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A Facebook Replacement


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2020 May 26, 7:01pm   1,214 views  30 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

Here's the idea: one member of a group of friends gets a $5/month server from Digital Ocean, or any such service.

The server should run only sshd and nothing else. No other ports should be open. Password login should be disabled.

A "friend request" becomes a request to the server owner (the guy paying the $5/month) to add an account with useradd, and to add the public ssh key for that account in /etc/ssh/authorized_keys.d/ Everyone's home directory would be publicly readable by all the other users on the server.

The the friend can log in with ssh and see everything in /home/* But more importantly, the friend can rsync the entire /home/ directory of that server down to a local copy, maybe ~/static/(server_owner_name)/home/

After rsync runs, to view content one could simply view that content directly from the local filesystem (say, open a movie file with VLC), or could can use a browser with a file:///path/to/index.html page which lets you see content in the familiar html format, no server necessary! That local index.html file can run javascript, and we know that javascript has the permission to write files to the same directory that its own html file is in. So to create a forum, say, one could use the html interface to write a comment, and then "save", which writes the comment as a file to the local disk.

A cron job could come along and automatically rsync that comment and any other changes to your /home/ directory on the shared server once per minute, where other people's cron jobs would be rsyncing to their laptops every minute as well.

That's basically it. What do you get?

- decentralization, resistant to censorship
- completely private to your friends (ssh has good privacy)
- every friend would have a local copy of everything via rsync, so the server could be easily re-created if somehow destroyed
- you can't delete anyone else's work, nor can they delete yours
- relatively easy to set up
- easy to use via web interface without ever needing a web server anywhere
- no advertising
- cheap, only $5/month for one guy
- no dns to pay for or to have cut off
- no ssl certificate required so it can't be cut off
- works offline! you can still view anything and create content when you're not connected, and then rsync to put/get the latest
- crazy fast to browse after each rsync is done, because all files are local

The hosting service would know what you have on your server, but if you took it a step further and actually got your own hardware, you could share any type of file you want, and no one could do anything about it. You just have to be able to trust the friends you let onto your server.

Comments 1 - 30 of 30        Search these comments

1   GNL   2020 May 26, 7:08pm  

Do it. Although, I get everything I need from blogs. Does your solution allow photo/video upload?
2   Patrick   2020 May 26, 7:11pm  

Sure, it would be even easier to upload photos and videos. You could just run a command like:

scp movie.mov 123.234.123.234:/home/me

The problem with blogs is centralization and lack of privacy, and that you need to be online to read it. You want a DNS name? That costs, and can be cut off. You want SSL? That costs, and can be cut off. You want everyone to have a copy of all the content? Don't even know how you could do that with a blog.

But you could just run your own blog on your own $5/month server though. Get a copy of Wordpress or whatever.
3   Booger   2020 May 26, 7:16pm  

Is Gab broken?
4   Patrick   2020 May 26, 7:17pm  

Gab works, but:

- Gab can be censored or taken offline
- you don't have a copy of all the gab content for yourself
- you have to be online to read Gab
- maybe there are things you want to post only to people you know and not to all of Gab
5   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 May 26, 7:22pm  

HCML Hyper chat markup language.

Tags

HCML
Head
Forum
Topic/
/Forum
/Head
Thread
Post
Media/
/Post
Reply
Media/
/Reply
/Thread
/HCML

The tags could have countless properties and parameters.

Each link off the main page would have its own file, that gets updated and synchronized with each post.
You would be better off with something like the news readers, email and chat all in one, thing that Outlook Express was in '97 when it first came out, and what Netscape Communicator was trying to do at that time also. I think it's time for internet platforms, and content creators, to abandon, browsers, they are all compromised.
It's time to come up with a new UI, that people can communicate and share ideas with.
6   KgK one   2020 May 26, 7:24pm  

I am in, start something similar to fb. Can't believe there is no major competitor to fb.
7   Patrick   2020 May 26, 8:35pm  

One question my wife brought up: is it still as interesting if you're limited to just a set of people you know?

