a blockchain is a special case of an append-only log, that includes a global consensus mechanism. So calling any use of an append-only log a "blockchain" is like calling any use of the net a "website", even if it doesn't use HTTP.

(1/?)

Hi @serapath @soapdog, thanks for the robust discussion about P2P architectures last week. I'm aware that sometimes my need to be terse (our Masto instance has the default 500 char limit) results in my posts seeming more dismissive or even aggressive than untended. Thanks for your patience if I came across that way : )

(2/?)

Reflecting on our chat, one problem with trawling through the P2P space is the tangled spaghetti of project/protocol naming I described in 2017 in the federation space;

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/fediverse-history-piece-from-2017-a-brief-history-of-the-gnu-social-fediverse-and-the-federation/4481

I just started a blog post about the history of the quest for pure P2P. Even given what I already know, and considerable free time to go spelunking in web search, I'm only starting to get a sense of which projects share common foundations. This makes discovery and adoption much harder.

#P2P

@strypey

imho thr only mature battle tested p2p stack out there is `dat`, because it is still improved full steam ahead and has been since 2013.

SSB started in parallel and communities overlapped big time and as already said, dominic tarr is a good friend of the ppl who started dat, they are both implemented in JS and both follow extreme modularity as a cultural value.

dominic tarr retired and until soapdog started picking up ssb, my impression was ppl moved on into web3 & startups doing p2p

@serapath
Now that dat comes up again, would we know if the datweb demonstrator is ready to see daylight? Also I'd wonder when Matthias releases the sources for keet.io, as initially announced.
Not everyone will be ready to do P2P in Desktop apps and eventually we always want to keep a web fallback?
@strypey

@yala @strypey

100% agree.
official statement from mathias is keet will be open sourced eventually.

reasons why it is not:
1. prevent crypto fraudsters from copying and offering cheap knock offs easily and then marketing it to their victims
2. to stabelize p2p primitives before they get open sourced, with thebpurpose to prevent ppl building on top of experimental still quickly changing primitives that will later be deprecated and abandoned, which might cause unpleasant experience to users

@yala @strypey

regarding datweb - nope its not yet ready for "prime time" sadly.
main bottleneck is its all based on volunteers, so progress is slow, because ppl also have lives and bills to pay thus need to earn money somewhere.

...i think this is the main blocker 😅
...if ppl where working on it full time it wpuld have been released ten times over, but yeah.

i would say its 10-20 regular workdays away from being released, which could be a month, but there are weeks without work so 🤷‍♀️

@yala @strypey

that said, its currently around 8 ppl working on it and thats 8x10-20 workdays.

but yeah. some of the ppl working on it live in war zones or have hard times in other ways. Everyone keeps their lifes together using ducktape and shoestrings and moving forward.

...good thing is, regarding conways law, that shpuld result in something really awesome, bad things - its quite adversarial conditions, thus ...the slow speed 😁

sadly dat-ecosystem doesnt have "holepunchto" luxury

(1/2)

@serapath
> keet will be open sourced eventually

Maybe so. I'll believe it when I see it.

> prevent crypto fraudsters from copying and offering cheap knock offs

That excuse rings hollow. There is source code available for dozens of P2P apps people could use to stand up scam apps.

@yala

@strypey @yala

fair enough.
i am just sharing the official narrative.
i do trust mathias aka mafintoshbto some degree that this might be true, but i agree that i only truly believe it when i see it.

luckily the p2p stack as such is open source and the runtimes too - only the keet app isnt.

a few students i'm working with managed to build a basic p2p chat app with video conferencing in a matter of weeks with part time effort.

...but generally thats why i personaly focus on datweb

(2/3)
@serapath
> to stabilize p2p primitives before they get open sourced

This one would be more convincing ... If it wasn't for the fact that Keet is based on Pear, which is already published;

https://github.com/holepunchto/pear

Pear is in turn based on HyperCore/ DAT, which too;

https://github.com/holepunchto/hypercore

Hypercore is part of DAT which is a documented open protocol;

https://dat.foundation/about/foundation/

So the "primitives" are already out there.

#Keet #Pear #DAT #HyperCore

(3/3)

Plus Holepunch are funded by Tether (USDT) and Bitfine. The whole thing screams crypto scam.

To be clear, I'm *not* saying DAT/ Hypercore themselves are a scam. They can't help who reuses the Free Code and open protocols they publish, because that's the whole point. But I don't trust Holepunch as far as I could throw them, and I see no reason to even consider it until they publish full source code.

@strypey

Yes, thats correct, maybe a minor correction:

`dat.foundation` is now https://dat-ecosystem.org as the evolution of the foundation (it's still a 501c3 non profit public good company, that didnt change), but it grew large and nobody wanted a "centralized foundation" in the center, also because "Conways law" 🙂

Also - you can build "dat apps" without pear and "pear apps" which dont use dat.

@strypey every feature in keet requires considerations and new modules that use the p2p core building blocks underneath of course - to make those happen ...and the more advanced keet becomes the more of those are needed.

And then those that stabelize get open sourced as well.

Some recent ones are for example:
1. blind-pairing
2. blind-peering
3. blind-relay

some p2p schemas and codecs and many more details.

dat does not give you a "multi device identity" out of the box, so thats another one

@serapath When I'm promoting the fediverse and ActivityPub, I don't pretend I'm an independent observer, who just happens to be bullish on the AP ecosystem because it's technically the best way to federate anything ever. Because I'm not, and it isn't.

I think we've reached the point where you need to fully disclose what your relationship is to the DAT ecosystem, and the people developing it. You seem to have a lot of inside knowledge, and a *very* strong bias.

Just saying ...

@strypey

I dont get paid a dime to promote dat sadly.

I am a member of the dat-ecosystem consortium and that is unpaid as well.

It is all volunteering work and doing something else elsewhere might actually pay something, but it's just personal conviction that keeps me around dat.

I do have a company and am paying ppl from my the little savings i managed to build in the past to help out working towards `datweb`.

Let me know what kind of disclosure you have in mind or what you want to know

@serapath
> I dont get paid a dime to promote dat sadly

Same for me and the fediverse, and I wasn't suggesting otherwise. Sorry if it came across that way.

> Let me know what kind of disclosure you have in mind

You've pretty much covered it there. Again, I want to be very clear that I'm not accusing you of anything untoward.

I just think it's important to be upfront about the fact you're partisan, rather than an arms-length commentator : )