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Alternative transports, philosophy [was: Gemini server logging formats and practices]

solderpunk solderpunk at SDF.ORG

Fri May 15 08:58:02 BST 2020

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On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 04:27:25PM -0700, Dave Huseby wrote:
> What I don't like the most about TLS is the complexity due to backwards compatibility and protocol negotiation.

I totally get this.  I really want to spec TLS 1.3 as the bare minimumpermitted for Gemini because it gets rid of a lot of that complexity.Web browsers can't afford to do this because they need to support allthe old servers out there.  We don't have that legacy and could startwith a clean slate of a simpler, less fiddly TLS.  All that holds meback is that this would rule out a lot of otherwise very compelling TLSlibraries which don't yet have TLS 1.3 support.

Cheers,Solderpunk

> I still look forward to your post.
> 
> Cheers!
> Dave
> 
> On Thu, May 14, 2020, at 2:23 PM, solderpunk wrote:
> 
> On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 02:09:04PM -0700, Dave Huseby wrote:
> 
>  
> 
> 
> I surely will. I'm curious about your thinking.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure you'll be completely sold, but I hope you'll see where I'm
> 
> coming from.
> 
> 
> 
> To try to boil it all down:  I absolutely agree that TLS has problems
> 
> and I don't doubt that other things, like CurveCP, might overcome or
> 
> avoid a lot of them.  But I believe something built on TLS is
> 
> overwhelmingly more likely to be widely implemented and deployed than
> 
> something based on literally anything else, and at the end of the day a
> 
> I think a good but not perfect protocol which becomes widely used and
> 
> supported will do a lot more good for the internet than a "perfect"
> 
> protocol which never becomes more than a curiosity for a small
> 
> community of enthusiasts.
> 
> 
> 
> This is not to say I don't think anything "strange and new" can *ever*
> 
> "catch on" or that I think any such efforts are a waste of time.  I wish
> 
> all the radical projects aiming at lofty goals all the luck in the
> 
> world, sincerely.  But there's a valid niche for something not quite so
> 
> radical which can still be a real and valuable improvement over the
> 
> status quo with very low barriers to adoption.
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Solderpunk
> 
> 
> 
>