On Facebook you can look up people you don't know and maybe see their newsfeed/timeline thing. But on this, you wouldn't be able to, unless there were a way to link servers. But then it wouldn't really be all that private anymore.

Or maybe you'd be introduce to friends of people who are on the same server, because you all know the guy who is paying the $5/month. So that would be kind of social.
8   Patrick   2020 May 26, 9:19pm  

Tenpoundbass says
Each link off the main page would have its own file, that gets updated and synchronized with each post.


@Tenpoundbass What would be in each of these files?

I was thinking that a forum post would be a file, and each comment would also be a file. So structure might look something like:

static
static/users
static/users/mary
static/users/mary/private
static/users/mary/private/friends
static/users/mary/private/friends/patrick
static/users/mary/private/friends/patrick/id_rsa.pub
static/users/mary/private/friends/patrick/servers
static/users/mary/private/friends/patrick/servers/104.236.133.218
static/users/mary/private/messages
static/users/mary/private/messages/from
static/users/mary/private/messages/from/patrick
static/users/mary/private/messages/sent_to
static/users/mary/private/messages/sent_to/patrick
static/users/mary/public
static/users/mary/public/comments
static/users/mary/public/comments/27
static/users/mary/public/comments/27/comment.html
static/users/mary/public/comments/27/images
static/users/mary/public/comments/27/post -> static/users/patrick/public/posts/First_Post
static/users/patrick
static/users/patrick/public
static/users/patrick/public/posts
static/users/patrick/public/posts/First_Post
static/users/patrick/public/posts/First_Post/comments
static/users/patrick/public/posts/First_Post/comments/1 -> static/users/mary/public/comments/27
static/users/patrick/public/posts/First_Post/images
static/users/patrick/public/posts/First_Post/images/ccp_virus.jpg
static/users/patrick/public/posts/First_Post/post.html
9   Booger   2020 May 27, 4:54am  

Patrick says

- Gab can be censored or taken offline


This site would be taken offline by now if it were big enough.
10   GNL   2020 May 27, 5:26am  

Interesting idea once we have no other choice. Although, maybe it's best to get it started now since you never can tell when it will happen. I year early is better than a day late.
11   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 May 27, 6:27am  

Patrick says
@Tenpoundbass What would be in each of these files?


The Comment and Post.html that you have in your structure. Only it wouldn't be html. It would be something new and different. "

Like I said, we need to move past html, and the browser model. Google controls it, and to make a better browser there is so much you would have to make for the Javascript engine and the work to get all of the Mime types to work, that everyone just uses chrome engine.

A script parser can be built into it, but by no means should anyone get lazy and opt to just incorporate the Chrome engine because it's already made. It would defeat the whole purpose of breaking away from how it is now.
12   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 May 27, 6:29am  

My HCML spec was by no means a finished product. I was just waxing the poetic on the fly as I thought about it.
But the idea is, we've got to break away from the traditional browser which means abandoning HTML.

You'll have to bring over the spying snooping, and Big tech masters of the Universe which would defeat the whole purpose.
13   Patrick   2020 May 27, 7:51am  

I agree there's some risk in using html, because if anyone includes some javascript from Google or wherever in their post or comment, then that whole page could be read or modified by Google. Probably 75% of all websites include Google javascript right now, giving Google the ability to spy on all those sites. They include it because they are lazy and don't want to do their own analytics or whatever else Google offers for "free" (meaning at the cost of their users' privacy).

But html is pretty simple and people all have browsers. If there were a way to prevent a static html page (loaded from the filesystem) from making any network calls, that would fix it.
14   AD   2020 May 27, 8:06am  

Patrick says
Or maybe you'd be introduce to friends of people who are on the same server, because you all know the guy who is paying the $5/month. So that would be kind of social.


Its like the Lions Club or Moose Lodge, but virtual.

Call it online lodge or virtual lodge.
15   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 May 27, 8:54am  

Patrick says
But html is pretty simple and people all have browsers.


People download and update browsers all the time.

Re remember late 90's era News and Mail readers? The Network News Transfer Protocol, which you never see or hear about anymore.
I'm thinking something like a "Social Network Transport Protocol" and a reader that you subscribe to Social networks, and the users there in.

