Andrew (R.S Admin) @ajroach42@retro.social

I mean, he wants to do it with compression tech, which fine whatever.

But the basic idea of a mesh networked, peer to peer, store and forward comms platform that operates in an entirely serverless fashion?

That's #mBBS.

Yeah, both syncthing and nncp have a requirement to explicitly add new machines.

I can think of a few ways that this kind of certificate/authentication management would be super annoying, but that's what support software is for. This is the #mBBS equivalent of a DNS registrar.

Requiring node operators to authenticate their transport peers is probably excessive in a world in which all the transported data is e2ee, but it's also probably fine.

If I can figure out a reliable long range mesh networking solution that can be deployed for less than $50/node and works with commodity hardware and linux, I could bootstrap a community message board or a community wide intranet.

I feel like I'm having this conversation every three weeks, but I'm actually in a position to act on it now.

So let's talk about #meshnetworking and #mbbs and #alternet internet replacement ideas.

What hardware exists right now? What software? (I'll thread some.)

Coupled with that software I talked about in my other #mBBS thread that doesn't exist yet and you've got 'email' and 'blog' and 'forum' support.

(and, of course, nothing says that these things have to use ESP8266s. They could just exist on the internet.

But I'm thinking about a time when I no longer trust the internet at all, instead of only mostly mistrusting it like I do now.

And if that time ever comes, we will need to have been ready already.)

A lot of what I talk about and focus on WRT the new internet and my #mBBS project is very focused around using full computers or raspberry pis to emulate the way we interacted with an older system like a BBS or a mainframe or just the pre-web internet.

But the ESP8266 is so cheap, and way more powerful than a lot of folks realize. It has me thinking we could use it to create a new class of device, and a new kind of networked communication.

That includes my #mBBS project, #TORBBS, and the new thing that is just ideas right now.

I have thoughts and plans for the future of the internet, or at least A future of the internet, and I'm working to make time for these things specifically.

2. #MBBS

I haven't talked much about my Tor BBS project (or, well, anything) for a few weeks.

Let me catch up there.

I have done some experimentation with other BBS software solutions, because I didn't like the way the BBS I was using stored passwords.

It's going well! My only concern is that I think I want to move it to a pi 3 or a pi4 instead of a pi 0. Or maybe even in to a VM or a container on a more powerful system. The 0 just struggles with multiple connections.

After talking about my #mBBS project a lot yesterday, and thinking about it in detail for the first time in a while, I have decided a few things:

- I need to re-evaluate my assumptions and goals
- I need to run a private (or rather, public but not usenet) NNTP or UUCP usenet server for a few months (or more) and see what that is like today
- I need to figure out if it is possible to run a dialup BBS from an android phone, and experiment with that.

This idea comes up any time anything bad happens to the internet (Like, you know, the Net Neutrality rollback, or the pending European copyright clusterfuck)

I've written some blog posts about it. When I talk about it on Mastodon I usually use the hashtag #mBBS or #alternet although I sometimes forget to do this.

New #Blog Post: http://ajroach42.com/steps-towards-a-web-without-the-internet/

Steps towards a Web without the Internet.

This is a summarization of my ideas on using #DAT to power a #mBBS #BBS #alternet

Let me know what you think!

Based on my experiments last night and today:

It seems like #DAT + a DAT to HTTP bridge is a viable candidate for running this #BBS #mBBS #localBBS #alternet thing *right now*.

Also, it looks like the DAT package has an HTTP bridge built in, that I'll have to look at.

[Short thread, I won't overwhelm your timeline with my nerd shit today.]

Okay, Hashtag #interests time because I want to find more people!

I do #tech #activism. I'm working on several #podcast s. I'm a big fan of #DIY in general, and #DIYMedia specifically.

#postcapitalist #jazz #blues #IF #Gopher #BBS #mBBS #Replacethenet #weirdweb #vinyl #retrofuture #cyberpunk #cybrepunk

I want to hear your #garageband, I want to see your #homemademovies and your #tildesites.

Uhhh... I guess that'll do for now.

What are your #interests?