Introducing Tent - the decentralized social web

My first thought was "Well, Diaspora with another name". But after reading and understanding it (it's not very well explained there) seems like a much more abstract thing. They want to build an abstraction layer to the social web, not a social network.<p>The idea seems pretty good. It's just the basics: you follow people and receive their content (text, images, whatever), and people follow you and you share content with them. The most amazing thing is that, just using these simple concepts the possibilities are infinite. As they said, every social network out there can be implemented in this way. ¿Twitter? It's trivial, just make the format description and you're ready. ¿Facebook? The only thing you should specify is that the relationships are symmetric (you can follow me only if I decide to follow you too, that is, we are mutual friends).<p>To me, the idea seems absolutely great. The problem will be execution: what apps are created using this protocol. I have also the doubt if apps will be interoperable. Example: I build a twitter-like app named Foo and another guy builds another twitter-like app named Bar. Both use similar formats, so, can an user using Foo see the contents posted with Bar? I imagine that this will be possible as long as they share the same post format, but I'm not sure.<p>Anyways, good work. I would really like to see Tent to expand and grow.

A few years back, I started getting interested in a similar idea. I'm definitely intrigued in seeing how well it goes. Good luck to you.<p>Of course, as ideas go, I allowed myself to think further into the possibilities, and found some interesting avenues.<p>For instance, why allow the facebooks, twitters, etc to own domain over our content? Let people store their own data, and offer API endpoints giving facebook, twitter, etc access. They essentially become frontends and search engines to our shared content. We get control of our own data (and privacy therein), they get to provide an interface to that data in a way that fits what they're trying to offer their "customers".<p>And then if you take that even further, why allow anyone control over your data? Why not store all my purchase data and credit info on my own servers, and allow authorized companies access as needed? Census time? Popup shows up on my phone asking if i'd like to allow the government access to some of my data for census - I pick what data is allowed, and it's done.<p>Electric company's system automatically logs in to get my electric usage. Phone provider does the same. Publishing a book literally allows access by readers to your own servers. Releasing an album - same deal. We still have "stores", but those stores are merely search engines offering a service to both the content creators and consumers.<p>It went further, and weirder (in interesting ways). I'm not sure such a system would truly be beneficial, but I love the idea of allowing people to Truly Own their own data.<p>Apologies for the tangent. Good luck to you. I'm a fan of the idea as it's presented and I hope you're successful.

Random thought: it might be helpful to give Tent-the-protocol a different name than Tent-the-server-implementation. In other words, "Tent" means either the protocol you're specifying, or the server software you're planning on releasing, but not both.<p>An analogue would be the naming distinction between HTTP, the protocol, and httpd, the first Web server (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN_httpd</a>). That naming split made it easier for people to understand what part of the system others were talking about, and helped make it clear that the two pieces were not tightly coupled to each other.<p>Maybe you're already planning on doing this when you release the server, it's not clear from the web site. If that's the case, feel free to ignore...

Why is it that every new protocol seems to want to piggy back on HTTP? It seems to me that maintaining state would be a useful feature for a social protocol.<p>Another issue is that this assumes that the web will be the client of choice in the future... with mobile apps being as big as they are in the social space, this seems a bit shortsighted.<p>Don't get me wrong, I like the idea behind having a "social server", but I don't necessarily think that starting with HTTP is the way to go.<p>I don't have any particular argument with using JSON for data transfer though... I think that is probably a good choice. Also using SSL for all connections is probably a good call too.

This would be the "killer protocol" for the freedombox, if combined with some smart dyndns management.<p>Here is a use case scenario I am imagining. I define two servers for myself: home.me.com and cloud.me.com. Where home.me.com is a dyndns to the freedombox. Dyndyns being unreliable, if a tent msg cannot get to my home server, then the messages are sent to cloud.me.com and then pushed to home.me.com when it comes back online (think POP mail).<p>The facebook killer then, is a hosted service like cloud.me.com for non-tech people, but a seamless transition to the hosted at home service as soon as you buy a freedombox. This way you have the best of both worlds. Your face in the cloud, and long term storage at home.<p>Other app wishlist: tent to smtp and smtp to tent adapters for gmail killing

I am not convinced that this needs a new protocol as they claim. Facebook-style functionality be done on top of activity streams, pubsubhub, salmon, webfinger et al. They indicate they have investigated existing systems and found them lacking. I would rather have something like this built on protocols that a bunch of people have discussed out in the open first. That said, I am interested to see more details as they arise, as this type of thing is needed.

