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Comment by towhans | Hacker News Reader

I am a programmer yet still I don't get what this is. If an app wants to send JSON to another app why not use HTTP for that. DNS will take care of the routing. The only thing that seems novel to me is their use of UDP which is faster then HTTP.

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Is it to bypass DNS? With all the moves to control the internet around, then an encrypted peer-to-peer decentralised system that can deal with any kind of data would allow for DNS-less email / websites etc etc...

Though the main point of DNS is it manages a namespace, and you wouldn't want clashes, so websites would probably have to have urls like thttp://{some 64char hash}/

(Where the h stands for telehash...

Here is the bit I don't get - how do you do a lookup to get that hash?

i.e. Map from something user friendly (e.g. username) to a SHA1 hash?

From the Wiki:

[...]End: a SHA-1 hash key (40 hex characters, 160-bits) stored in the global DHT and distributed between switches. Switches will distribute and look up ends in the global DHT that are important to them. TeleHash defines the SHA-1 hash of the external IP:PORT of a switch as part of the protocol. Applications built on top of TeleHash can add their own ends to the DHT like hashes of files, hashes of e-mail addresses or hashes of other application-specific values (e.g. user@chat).[...]

So if i understand this right, every packet has a protocol-defined +end and the application can add it's own end on top (i.e. an Email adress?).

https://github.com/quartzjer/TeleHash/wiki/My-Understanding-...

OK, I was being a bit thick there, to look up a email address you presumably simply hash it (presumably with some kind of canonicalization) and use that as the key for your lookup for a matching +end.

I'm not sure, but this is what i think i get out of this. You really don't need an email, this could be a hash or whatever. i think of more apps or services use some protocol like this, there should be a unified why to "lookup" for an account or something.

For example, if you have a decentralized social network that is based on the same software, say "facespace", every of those software nodes would lookup for the same identifier. i guess...

I guess it might make sense to do a lookup based on a hash of a json query like:

{ "facespace":"arethuza" }

The use of UDP allows for "hole-punching".

User A wants to send and receive messages with user B. Both are identified only by their IP and Port pair. User B does not know of user As intentions. So user A send switch C an UDP packet asking for "hole-punching". Switch C has this service where users behind NAT routers connect and signup to be contacted when someone wants to "hole-punch" to them. Switch C sends a packet to B with info about A. B sends A a packet and Bs router is now expecting packets from A. Has soon has A sends its first packet to B its router is open for packets from B. Now both A and B can send packets to each other without C.

DNS is not yet entirely out of the loop. The main switch for telehash is telehash.org:42424

This is the ideal situation. It only works, however, for a subset of routers.

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