
Distributed web not ready for Runet cutoff from the Internet - agentofuser
https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/dweb-readiness-runet
======
ytjohn
One of them that will, or at least should be able to continue, is scuttlebutt.
Scuttlebutt clients on an isolated LAN can share messages with each other. To
go beyond the LAN, you point at a "pub server", which anyone can host
anywhere. Yes, only russian-based pub servers will be available, and that
assumes they are using russian based DNS to point to them (or have a known
static IP). However, for the test of communicating within your region,
scuttlebutt will hold up.

The protocol, clients, and pub servers (which are really just automated
clients) are designed with an offline-first approach, then local, then
regional, then global. Messages are copied between clients as they come into
contact with each other. One way to visualize it is by picturing islands of
people gossiping locally, and then having ships carry that scuttlebutt from
island to island.

[https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/](https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/)

~~~
state_less
Isn't the design motivated in part because one (or more) of the key
contributors actually are/were sailors?

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/meet-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/05/meet-
the-counterantidisintermediationists/527553/)

~~~
fenwick67
Yes, and that's why it's called "scuttlebutt".

------
zzzcpan
The sad reality of modern "decentralized" software is that organizations,
people behind it don't even have any intentions to make it decentralized, to
give up control, like BitTorrent did. Nobody cares about the main thing that
decentralization is all about - making rule/law enforcement on others
practically impossible.

There was a great series of posts about decentralization from BitTorrent
people recently:

[https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/why-bittorrent-mattered-
bit...](https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/why-bittorrent-mattered-bittorrent-
lessons-for-crypto-1-of-4-fa3c6fcef488)

[https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/if-youre-not-breaking-
rules...](https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/if-youre-not-breaking-rules-you-re-
doing-it-wrong-bittorrent-lessons-for-crypto-2-of-4-72c68227fe69)

[https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/intent-complexity-and-
the-g...](https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/intent-complexity-and-the-
governance-paradox-bittorrent-lessons-for-crypto-3-of-4-1d14ac390f3f)

[https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/decentralized-disruption-
wh...](https://medium.com/@simonhmorris/decentralized-disruption-who-dares-
wins-bittorrent-lessons-for-crypto-4-of-4-f022e8641c1a)

~~~
colordrops
Bitcoin?

~~~
Etheryte
While in theory Bitcoin is decentralized, in practice roughly half of the
coins in existence are from a single mining company and 74% of global mining
power currently resides in China, belonging to a handful of owners.

[https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/report-
links-74-bitcoin...](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/report-
links-74-bitcoin-mining-china-sees-threat-network/)

~~~
colordrops
Yet no one can prevent you from using Bitcoin or take away your coins. Seems
the protocol design has been highly successful at keeping the functionality
itself decentralized.

------
pfraze
I can attest that the blog post is accurate, at least for the Dat protocol. We
used the BitTorrent mainnet DHT for a while, but results were so bad that we
retired it and fell back to our tracker. We're working on the Hyperswarm DHT
now to get things more resilient. We're taking up Daniel's other action points
as well.

~~~
gpm
I'm curious, what's wrong with the BitTorrent DHT that you can improve in your
own?

------
hcs
Hm, I had thought that go-ipfs saved some swarm peers between sessions, but
reading over the docs now I see no evidence of this.

~~~
d2wa
There is no implementation of this in their code either.

------
Gaelan
Oh lord, what’s this going to do to the blockchains?

~~~
sgeisler
At least bitcoin will be mostly unaffected since you can receive blocks via
satellite [1] and if even one satellite connected node is inside Runet then
you can at least keep up with the blockchain. Sending transactions can be done
via sms [2]. The main problem would be mining in Russia, but if miners know
about the shutdown in advance and it's economically feasible then they can get
satellite internet to upload found blocks.

[1] [https://blockstream.com/satellite/](https://blockstream.com/satellite/)

[2]
[https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/954271930365947904](https://twitter.com/SamouraiWallet/status/954271930365947904)

~~~
ForHackernews
is _anyone_ actually using this?

~~~
wongarsu
One person is enough. If one person inside Runet receives blocks from the
wider internet (via satellite or other means), their client will automatically
forward the blocks to all clients they are connected to, quickly spreading
them accross Russia. And because Bitcoin follows the chain of blocks that took
the most work to create, latency isn't an issue.

Mining (and making a profit while doing so) is more latency sensitive, but
should be able to tollerate a satelite uplink. And again, one person having a
satelite uplink is enough to give all Russian miners a chance.

~~~
ForHackernews
Is there even much mining in Russia? My understanding is the overwhelming
majority of bitcoin mining is in China.

~~~
wongarsu
Mining is mostly a game of getting cheap electricity, and it's hard to beat
China (where infrastructure construction is often about creating jobs and
projecting power instead of classic profitability).

It seems like electricity prices in Russia are similar to the US. The legal
position of bitcoin seems to be worse in Russia though, so you would expect
less mining than in the US, and a lot less than in China.

------
sodosopa
Putting on my conspiracy hat, blocking the global web from within Russia would
also make it easier to have huge sweeping "purges" toward targeted groups,
without Western interference.

------
ezoe
The last time I checked IPFS is a joke. There are only two implementations of
IPFS protocol and both come from the same group of developers.

On the other hand, there are so many BitTorrent protocol implementations from
totally independent group of developers.

Also, the namespace system of IPFS is just beyond stupid. They openly
recommend relying the traditional central DNS to resolve the human readable
name to hash.

I didn't bother to examine the Dat, but it looks like worse than IPFS.

~~~
rklaehn
There is a version of libp2p written in rust, developed by parity.io:
[https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p](https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p)
.

IPFS is much younger than bittorrent, so it is not surprising that there are
not as many implementations. I am not sure why that makes it "a joke".

All that is needed for IPFS to function in a russia-only internet are a few
russian bootstrap nodes. Bootstrap nodes are not in any way special, so any
node can serve as a bootstrap node.

------
lightgreen
> Russia is preparing a nation-wide experiment where the whole country
> temporarily disconnects from the global Internet to see if the country can
> rely on Runet alone

I think this is lie, fake news and misinformation. I tried to find the source
of it. Lots of site quote RBC website (more or less respectful news agency in
Russia). The closest article on this subject is this:

[https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/08/02/2019/5c5c51069...](https://www.rbc.ru/technology_and_media/08/02/2019/5c5c51069a7947bef4503927)

It discusses this topic but doesn’t mention experiments or temporary
disconnect. Could be redacted though.

~~~
d2wa
There is a source for this from Newsweek at the bottom of the original
article. It’s been reported by the BBC as well.

~~~
lightgreen
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47198426](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47198426)

This BBC article. It makes that statement I the first paragraph in bold and
then in the second paragraph they explain that they meant the opposite. But
who reads past the second paragraph, rights?

I’m so disappointed at BBC. They spread lie and misinformation.

Russia is an authoritarian state, but it doesn’t automatically make all the
junk they write about Russia true.

