Ian Preston

iroh less net work for networks

Our latest blog post from @rklaehn.bsky.social is the deep dive on DDOS protection in QUIC you always wanted: www.iroh.computer/blog/quic-pa...

During the Second Reading of the Representation of the People Bill, MP after MP got up to point out what's missing from it: fixing the voting system.

The problems with FPTP can no longer be ignored - and neither can the growing calls for PR. 📣

Here are just a few highlights:

Did you know that web tiles have been running in @peergos.org for 6 years? We are proud to have pioneered the approach for safe sandboxed rendering of apps and content.

Love some nice dimensional analysis.

Encrypted Client Hello: Closing the SNI Metadata Gap Referencesent-deployment-and-adoption" href="#current-deployment-and-adoption" class="toc-anchor">Current Deployment and Adoptionor">Trial by Firewall-security-systems" href="#adapting-network-securit...

Encrypted Client Hello is now RFC 9849

This RFC defines an extension to Transport Layer Security that improves privacy for web users. Huge team effort and a win for the internet at large. Now to get deployment up...

Some words I wrote about this for @cdt.org: cdt.org/insights/enc...

Digital Topology & Economic Power The autonomous file, once the basic unit of user agency in personal computing, was first hollowed out through proprietary formats and data internalization, then abolished entirely by cloud platforms, ...

A great post on the evolution of power in apps as formats became proprietary and then cloud based.
www.orionreed.com/posts/app-fi...
This is why the data model in @peergos.org is so powerful - you own your data, and neither apps nor even your PDS can circumvent this, guaranteed by E2EE.

Victory for hope over hate! Booyah!

Which of the many tiles repos is best?

Feedback of the day on @peergos.org
"Thanks so much! I love the product so far, and love that you're so available to interface with the community about it. Hope y'all keep growing and find success. You're doing so many cool things."
😍

I think this is grounds for citizenship revocation.

The critical ingredients for data sovereignty are portable data, portable identity and end-to-end encryption. Without the latter you don't actually control or own your data. Ownership is about controlling access. These have all been fundamental to the @peergos.org design since 2013.

Marmite? Call yourself an aussie?

Encrypt It Already End-to-end encryption protects the privacy of your data.

Apple, Google, Meta, Bluesky, Ring, Telegram—all these companies could offer stronger protections for our chats and our data. www.encryptitalready.org

Release User partitioned blockstores · Peergos/web-ui This release uses OS managed webviews for the desktop apps, giving a more conventional desktop experience. Blockstores are now partitioned by user. This makes GC scale independently of the number o...

There's a huge new release of @peergos.org out!
github.com/Peergos/web-...
This includes "proper" desktop apps, and a user partitioned block store. The latter makes GC scale independently of the number of users on a server. Lots of fixes and optimisations too.

We tripled our customers last year, and we're on track to more than triple again this year. Of course there are lots of self hosters too (more than customers at the moment)!

Release User partitioned blockstores · Peergos/web-ui This release uses OS managed webviews for the desktop apps, giving a more conventional desktop experience. Blockstores are now partitioned by user. This makes GC scale independently of the number o...

There's a huge new release of @peergos.org out!
github.com/Peergos/web-...
This includes "proper" desktop apps, and a user partitioned block store. The latter makes GC scale independently of the number of users on a server. Lots of fixes and optimisations too.

That's what I want to talk about :-)

Join the party! I use an aranet myself. Your setup looks fun, what did it take to setup?

@robin.berjon.com Are you still interested in collaboration on web tiles? A simpler and more general spec could be widely applicable outside atproto.

I totally agree. It's been working well for us with @peergos.org peergos.org/posts/the-so...
Either you are paying for the product or you are the product (eventually).

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...

Brainwashing, 2026 edition. This paper shows how X's algorithmic feed shifts people's views rightwards. It's a sophisticated, highly effective form of reorientation. And it is utterly chilling.
If you're still on that platform, unhook yourself now.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Not equivalent to lets encrypt because lets encrypt only covers ~58% of websites, and there is no possibility for conflict there. For the DNS root zone analogy to apply you would need 99% of websites to use subdomains of a single domain + all use the same web host + that org to control the root zone

I don't think any of that changes the argument in the threat model.

I thought that was the hypothetical scenario being discussed - PBC goes rogue. The incentive for them is to lock in all the users on their PDSes and app, similar to other hostile takeovers.

The problem is that PBC controls the signing keys for 99% of users. The case I'm thinking of is people who setup alternative rotation keys. The malicious PBC then denies updates to PLC from any keys they don't control (but which would succeed on a mirror), whilst submitting a different update to PLC

The hard part here is getting everyone to agree which one and resolving any conflicting updates from different choices until consensus is reached (e.g. people trying to move away from PBC pdses whilst the, now malicious, PBC is doing conflicting updates).

Best Possible Perfect Fifths in N-TET For each N from 5 to 60, the integer n minimizing |n/N - log_2(3/2)| is found, and the error Δ = n/N - log_2(3/2) is plotted. Lines connect each N to N+12, colored by residue class mod 12. We get 12 different curves, mostly rather smooth, except one pops up as it goes from N = 47 to N = 59.

Take a scale where the octave is divided into N equal parts. See how close you can get to a 'perfect fifth': a frequency ratio of 3/2. Plot the error as a function of N. You get a complicated pattern...

... but if you draw 12 colored lines through the different values of N mod 12, you get this!

An Enigma machine

A replica of the Bombe computer

Information on the Newmanry.

A poster showing the secrecy guidelines at Bletchley park.

The Polish war memorial mentioning the 3 Poles who first broke Enigma.

A map of Bletchley Park's wartime layout, including the Newmanry where my grandfather worked on the most secret German codes.

The entrance to the main Newmanry building.

Had a wonderful time taking my family to Bletchley park to show them where my grandfather worked with Alan Turing breaking German codes. He was fighting fascism by trying to break encryption. I see my work on @peergos.org as also trying to fight fascism, but by protecting privacy with encryption.