[Freedombox-discuss] Finding a good place to start

[Jonas Smedegaard]

On Wed, Oct 06, 2010 at 08:17:46PM +0200, e.waelde wrote:
>I also think the fundamental problem is "how does one FreedomBox find 
>another one".

That's only a problem for independence from the domain name system.  
Which is certainly a cool feature, just as a Diaspora-like service is. 
Important detail, however, is that it (like Diaspora) does not exist yet 
as a Debian package.

So I would not categorize it as a "fundamental" problem: We can release 
FreedomBox tomorrow without it, and add it later when invented, packaged 
and tested.


My list of initial requirements deliberately did not include automagical 
friend discovery mechanism for this very reason: it does not exist yet!


As I see it, this is the priorities:
  1) put together a (virtual) core system
  2) embed the system in small cheap iron
  3) make the box dead simple to configure/personalize
  4) add basic services making it reachable in the "cloud"
  5) add more services, like discovery of and exchange with friends

Of course we can work on all fronts in parallel, but steps 1-3 are 
must-haves, while 4-infinity are optional add-ons.

I find it natural for 1) to be an upgradeable Debian system (i.e. not 
only "generated from Debian packaged" as e.g. a Knoppix LiveCD is, but a 
genuine classic standard continously upgradeable Debian system.

One direction for 3) would be https and some CGI or PHP code unique for 
FreedomBox.

Another variant could be https with GoSA, CipUX or similar existing 
general-purpose configuration framework, configured for our initial 
needs.

A third, more radical approach could be a fully automated base 
configuration. Not even web access to the beast.  Something like "To 
initialize your FreedomBox, connect the ethernet cable to a network 
consisting only of fully trusted computers, attach a USB keyboard, and 
hold down a certain key combination during bootup. When it beeps three 
times, it has COMPLETELY ERASED all prior data and created a new 
cryptograhic identity with full trust in the machines autodiscovered on 
your local network".

To me an obvious first add-on service in 4) is https - just a single 
static web page with OpenID redirection.  There is plenty challenge to 
figure out how to personalize that in a dead simple way, including 
explanation to the user what OpenID means.

Some might already disagree with me at above small step: OpenID is very 
much tied to the hierarchical DNS, which some might want to avoid.  Yet 
others would insist on running a local OpenID provider rather than 
redirecting to a big bad commercial one. and so on... As we define 
services, we will disagree on more and more things.  Which is good: The 
"Freedom" in FreedomBox should include the freedom of choice :-)



>There is a proposal to solve this as a TOR hidden service, see this 
>message: 
>http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/freedombox-discuss/2010-September/000086.html 
>Jon, have you spent time on this? Where to start 
>reading/testing/fiddling???

I have no experience (yet) with TOR, so don't know: Is this an existing 
feature of TOR today, or an idea of doing "something similar" which 
needs developing that actual mechanism?

Perhaps these are relevant too: http://p2psip.org/  At least some of 
them use DHL mechanisms for discovery, as Bittorrent (optionally) does.



>The next thing after that is probably "how does my FreedomBox form some 
>sort of distributed storage with the others?".
>
>Please note: if I want a complete copy my data to be distributed to say 
>4 other nodes, and I want to recover the data from any one of these, 
>then every FreedomBox needs to dedicate 4/5 (==80%) of the local 
>storage to be used by the others.
>
>After that, the world is pretty open IMHO.

I dare say the world must be open even before that: Distributed data 
should be optional, as not all FreedomBox owners can afford the 
bandwidth costs (think dial-up GSM connections in Africa!).


  - Jonas

-- 
  * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
  * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

  [x] quote me freely  [ ] ask before reusing  [ ] keep private
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