did you guys ever check out ScuttleButt (https://scuttlebutt.nz/) It seems to have fallen off the rails, but it was a pretty brilliant Idea of encrypted peer-to-peer social media and messaging. Kind of like a complete mastodon instance running on your local machine and you have a list of "servers" that are really just other machines that you sync up with when you log in. So, when you turn on your PC, it has a list of your friends who are "on" and have registered their IP with anyone who has a "polling" station, kind of like a bittorrent tracker. Then it requests any messages in their out-box, directly. When they "made friends", they generated a key between them. So messages don't leave your PC until they're already encrypted, and then aren't sent until your correspondent requests them, and they decrypt them on their own pc using that shared key.
Unfortunately, it was a bit clunky and slow. But.... I love the idea of eliminating centralized systems entirely, especially now.
Dan Morris
npub18k…yv2ch
2025-09-18 18:56:16 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…kspn
Author Public Key
npub18kgc9l66n9t4ykg82j4kccnf2e6y7nlmzdnqc2vqv7k5g80vyhxqtyv2chSeen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2025-09-18 18:56:16 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "ac1aba29cf47d6f176a09802846df670f57e85c0b33c519ea2760d18c1bdfe38",
"pubkey": "3d9182ff5a995752590754ab6c626956744f4ffb13660c298067ad441dec25cc",
"created_at": 1758221776,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"p",
"ea77f5584eeec06087f47a9fe82692723f1feb889eaf3e3b885997ec2e776aec"
],
[
"e",
"fd5d1ae7fadbe08186515d9f7ff712371825e2edea24189046a8bd1a08b06418",
"",
"reply",
"ea77f5584eeec06087f47a9fe82692723f1feb889eaf3e3b885997ec2e776aec"
],
[
"p",
"575388245bbe8a1b1da3bb1491eb0fe863a4863604f2db9bf26a662bda40cbc3"
],
[
"p",
"3d9182ff5a995752590754ab6c626956744f4ffb13660c298067ad441dec25cc"
],
[
"p",
"48fd8062ed64e1768119251f081b374e32dbae09046aa176935dba70648152fa"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://sfba.social/@coldfish/115226822332036598",
"web"
],
[
"e",
"7ae28c17c2b0c4b8312fc1d6d819655f1a0b175e0e022b0c9001eea688ab4bc9",
"",
"root",
"ea77f5584eeec06087f47a9fe82692723f1feb889eaf3e3b885997ec2e776aec"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://sfba.social/users/coldfish/statuses/115226822332036598",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://sfba.social/users/coldfish/statuses/115226822332036598",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "did you guys ever check out ScuttleButt (https://scuttlebutt.nz/) It seems to have fallen off the rails, but it was a pretty brilliant Idea of encrypted peer-to-peer social media and messaging. Kind of like a complete mastodon instance running on your local machine and you have a list of \"servers\" that are really just other machines that you sync up with when you log in. So, when you turn on your PC, it has a list of your friends who are \"on\" and have registered their IP with anyone who has a \"polling\" station, kind of like a bittorrent tracker. Then it requests any messages in their out-box, directly. When they \"made friends\", they generated a key between them. So messages don't leave your PC until they're already encrypted, and then aren't sent until your correspondent requests them, and they decrypt them on their own pc using that shared key.\n\nUnfortunately, it was a bit clunky and slow. But.... I love the idea of eliminating centralized systems entirely, especially now.",
"sig": "fd69aa7d69263619d34a648ab64e8d6edab69ff8437ae9a3cb4e4530f1a51695ba9e5fc00500729a962a3a78bc837f73318fd856a85c8ee16e5aaba00dc18ea2"
}