Show HN: Federalist and Bob – uncensorable website with webtorrent and Handshake | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Federalist and Bob – uncensorable website with webtorrent and Handshake

83 pointschikeichan17 comments

Bob Extension just added ability to resolve Handshake domain with webtorrent.

Any Handshake TLDs can update its TXT record with a magnet link pointing to a folder that contains a index.html page - Bob Extension will download and show the content using webtorrent when users go to the TLDs (e.g. federalistpapers/)

https://github.com/kyokan/bob-extension/pull/18

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This is cool! This is an extension version of the federalist [1] project I was working on earlier! This makes using federalist so much easier!

Way to go! Also, this is really cool that you did this!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29513547

This sounds super cool! I was (mentally) toying around with an idea like this a few weeks back, maybe this'll teach me something.

Webtorrent is using webRTC right? What does this use for signaling?

You can censor it by blocking TXT records with magnet links in them.

It looks like Bob depends on a hosted backend to start with...

> If all nodes are down the site is down stop exaggerating.

First time I hear about Bob, but the README (https://github.com/kyokan/bob-extension) seems to mention that you can use your own `hsd` node in like the first section, or are you thinking about something else?

Yes but then.. why bother? If you are running your own infrastructure, none of this matters because you have your own infrastructure. Add a new resolver zone, run a tor node, etc etc.

As a start, I'd recommend you to read through https://handshake.org/ and associated documentation if you're interested in understanding how it works.

As a quick answer to your concern, running your own node doesn't mean you can only access your own domains, it'll still be a part of the global handshake network, just via your node instead of via the "hosted backend" you mentioned.

Right, I understand how handshake works.

But if you are capable of running a Bob node, you are capable of running bind or whatever dns solution and manually importing a zone file. Or running tor. Or just running a handshake (or any other) resolver.

There is no benefit to this being entangled with bob.

If all nodes are down the site is down stop exaggerating.

Would be neat random servers you drop in the wild meshed by cellular/satellite. Not saying it would be fast but if powered by something eg. solar/stream nearby. That's a site that would be hard to kill.

truly dat hacker news thank you thank you thank you

correct it me if I am wrong, but whenever I see things like "uncensorable" I laugh. Internet connections require an ISP, internet networks are governed by goverments. There is ZERO way to make something uncensorable or decentralized and all that BS. Even TOR requires someone running exit nodes.

You can make your own car and even use it until you get caught (in a city for example) but you cant use the internet without an ISP.

Only way would be if you started laying out your OWN cable but even then I am sure the goverment would have a way..

I think the idea is that bad guys would have to censor every visitor's ISP, which is a lot harder than censoring at just where it's hosted. The idea is that the latter, e.g., the way Amazon attacked Parler, won't be possible.

>but you cant use the internet without an ISP.

You can "make your own ISP." That doesn't mean people will peer / transit with you though.

How can my isp censor a specific website on TOR ? Or you mean they would just block all ip traffic that look like it’s TOR?

I can use this to blackmail my ransomware victims. Cool! /s

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