
Gnu: Net - tomrod
https://gnunet.org/en/#about
======
dang
Discussed in June:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20319419](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20319419)

A related post from September:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20884463)

Previous discussions include 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15877908](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15877908)

2013:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6961018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6961018)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6194553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6194553)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5845435](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5845435)

2011:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2515519](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2515519)

------
abhinai
I love the principle behind this initiative. One suggestion to the people
behind this work. Give this page a Stripe like ease of getting started with
the first use case. I'm sure developers would love to get behind something
like this. We just need to make it easy for them to get started.

------
danaur
Question: How do I get involved in contributing to these types of projects, I
wish there were mentorship programs focused on helping software professionals
get involved in open source/libre contributions. Any thoughts?

~~~
cldellow
The GnuNet people have an entire page detailing ways to get involved:
[https://gnunet.org/en/engage.html](https://gnunet.org/en/engage.html)

But in general, just ask! Whenever someone posts a thoughtful comment,
question or patch to one of my open source projects, I'm very appreciative.

Do you have a particular project you'd like to contribute to? If not, is there
a particular area that's interesting to you?

~~~
narnianal
> But in general, just ask!

You mean like in...

> Question: How do I get involved in contributing to these types of
> projects[...]?

~~~
cldellow
That's a fair point.

Ask the _maintainers_ of the project, not a random person on the Internet.

------
crazypython
How can I build port an application that depends on reliable, unordered packet
delivery to GnuNet? Does GnuNet have its own web browser? Are there
"WebSockets for GnuNet?"

~~~
yarg
From the browser perspective:
[https://gnunet.org/en/use.html#gns_browser](https://gnunet.org/en/use.html#gns_browser)

------
laurent123456
Are there any example application that makes use of GNUnet?

~~~
jsilence
There are literally five+ applications listed and described further down the
page.

------
ForHackernews
The scope of ambition for this project is breathtaking. Best of luck to them!

~~~
duskwuff
A more cynical take:

The scope of this project was ambitious when it was launched, eighteen years
ago. Today, it's abundantly clear that it was _too_ ambitious (and/or the
project was poorly managed); they still don't have anything usable, whereas
other projects like Tor and I2P have produced usable tools in much less time.

~~~
jammygit
Does anyone know what it’s tech stack is or whether it was
architected/designed well enough to build off of? It’s a cool project but it
has been running a long time

~~~
duskwuff
Ridiculously overcomplicated, and almost entirely unique to GNUnet:

[https://gnunet.org/en/architecture.html](https://gnunet.org/en/architecture.html)

My uncharitable guess would be that most of it is completely unusable outside
the context of this project.

~~~
cryo
It might look complicated at first, but the parts seem reasonable too me. It
might be simpler to understand when the building blocks are grouped and larger
components only show top level (grouped) dependencies instead of the full
graph.

------
sojmq
Seems like the actual name is GNUnet, I don't know why this title of the
submission but I guess it mirrors the logo... bad choice

------
fulldecent2
I like the paper. It it is interesting to see other people that are interested
in this.

When I try to explain why IPv6 is a privacy failure and consumers should turn
it off I get modded to oblivion.
[https://privacylog.blogspot.com/2019/09/ipv6-hurts-your-
priv...](https://privacylog.blogspot.com/2019/09/ipv6-hurts-your-privacy-
removes.html)

But when other people are aware of passive attacks and see the economic
incentives I think there might still be hope.

~~~
stouset
This has nothing to do with IPv6. Unless I am missing something, it is
literally just a result of NAT, which using IPv4 does not guarantee, and which
using IPv6 does not need to prevent.

~~~
fulldecent2
Regarding the blog, yes it has nothing to do with the specification of IPv6.
It has to do with the way that everybody (nearly everybody?) uses IPv6.

This distinction is already complicated enough that we should just tell
everybody that "IPv6 is bad" because it is true enough.

------
MayeulC
How does it compares to Yggdrasil?

[https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/](https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/)

~~~
neilalexander
Although there are some minor similarities, it is quite a different beast.
Yggdrasil aims to be a general purpose globally scalable routing scheme and
the current implementations do this by providing end-to-end IPv6 transport.
GNUnet seems to be much more tailored to specific applications at this stage
and may not scale well either.

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crazypython
Is there a texting application built on GnuNet's SCTP-like technology?

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Avamander
How would one host a website over GNUnet?

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gigatexal
Can browsers work on this network? Or is that not how this works?

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alpb
Worth noting that this is not associated with FSF or GNU Project. Nice name
grab. The company behind it is "Copyright © GNUnet e.V. 2001".

~~~
jolmg
As another comment[1] mentioned, the software is mentioned in gnu.org as a GNU
package[2].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21672653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21672653)

[2]
[https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html](https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html)

~~~
jammygit
The connection is more clear in this sub-link imo:
[https://www.gnu.org/software/network/](https://www.gnu.org/software/network/)

It links to a Savannah page that links to gnunet.org

------
Aloha
I wonder how the FSF feels about this, they seem to be using FSF trademarks
without attribution.

~~~
ryukafalz
It's a GNU package - see this list:
[https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html](https://www.gnu.org/software/software.html)

------
layoutIfNeeded
> Even though transport encryption is increasingly being deployed on the
> Internet, it still reveals data that can threaten democracy: the identities
> of senders and receivers, the times, frequency and the volume of
> communication are all still revealed.

Can threaten _democracy_? What a weird wording... Typically where these
informations are used to block people from accessing the internet, aren’t
democratic countries to begin with.

~~~
coldtea
> _Typically where these informations are used to block people from accessing
> the internet, aren’t democratic countries to begin with._

Blocking people from accessing the internet is crude. Tracking people
accessing the internet is even better, and that also happens in so-called
"democratic" countries (that is, countries than once in 4 years allow the
masses to vote for a party or candidate between 2-3 pre-selected options).

~~~
colejohnson66
Minor nitpick: in the US, it’s two of the big parties, and a few of the small
parties (so not 2-3 total). Last time (2016), there was the Libertarian Party
and the Green Party on the ballot.

~~~
coldtea
Yeah, but it's usually merely 2 parties that have any chances at all, by the
way the voting system is setup, and how the whole game is played (for one,
ruling parties having the money to advertise and secure their positions and
playing with advantage beyond their program over any new party)

