despite having "OS" in the name, it has nothing to do with operating systems.
It's a local node.js app you run, which connects to their own mesh network, and somehow fetches the user data from the P2P mesh.
The P2P mesh is supposed to be uniform, "No masters, no workers, no special hardware" - but later in the README, they mention (1) users paying for storage and bandwidth (2) other users hosting the servers at their home using two different hardware classes. So it seems there is a pretty clear client/server distinction - even if the code is identical, the functions are not.
It is not clear how the data is stored - if I add a gigabyte of photos and then close the lid of my laptop, who is storing those? Do I choose specific nodes I trust, or is it assigned randomly? How much so I need to pay them for this? What if they turn off the server, do I lose all the data?
There is your usual "your identity is your keypair" deal, this time they recommend a USB stick for this, created from 24-word keyphrase. The good news is it makes the backup easy. The bad news is anytime you leave it unattended, someone else could copy your keys.
Just like with all other distributed systems of this sort, if you either lose your key (and have no backups), or someone else steals it, you lose control of your account forever and there is no way to recover.
There is its own cryptocurrency (of course!), which you can use to buy "Compute time, Storage, Streaming, Content from creators".
There is AI support of course, you can get paid for providing hardware which can run AI, and you can pay to run your queries on someone else's machines.
It has everthing to do with operating systems. It provide services for security, storage and compute. It also makes a network look like one system to the user
instead of pointing me to 2K lines file, can you answer the question directly?
> if I add a gigabyte of photos and then close the lid of my laptop, who is storing those? Do I choose specific nodes I trust, or is it assigned randomly? How much do I need to pay them for this? What if they turn off the server, do I lose all the data?
files are sharded and hashed then digitally signed by the owner. Next they are broadcasted to the ftree network. Nodes compete with a short POW to store the next shard (the POW is to create randomness not earnings). When shards are retrieved an audit is run to see how many healthy shards are available. if less then 3 copies are found a new shard is automatically created on a another cell. Only one healthy shard is all that is required but 3 are always maintained.
No nodes are trusted they just store shards. To recreate a file you need to have the shard map (the list of the sha256 hashes for each shard). If you want the shards encrypted your client encrypts before the file enters the network and only you can decrypt it with the cypher you stored it with.
regarding the password... what is bad news is that everytime some some big tech company's database gets hacked your credentials get sold on the dark net. Why do they get hacked? because everyone knows they have millions of credentials for the taking. I prefer keeping my credentials on my own machine. If you lose your keys that is on you.
Which is a people problem! The Internet is already a decentralized network. Anyone can hook up a computer to the Internet and others can immediately access it.
Centralization comes from people building bigger and bigger companies which control bigger percentages of hardware connected to the Internet. Consolidation is the natural order of things: competition is hard, so buy your competitor. If you want to solve / prevent it, then there needs to be incentives for companies to stay small, for there to be multiple companies, and for people to (begrudgingly) want more competition. None of this has anything to do with technology.
you are really not reading jameskilton's comment, are you?
the internet is already decentralized. "Anyone can hook up a computer to the Internet and others can immediately access it". This means: cloud - don't need it, platforms - don't care, app store - why would a webpage need it.
This leaves domain names, cert authorities and search. Decentralized alternative s for all of those exist already, and frankly they are much better than your project.
wow you read code quick :) I agree there is a people problem. So if the alternatives exist and people do not use them. Then we need to create alternatives that people will use... Not cut down peoples ideas with out taking any real effort ( another people problem).
it's a node.js app which you run on your machine and which serves a localhost page with a bunch of services. Not clear which, but "messages", "files" and "streaming" are all mentioned.
How would this network protect itself against spambots? Is there any sort of reputation system or barrier to entry that would be fine for an average user but annoying to bot operators?
This is the Pied Piper decentralized internet idea from Silicon Valley. With about as much technical explanation as the show writers managed. I doubt Gilfoyle would use it.
It's a local node.js app you run, which connects to their own mesh network, and somehow fetches the user data from the P2P mesh.
The P2P mesh is supposed to be uniform, "No masters, no workers, no special hardware" - but later in the README, they mention (1) users paying for storage and bandwidth (2) other users hosting the servers at their home using two different hardware classes. So it seems there is a pretty clear client/server distinction - even if the code is identical, the functions are not.
It is not clear how the data is stored - if I add a gigabyte of photos and then close the lid of my laptop, who is storing those? Do I choose specific nodes I trust, or is it assigned randomly? How much so I need to pay them for this? What if they turn off the server, do I lose all the data?
There is your usual "your identity is your keypair" deal, this time they recommend a USB stick for this, created from 24-word keyphrase. The good news is it makes the backup easy. The bad news is anytime you leave it unattended, someone else could copy your keys.
Just like with all other distributed systems of this sort, if you either lose your key (and have no backups), or someone else steals it, you lose control of your account forever and there is no way to recover.
There is its own cryptocurrency (of course!), which you can use to buy "Compute time, Storage, Streaming, Content from creators".
There is AI support of course, you can get paid for providing hardware which can run AI, and you can pay to run your queries on someone else's machines.