[Freedombox-discuss] Establishing Communicationbetween Freedomboxes

[John Walsh]

Hi Ian,

> I think the best way to do this is through something like a 
> dynamicDNS centralized service. Currently, the network effect 
> is on the side of intermediated social networks because 
> having everyone's contacts in one place makes it much easier 
> to find each other. Same logic behind the phone book.

I can see the value of a directory in growing the FreedomBox network, but I
would like the *option* to remain "unlisted" like I am in the telephone book
(1). My main concern would be that the network would be opened up to abuse
by spammers, so you would definitely need a block option. It would be hard
to get spammers of the network, because ones person's spammer is another
person's mailing provider - you would definitely need a block option.

> 
> We can do that without having to actually store all your 
> content on someone else's server or route all communication 
> through that foreign server. The basic idea is:
> 
> "A server running our new extension would be called something 
> like a "friend finding service" or perhaps "FrienDNS". People 
> could create accounts with this FrienDNS server just as they 
> do with dynamic dns servers, picking a user name and putting 
> in directions on where to find the machine with their stuff, 
> but this time they give the server a little more information 
> about themselves as people. Not too much information, this is 
> a centralized service after all, but just enough for people 
> to recognize each other in a search and ask to "friend" or 
> otherwise connect. Maybe that's just a name, picture, and 
> where you're from; the kind of things you found in old 
> college facebooks before the term got trademarked. Maybe you 
> give more information than that to the business community 
> FrienDNS service or to the dating one. You decide in each 
> context how much information to give other people before 
> agreeing to connect with them.

I do like that in Facebook you can search for people by typing an email
address and you are presented with a person. I do not think you should
present any personably identifiable information (no photo, name), but merely
prompt the user to send a message and invite access to their site. 

My personal choice is that you manage your own personal digital identity by
having a digital home in the form of a domain name. Like a family, the
domain owner is the head of the family with your spouse and children. Each
member of the family has their own pseudonym identity url e.g. 123.home.net
for father. Like a telephone number you give out your pseudonym to people
you trust. When the kids leave home the domain owner redirects people to the
kids new domain url and the kids can also email their friends about their
new address - there is a new to handle change of address. A digital home
also offers you the flexibility to opt-out of the directory service.

I don't think businesses should be listed on FrienDNS service, but if you
see a website with the FreedomBox logo you should be able to connect to that
business just as easily as an RSS feed/openID model.

> 
> Once someone finds you and wants to connect, the FrienDNS 
> service gets directions to your machine from the dynamic dns 
> service underneath and sends the request over to you for 
> approval, just like we expect social networks to do. In 
> addition, I'm going to say we should have the friend finding 
> service keep a unique token from us, some little bit of 
> machine data we give it so that, when it sends us a 
> connection request, we know it really came through the 
> service. So when you get a request to connect with someone, 
> you see who they are from their FrienDNS account information, 
> which service they found you on, and a token from the service 
> confirming that the request really did initiate there."
> 
> I wrote this last year, with more detail, here:
> http://churchkey.org/2010/03/17/dynamic-dns-facebook/ (also 
> part of the new freedombox planet feed: 
> http://planeteria.org/freedombox/)
> 
> -Ian

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlisted_number