(2017-04-06) Staltz Scuttlebutt Offgrid Social Network

André Staltz - An off-grid social network

Scuttlebutt differs from Bitcoin and BitTorrent because there are no “singleton components” in the network.

Scuttlebutt is also different to federated social networks like Mastodon, Diaspora, GNU Social, OStatus. Those technologies are not peer-to-peer, because each component is either a server or a client, but not both.

Every time two Scuttlebutt friends connect to the same WiFi, their computers will synchronize the latest messages in their diaries. Another way of synchronizing information is to connect to a common Scuttlebutt server, known as “pub”, set up by any member in the community. Pubs make information spread faster, and globally, but are totally dispensable

Each Scuttlebutt account is comprised of simply two things: an append-only diary and private/public asymmetric crypto keys,