This looks great guys. I'll definitely put up a server and hook up the content I traditionally expose through my personal website.<p>Question: what features that are taken for granted on today's popular social networks are difficult/impossible in this kind of distributed system? for example, i suspect something like "friend suggestions" might be difficult, since you only have access to a part of the network. Auto-friend tagging in pictures would be tough too. I'm seeing a lot of upsides listed, but there must be some things you just can't do. A candid discussion of the drawbacks would be helpful.

I wonder about the rationale to use HTTPS for everything, especially about the SSL part. It seems that by the choice of SSL over a web of thrust (WOT [1]) approach one imports the problems of certificates and CAs into the protocol. Especially it would be possible for a server with a root CA to impersonate other people. On the other hand, a social network is about social relations, which could also directly serve to sign and validate public keys in a WOT. This could then serve as a authentication against the same social network that is stored. For example a chat software could show Alice that the person she is chatting with is indeed Charly, the friend of Bob ( Bob signed Charlies key).<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust</a>

I'm damn excited about this. I've been mulling this concept over in the last couple of years, because I really we need something post-blogs that isn't the walled garden facebook / twitter / G+ / et al model.<p>For the me the ultimate social network would be just blogs, RSS and a feed reader, with people either managing the blog themselves or using a third party to do it for them-- the point is it doesn't matter.<p>The problem is that blogging is complicated, anything with multiple options is complicated, and discovery is complicated. I know where to look to find a friend on facebook, I don't know where to look to find his blog.<p>I don't have time right now (work) to look into Tent in more detail, but it sounds like it's a definite step in the right direction.

It seems like this will use up a crapton of bandwidth with its 'push' style notifications. If someone with a million Facebook followers makes a new post, one entry is made in the database and then users pull it down as they visit their own pages.<p>If a million people decide to 'camp in my tent' (?), my server is suddenly pushing out gigs of data every time I make a post.

This is the Twitter replacement gotham needs.<p>Repo starred, eagerly awaiting runnable stuff.

I would be interested to read a 'big-picture' description of what Tent is. Forgetting for the moment how it compares with competitors, what is the idea? I read the introduction but I feel that I don't understand it.<p>From what I can tell, the idea is to create a standard set of objects and rules for interacting with these objects. Of course that is how protocols tend to look.<p>What are some of the new objects/concepts proposed by Tent? For example, is there a distinction between "home" and "users" akin to server/client? Are there several types of messages, compared to email? Is there a standard cookie-like object? What is the conceptual model for sharing? Any insight would be appreciated.

Awesome. I've wanted this forever, glad someone is finally picking up the ball and running with it. I'll be happy to beta test!

"His server sends a notification to every server following him or mentioned in the post with permission to see the post."<p>The protocol seems to have some fundamental limitations.<p>For my money I'd rather go with FETHR (see <a href="http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/" rel="nofollow">http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/</a> and this paper: <a href="http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/doc/iptps-fethr/" rel="nofollow">http://dsandler.org/brdfdr/doc/iptps-fethr/</a>) and its implementation - which has code available right now (<a href="https://bitbucket.org/dsandler/brdfdr/" rel="nofollow">https://bitbucket.org/dsandler/brdfdr/</a>).

"Tent servers can also be run as Tor hidden services to create a social darknet for at-risk organizers and activists."

Thanks guys. Not a moment too soon. Humbly quoting the motivation:<p>&#62; What is wrong with other social services? Centralized Social Service Providers limit what you can share and who you can share with. They only allow users to interact with other users on the same network. Because their products are centralized and maintained by a company, users are left in the cold when the company changes its products or shuts down. There's nothing wrong with a company offering users social services. But users shouldn't be limited by those companies. Imagine if you could only email other customers of your Internet Service Provider. Unfortunately Centralized Social Service Providers have done just that. You can only communicate directly with other users of their closed network.<p>&#62; If you don't like a bank you can withdraw your money and deposit it somewhere else, including your own home. You could even start a new bank where you and your friends felt safe. You can still pay your bills and maintain your financial relationships, just tell them about your new account. We aren't talking about money. Your data is far more valuable– your family and friends' photos, locations, and private communications. You should be able to store them somewhere you trust, move them when you want, control who can and can't see them.

We're building something like this for a while at Qbix.<p>It's not an easy problem to solve when it comes to privacy and security: <a href="http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120110469#b" rel="nofollow">http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20120110469#b</a><p>Eventually to arrive at this: <a href="http://myownstream.com" rel="nofollow">http://myownstream.com</a>

What took you so long? I've been waiting for someone to finally get around to building this for a long time.

"How is Tent licensed? Tent will be completely free and open and treated as a standard. To prevent fragmentation before launch, the original authors currently retain copyright. This is a temporary situation which will be remedied immediately after a governance model is chosen. We decided it would be best to share what we could as soon as possible, releasing early and often. We are entirely committed to free and open software and protocols with open governance models leading to a ratified standard. Tent will be released under an open license in the immediate future."<p>I am curious as to how retaining copyright will help them prevent fragmentation? Can they not elect themselves as project leaders of the opensource project and prevent fragmentation?