So a Social network can delete content, but they can't recall what the client has already downloaded.

The reader would look, feel and behave like a browser for the most part, but you would navigate between networks, and users, by a side tree view panel, that you can pin or hide.
No url address bar, like with the browser. \

If done right, it might return the Internet back to HTML page enthusiasts and the web will return to Webspace managed and created by the users. Like in the dial up days, when everyone got webspace with their internet provider.
16   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 May 27, 9:09am  

Man I got a dDoS attack like you believe after my suggestions, The masters of the Universe doesn't like it one bit.
I had to change my WiFi Channel which always gives me a new IP.
17   FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut   2020 May 27, 9:14am  

Patrick says
- decentralization, resistant to censorship
- completely private to your friends (ssh has good privacy)
- every friend would have a local copy of everything via rsync, so the server could be easily re-created if somehow destroyed
- you can't delete anyone else's work, nor can they delete yours
- relatively easy to set up
- easy to use via web interface without ever needing a web server anywhere
- no advertising
- cheap
- no dns to pay for or to have cut off
- no ssl certificate required
- works offline! you can still view anything and create content when you're not connected, and then rsync to put/get the latest


Question, what if people "remove friend", will that still work due to how certificates work?
No login thing seems like it would be very confusing for many people, especially for people like me with multiple computers, i have a phone and computer and I use two different logins on both because it's hard to remember random password or transfer one to another.
18   AD   2020 May 27, 9:29am  

Tenpoundbass says
late 90's era


I recall the bulletin board system back in the 1980s and using my Commodore 64.
19   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 May 27, 9:36am  

ad says

I recall the bulletin board system back in the 1980s and using my Commodore 64.


You never used the Microsoft Outlook Express circa 1998?

It had Microsoft Chat and Comics Chat, it had the NNTP news reader, as well as email.
I knew people that spent their whole day browsing content in Outlook express, because the other option of exploring the web, was the useless AOL.
The web through the browser, wasn't quite as robust as it is now, as most people were on Dial up 56K tops, or 192K DSL for a select few.

The internet in practice was ten times more interesting than it is today, we just didn't have the bandwidth we have today. Now that we do, we use it look at ugly chicks making duck faces in front of the bathroom mirror.
20   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 May 27, 9:40am  

Something more up to date like this, but instead of NNTP we develop a Social Network Transport Protocol.

https://www.zedat.fu-berlin.de/pub/ZEDAT/NetNews-Konfiguration/outlookexpress-6-win-en.html



And of course with much much more graphical representation to the content like looking at the content in a browser. But navigation would be done on the side panel.
21   Patrick   2020 May 27, 12:22pm  

FortWayneIndiana says
Question, what if people "remove friend", will that still work due to how certificates work?
No login thing seems like it would be very confusing for many people, especially for people like me with multiple computers, i have a phone and computer and I use two different logins on both because it's hard to remember random password or transfer one to another.


To remove a friend, you would remove their public key (id_rsa.pub) from /etc/ssh/authorized_keys.d/ on your server.

There are no certificates. Just ssh keys.

Assuming you have the same private key (called id_rsa, without the .pub) on all your computers, you don't need to remember anything. Every server that allows you would let you in from whatever device has that private key in your ~/.ssh/ directory on that device.
22   Patrick   2020 May 27, 12:26pm  

Tenpoundbass says
we develop a Social Network Transport Protocol


The transport is already done. It's just ssh (and its variant scp, and rsync over ssh).

ssh already exists on most laptops, whether Windows, Mac, or Linux.

To make a new kind of browser seems 100x harder than simply using ssh, rsync and existing browsers.

Just need to figure out a way to prevent a browser which has loaded a page from the local filesystem from using the network at all. We just want to browse the files we have downloaded from the server with rsync. Once the rsync is done, surfing local files would be blindingly fast, because there would literally be no network involved.
23   Shaman   2020 May 27, 12:29pm  

1)Facebook type apps need physical storage space and cpu cycles/electricity to run. That takes money.
2)Money can be got selling ads.
3)However, ad money can be subject to social justice crusading, and thus pressure can be put on the app developer by SJWs to censor.
4)to be a real threat to Facetwat, the app would have to be hugely adopted (you want access to all your friends), and even if some clever campaign was devised to accomplish this: then...
5) youre now a huge business subject to government oversight, public scrutiny, and advertiser revenue.

