[Freedombox-discuss] Introductions

[paxcoder]

On 08/30/2010 12:20 AM, Michiel de Jong wrote:
> Hi,
Hello.
> I found you while trying to set up an open-source project that 
> explores the combination of PGP and Bittorrent, to do things like 
> email, social networking, etcetera over encrypted bittorrents. It was 
> thinking of it as a desktop application, but after reading this list, 
> i think it would be very compatible with the freedom box effort.

Can you explain a bit further? How would you mail someone using bittorrent?
As far as social networking goes, we're looking into some apps, but I'm 
sure some people would be willing to at least consider your proposal. 
You'd have to explain it though :-)

> 1 - i think there is a need for search.

GNUnet already provides encrypted file sharing and they've developed the 
supporting file search for their framework. The project has long been 
developed. Other, new things are web standards like RDF(a) and SPARQL - 
which are semantic web tools for append additional metadata (first and 
foremost to things on our websites - whether it be those for social 
networking or our own), and for searching for that data respectively. I 
would imagine a SPARQL deamon running and responding to querries at any 
given time at each freedom box. Tightly integrating RDF(a) into web 
pages (and possibly other files) would be a task for the Web team. 
However, the question of how to search through the whole FreedomBox 
"network" without overloading it remains. Perhaps one could write an 
extension for GNUnet's search... But I wonder how Tim Berners Lee 
imagined it would work for the rest of the web.

> 2 - multiple users may want to use the same plug server. It could 
> speed up adoption in for instance a house share if you can create 
> accounts for your 5 or 6 house mates on one single plug server.

Yes, of course.

> 3 - maybe (I'm not entirely sure about this one myself) one user may 
> want to "trust" several plug servers to store his encrypted files. I 
> already trust my friends to hold encrypted backups of my data. So I 
> might as well store a second copy of all my stuff on the freedom box 
> at my parents' house.

We've been discussing decentralized storage and its specific purpose 
you've described.

> Also, maybe I also want to run a "freedom box" on my laptop, for lower 
> latency when I´m in an internet cafe. I feel there must be a flaw in 
> this reasoning, because it completely decouples the 
> applications/usefulness from the actual product/hardware, and I don't 
> know whether that's good or bad. At least maybe it's something that 
> needs defining. Make of it what you will.
I'm not sure I'm getting this one, but one of freedombox's aims is 
portability. Would that answer satisfy you?
--Luka Marčetić