Communication between peers
Posted about 2 years ago by vajra
We're in this for the long run. For an open and free society, against authoritarian control.
Therefore we will not partake in such platforms requiring phone number like Telegram/Discord/Twitter/Facebook/Wechat/Signal, and neither should you.
Some alternatives which are usable today
Therefore we will not partake in such platforms requiring phone number like Telegram/Discord/Twitter/Facebook/Wechat/Signal, and neither should you.
Some alternatives which are usable today
- XMPP
- Matrix
- PGP e-mail
- encrypted IRC
Also interesting, but lacking accessible UX for the moment:
- lightning-sendonionmessage
- lightning-keysend
Two or more of these could be bridged, of course - as is commonly done with IRC and Matrix, for example.
We would like to get together a social fabric where node operators can communicate freely, privately, conveniently, and securely with each other - ideally with minimal trust in any single server operator. The LN community will need to leave Telegram and Discord. Let's do it before the problem gets practical.
If there is interest in any particular solution we are ready to start setting up infrastructure for the cause.
Comment on this post with your thoughts and ideas on how you would like to see this happen. Or if your're super lazy, 👍️/👎️ indicating if you'd be up for it when it comes.
4 Comments
vajra wrote about 2 years ago
The "new" Bitcoin Twitter
For open discourse where privacy is not necessary, the https://bitcoinhackers.org Fediverse instance is the place for bitcoin-related topics and socialization instead of crypto-twitter.
Many excellent LN people, news and conversations are already there. You can register an account directly on their server or, to be more decentralized, federate from your own ActivityPub instance (Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey, Friendica, and others should all work).
This only solves the "microblogging" use case, and does not fulfill the needs to get people off Discord/Telegram.
Do read the server rules before joining.
For open discourse where privacy is not necessary, the https://bitcoinhackers.org Fediverse instance is the place for bitcoin-related topics and socialization instead of crypto-twitter.
Many excellent LN people, news and conversations are already there. You can register an account directly on their server or, to be more decentralized, federate from your own ActivityPub instance (Mastodon, Pleroma, Misskey, Friendica, and others should all work).
This only solves the "microblogging" use case, and does not fulfill the needs to get people off Discord/Telegram.
Do read the server rules before joining.
Bitnoob wrote about 2 years ago
I have heard of Sphinx chat, which is a 3rd layer on top of the lightning network. It uses lightning channels to send messages. It has to be connected to your own lightning channel to pay sats to send messages. Something to explore for those interested.
vajra wrote about 2 years ago
> Sphinx chat
Are people actually using it? I did do a brief dig and this is essentially lightning-keysend, which they try to make a higher-level API for: https://github.com/stakwork/lumo-spec
So I think the "core" of their approach is something to explore and use. But looking at the code there are so many red flags for me, just from the top:
Are people actually using it? I did do a brief dig and this is essentially lightning-keysend, which they try to make a higher-level API for: https://github.com/stakwork/lumo-spec
So I think the "core" of their approach is something to explore and use. But looking at the code there are so many red flags for me, just from the top:
- The API is not specified other than implicitly by-undocumented-implementation. Those are Typescript interfaces... Ie they are useless for a developer can't use them to implement the protocol. And looking at commit activity, are probably out of date compared to implementation anyway.
- Stuff like this doesn not inspire confidence in security. Gaping script-injection issues: https://github.com/stakwork/sphinx-bots/blob/master/src/messageEmbed.ts
- Same for other aspects - the APIs are under- or unspecified and the only implementation is an equally undocumented (other than deploy instructions, which just tell you to drop it alongside ) hacky TS server with smartphone apps. How does one integrate with tribes?
- The tribe server seems quite central and is neither specified nor federated. Apart from the DM functionality it seems effectively centralized.
- LND only. And the relay seems to need/want both an admin macarroon, as well as a wallet... Why?
...You know, just from 15 minutes looking through their code and I already lost track of security issues and other points like the above.
Again, I think they might be on to something but they're focused on the wrong things and don't seem to know what they're doing, really.
Maybe if someone else picks up the ball on a similar initiative, they could be made compatible through collaborating, though. Or maybe they hire (because it seems to be run like a business) some people who can sort out their shit.
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Apart from the above, I think a lightning-based approach needs to be bridged with Matrix and/or XMPP - like, what to do when you need to get in touch with your peers when your node is down? This is of course a solvable problem.
LN+ Admin wrote about 2 years ago
Thanks for this thread! It's good information.
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