We’re joined by Dominic Tarr, a sailor, and the Founder of Secure Scuttlebutt. This curiously named project has a fascinating approach to creating a truly distributed social network. One might even say that Secure Scuttlebutt is “localized” as it gracefully degrades to Sneakernet, something few blockchain projects can claim. In actuality, the SSB protocol isn’t a blockchain in the traditional sense – each user’s feed acts as a sort of localized chain of posts, signed by their public key, and possibly encrypted for a friend's key to decrypt. When users meet, the system syncs their local databases using a gossip protocol and replicates the data. Encrypted data is transported from peer, to peer, to peer (or friends of friends) until it reaches its intended recipient. User may also optionally rely on public servers to sync data over the internet.
Topics covered in this episode:

Daniels background and life living on a boat off the coast of New Zealand
How being at sea gave him the idea for Secure Scuttlebutt
What is Secure Scuttlebutt and what are the goals of the project
The issues with centralization and redefining decentralization as a positive statement
The notion that the technological singularity only serves the goals of centralized power
How SSB stores information and how posts get propagates from between friends, and friends of friends
How the network leverages “Pub” servers to sync data over the internet
Usage of the platform and the communities which thrive there
The cost of spam and how users protect against DDoS attacks
The project’s funding and roadmap

Episode links:

Secure Scuttlebutt website
Scuttlebutt Protocol Guide
Manyverse mobile client
Designing a Secret Handshake: AuthenticatedKey Exchange as a Capability System
EfficientReconciliationandFlow ControlforAnti-Entropy Protocols
Scuttlebutt: an off-grid P2P social network that runs without servers and
can fall back to sneakernet
The Nomad Who’s Exploding the Internet Into Pieces
Counter-Anti-Disintermediation
“The Third Web” interview with Dominic Tarr
Dominic Tarr on Twitter

Sponsors:

Trail of Bits: Trust the team at the forefront of blockchain security research - https://trailofbits.com
Azure: Deploy enterprise-ready consortium blockchain networks that scale in just a few clicks - http://aka.ms/epicenter

This episode is hosted by Sebastien Couture & Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/290