So basically you’d just promise to run things better than Facetwat does.
24   AD   2020 May 27, 12:30pm  

As far as alternative Facebook, ... you can call it

Patrick's Community (PatCom), or Patrick's Space (PatSpace) or other keywords like Free Speech Center

Also, there are some ideas on attaching labels such as

"where sensitivity dies so that freedom to offend thrives" or

"birthplace of freedom to offend" or "where your feelings lose to my freedoms"

You also can promote traffic by ranking the best insults and offensive but truthful posts .... give out a weekly or monthly award based on advertisement revenue to the top 3 posts .... advertisers could be like those that advertise on Alex Jones show, or libertarian media or shows ....
25   AD   2020 May 27, 12:57pm  

Or "where freedoms matter and feelings don't"
26   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2020 May 27, 2:36pm  

Patrick says

Just need to figure out a way to prevent a browser which has loaded a page from the local filesystem from using the network at all. We just want to browse the files we have downloaded from the server with rsync


You can't do that without reinventing the browser. The biggest requirement for the browser is it is not supposed to communicate with the end users computer other than referencing what ever files are stored in the Temp folder. It's been a requirement since the very beginning of the CERN browser. Somehow along the way, Google because every ActiveX Com object that was forbidden in the late 90's but very effective at making customized web applications independent of the browser rules. It was squashed because of security concerns. I guess nobody has concerns about Google. Which has control over every browser including Edge. whether they want to admit it or not.
I had a web app at work on every desktop the style and layout took a crap. All because Google Chrome, the dlls they store in Windows, updated one night. It rendered what ever version of Jquery that was being used, to exhibit bad. I don't know if styles got deprecated, or if some of the functions in the java script got deprecated. But it was screwed up in every single browser, even Edge. The only fix was to update the Jquery library.

My reference to the News Reader, and the outlook express is to get people thinking outside the box, HTML is dead.
Google and the SJW fuckheads have killed it. You are at the mercy of some Commie dirt bag, depersoning you, and demanding that your registrar, and hosting company dump you if they don't like you. At this point trying to make applications in the confined ridges of HTML and the various frameworks. You're just putting lipstick on a pig.
It's all an illusion, that you have software but you really don't. You have a bit of code running on a webserver, and all it takes is killing that one directory and the whole thing is kaput.

I think it's time we port what ever Web 2.0 was back off into its own space and return the Web and HTML back to personal web pages, and eCommerce.
If there were a Social Network Reader, then no two people would be looking at Facebook, Gab, or anything else, in the same way.
It would be hard for anyone to censor it, because it wouldn't be about web linked promotion, and suppression. It will be there for everybody.
27   Patrick   2020 May 27, 5:23pm  

Tenpoundbass says
You are at the mercy of some Commie dirt bag, depersoning you, and demanding that your registrar, and hosting company dump you if they don't like you.


Well yes, a main goal of this is to not be at the mercy of any commie dirt bag as you put it.

But what else other than a browser can easily format text, open images, and play video, and do it about the same on all of Windows, Mac, and Linux? Portability is important. Don't want to end up creating native apps for multiple platforms, because that would take multiple lifetimes and I have only one. The browser is the existing abstraction layer on top of all operating systems.

Another goal is to make this so simple that it can be done quickly and not require any software installs. Heck, the whole thing could work on the client side with just a single html file to make it easy to format and save new posts, and a single line cron job to rsync up and down once a minute.
29   Patrick   2020 May 27, 8:14pm  

Shaman says
1)Facebook type apps need physical storage space and cpu cycles/electricity to run. That takes money.


Not much!

You can run a fine server for maybe a few hundred people for $5/month.
30   mell   2020 May 27, 8:59pm  

Something similar to HTTrack via ssh/scp/rsync could be a step in the right direction.

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