DN42: build a second internet to learn how it works. Public, no privacy features.
Yggdrasil: build a next generation Internet with some privacy features, and self-organization without central assignment
Tor/I2P: build a completely private internet, but sacrificing speed and the ability to operate on the base layer. (Yggdrasil and DN42 and TPL can run on individual one-to-one links, but Tor and I2P assume existing any-to-any connectivity on the layer beneath, which means you already need an internet)
No description of the games they even play? It's an interesting idea. But it sounds like one big "no girls allowed" kind of treehouse with how minimally forthcoming they are about documentation
I really like this, no feeds, no algorithms, just a network to do cool stuff with like minded people. Things like this are the answer to people complaining about the current state of the Internet. Making a network and getting your friends to use is how it all started.
Hypothetically, it be possible to achieve the same thing with a shared tailscale network, right? But can you kinda "federate" tailnets like this? So independent tailnets owned and run by individuals, but networked together into an inter-tailnet?
You miss the fun and games of running your own DNS infra etc I guess.
I've been wanting to do this for ages. Originally I wanted to do this at the home router level, but that quickly got shut down when I got a test net up and running and my friends could control the Chromecasts in my house.
For us a "tailscale" equivalent with SoftEther is what we used to manage the DNS/Tunneling for our fileshare/services.
So cool to see more people playing in this space. Please post more! <3
Heh, of all arguably-valid definitions of "LAN Party" I think this one is as far away from mine as you can get.
Traditional LAN party: Everyone brings their computers to one place to connect via a LAN, where they play games, swap files, demo stuff to each other, etc.
My LAN party: All my friends come over to my house and use the computers that I have already set up for them. Nobody brings their own. The point is to interact face-to-face, with video games as a catalyst. Swapping files and demos doesn't really happen since nobody brought their own computer. (My house: https://lanparty.house)
The Promised LAN Party: The LAN is extended, virtually, across multiple houses, so that the participants can play games, swap files, and demo stuff without actually leaving home. It's arguably no longer "local" but functionally it enables the same activities as a LAN party, other than the face-to-face interaction part.
I wonder who gets told their definition is "wrong" more. :)
Do y'all get mosquitos on the roof? My back patio is screened in and some are still sneaking through. Would love to know the wired-ethernet-certainty type of approach to dealing with this.
Creating all of this is cool, but I don't know, it looks like a gimmick.
The whole argument is: "Every other page I find myself on now has an AI generated click-bait title, shared for rage-clicks all brought-to-you-by-our-sponsors–completely covered wall-to-wall with popup modals, telling me how much they respect my privacy"
Well, you'll still need content outside your friends group. Even with the "Promised LAN" you'll continue having the same experience.
And what for? What are the use cases? Exchange files? Jokes? Chatting? The examples given: "It’s incredible how much network transport and a trusting culture gets you—there’s a 3-node IRC network, exotic hardware to gawk at, radios galore, a NAS storage swap, LAN only email, and even a SIP phone network of “redphones”."
Ok, fun. But you'll still need WhatsApp/Facetime to talk to your mom, the whole internet to search and learn, sometimes social networks to communicate or to get a job, etc etc etc.
I love this idea and have considered doing something similar with friends for years. It’s cool to see how far they’ve taken it — much bigger than I had envisioned.
My biggest/only concern - which they gloss over, mostly — is security. Combining networks puts added responsibility on every family that joins. What if friend-X’s kid downloads a virus-riddled torrent, which is capable of multiplying across hosts?
Your own hosts/perimeter can always be protected, but there’s a loss of control with this setup.
I would love to learn more about how to set something like this up. I hope this group will consider open-sourcing more tools and instructions for others who hope to follow in their footsteps.
As some other commenters have said, Headscale/Tailscale scratches some of this itch for me. Having individual devices connect directly to an overlay network is fabulous. However, I can never fully control Tailscale the way I wish to, and connecting networks together with it is difficult.
Maybe I'm missing something important. Is this purely an overlay network on top of regular IP with regular ISPs? Or have the got their own physical layer that I missed during reading? My confusion comes from LAN usually implying physical layer colocation. Otherwise, wouldn't it be a WAN?
Note that encryption is illegal in ham radio - and they don't care that you're tunneling some other protocol for which encryption is standard - it's still illegal.
It's possible to use ham skills to make links that are not ham-class though, of course. For example encryption is (typically) legal on ISM band general use licenses (such as used by wifi).
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[ 1.7 ms ] story [ 44.2 ms ] threadDN42: build a second internet to learn how it works. Public, no privacy features.
Yggdrasil: build a next generation Internet with some privacy features, and self-organization without central assignment
Tor/I2P: build a completely private internet, but sacrificing speed and the ability to operate on the base layer. (Yggdrasil and DN42 and TPL can run on individual one-to-one links, but Tor and I2P assume existing any-to-any connectivity on the layer beneath, which means you already need an internet)
no word on how to join though
I think that's a more interesting read than the linked page.
You miss the fun and games of running your own DNS infra etc I guess.
For us a "tailscale" equivalent with SoftEther is what we used to manage the DNS/Tunneling for our fileshare/services.
So cool to see more people playing in this space. Please post more! <3
Traditional LAN party: Everyone brings their computers to one place to connect via a LAN, where they play games, swap files, demo stuff to each other, etc.
My LAN party: All my friends come over to my house and use the computers that I have already set up for them. Nobody brings their own. The point is to interact face-to-face, with video games as a catalyst. Swapping files and demos doesn't really happen since nobody brought their own computer. (My house: https://lanparty.house)
The Promised LAN Party: The LAN is extended, virtually, across multiple houses, so that the participants can play games, swap files, and demo stuff without actually leaving home. It's arguably no longer "local" but functionally it enables the same activities as a LAN party, other than the face-to-face interaction part.
I wonder who gets told their definition is "wrong" more. :)
The whole argument is: "Every other page I find myself on now has an AI generated click-bait title, shared for rage-clicks all brought-to-you-by-our-sponsors–completely covered wall-to-wall with popup modals, telling me how much they respect my privacy"
Well, you'll still need content outside your friends group. Even with the "Promised LAN" you'll continue having the same experience.
And what for? What are the use cases? Exchange files? Jokes? Chatting? The examples given: "It’s incredible how much network transport and a trusting culture gets you—there’s a 3-node IRC network, exotic hardware to gawk at, radios galore, a NAS storage swap, LAN only email, and even a SIP phone network of “redphones”."
Ok, fun. But you'll still need WhatsApp/Facetime to talk to your mom, the whole internet to search and learn, sometimes social networks to communicate or to get a job, etc etc etc.
My biggest/only concern - which they gloss over, mostly — is security. Combining networks puts added responsibility on every family that joins. What if friend-X’s kid downloads a virus-riddled torrent, which is capable of multiplying across hosts?
Your own hosts/perimeter can always be protected, but there’s a loss of control with this setup.
As some other commenters have said, Headscale/Tailscale scratches some of this itch for me. Having individual devices connect directly to an overlay network is fabulous. However, I can never fully control Tailscale the way I wish to, and connecting networks together with it is difficult.
I knew guys who set up something like that in Culver City / West LA. It was slow, but it was self-reliant . Basic email, image transfer etc.
It's possible to use ham skills to make links that are not ham-class though, of course. For example encryption is (typically) legal on ISM band general use licenses (such as used by wifi).