PHP support is vital.

I like how they support Tor hidden services. Though I wish they would go a step further and support I2P.<p>It's really nice to see people are working on ways to sort of "replace" the current centralized services out there.<p>Let us hope they are attractive enough to developers and users.

Sounds almost too good to be true. Looking forward to being able to download some software.

But how does this differ to StatusNet/OStatus? If we have several similar solutions to a problem it makes it more difficult for one to gain traction. Seems like reinventing the wheel, or am I missing something?

I hope this crew is looking at WebRTC. The true killer app for a distributed social network is going to be a global decentalized video chat network. Imagine Google hangouts without Google. Even just to implement a voice-only chat without a centralized system would be pretty phenomenal.<p>Also, I really think they're making a mistake by not using secure Websockets for their protocol. Plain HTTP has too much overhead for what needs to be an efficient messaging protocol and the potential need for persistent connections.

How does this compare with Diaspora?

I'm thinking about every smart phone as a tent server.<p>P2P camping site will establish when you are waiting the bus, taking the boring meeting, or camping at the river bank. I tried to use wifi-direct/bluetooth, but I found iPhone and Android system set device default to non-discoverable for security issue. But I do found a lot of Nokia/LG phone in discoverable mode on subway.<p>I hope the tent will be successful. Be an application to make strangers knowing each other and people to go outdoor.

How does this compare to Mr Social? : <a href="http://mobisocial.stanford.edu/papers/mrprivacy.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://mobisocial.stanford.edu/papers/mrprivacy.pdf</a>

I believe this is a great idea, but I disagree with some points of your implementation. I actually started writing a lengthy comment about this, and after about two hours of writing I decided it might look better as a blog post, so there you go:<p><a href="http://www.nicollet.net/2012/08/tent-the-right-goals-the-wrong-perspective/" rel="nofollow">http://www.nicollet.net/2012/08/tent-the-right-goals-the-wro...</a>

This looks really neat. How are you going to get people to start using it? Anything more active than hoping that an app/user ecosystem develops?

In my opinion, there isn't much point in decentralizing servers -- it's been tried and failed a number of times. What we need is decentralized <i>clients</i>, e.g. a true P2P social network. Essentially, imagine that your contacts app could exchange messages over the Internet directly with any -- or all, or any combination -- of the contacts stored within.

Where's the donate button when I really need it?

"Not Invented Here" syndrome is manifested as an unwillingness to adopt an idea or product because it originates from another culture - Wikipedia<p>The culture of decentralized web doesn't bode well, not enough capitalism, which might in turn effect the quality of the product.

If anyone is looking to get involved I have (unoffically) started a project to write a testsuite against the protocol. Contributions would be appreciated.<p><a href="https://github.com/lucaspiller/tent-testsuite" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/lucaspiller/tent-testsuite</a>

&#62; Tent is specifically designed to be usable by high-risk activists and people in countries that block other social networks.<p>I can't help but read that and think, "terrorists." Then again, there will always be that tradeoff and you are probably on the right side.

&#62; OStatus [..] stopped short of actual decentralization.<p>How so ? It looks quite decentralized to me.

Why not use the OpenPGP standard? PGP public and private keys seem to be the natural solution for both,<p>1. signing data so that the source can be verrified<p>2. encrypting messages so that they can only be read by particular recipients

To a normal person, this article is just a collection of fuzzy well meaning ideas wrapped around a bunch of technical network jaron. The fact that there is no working demo is rather damming.

Instead of sub domain, email address would have been a better choice.<p>user@provider.tld<p>Where provider.tld provides specification/api.. like robot.txt/tent.json that would specify actual api endpoints for given user.

Friendica does that already. No one cares. Potato chips are potato chips. No one cares about the brand, but everyone loves them, even though they are not free.

Who's behind Tent, does anyone know?<p>I can swear I saw a section with names on the site, but can't seem to find it now. It looks like it was taken out.

How is the different from identi.ca? Isn't this pretty much what their premise is/was? (ignoring implementation differences)

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_(protocol)" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tent_(protocol)</a>

Who is building this? Who designed the protocol, and will publish/veto the standard?

What happens when my server is down when you try to post a notification?

I'm digging this!

Please make more social networks.

Website is down?

"Every user decide which other users can follow them and what information will be shared with each of their followers."<p>This effectively makes each person an island in h/herself and hence the model of social-web breaks down. It wouldn't work and people know it.<p>In order to liberate the data, you're throwing the baby out with the bath water.