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From: <joe@example.invalid>
Subject: Re: teletext-ish pages?
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2022 03:35:11 -0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <svulpd$1jqs$1@news.cyber23.de>
meff <email@example.com> wrote:
On 2022-03-04, <joe@example.invalid> <joe@example.invalid> wrote:
> I see gemini as something that has the potential to be a big hit over
> Tor, where people run local services on their home machines. In this
> case, SSL is redundant and it's kind of a pain to deal with.
>
> But there's really no reason one couldn't just use file:// or even
> http:// I guess.
If you're already on Tor and using onion encryption to secure your
traffic, there's almost no need for Gemini. You can setup a simple
HTTP server and just serve files on it. Gemini's instistence on TLS +
TOFU makes it difficult to use on any overlay network that has
encryption out-of-the-box. Even Gopher works fine over Tor if you so
wish it.
Thats true, unfortunately.
I do use gopher over onion, it's kind of what lead me to gemini.
You can browse capsules on a terminal, which is probably the best thing
about them in my view.
The really promising thing about Gemini vs http WAS that Tor users are
extremely privacy concious. HTML pages are often (usually) loaded with
javascript hacks designed to invade your privacy.
Legitimate Tor users *COULD* be, in my view, the exact audience of Gemini.
Someone who is genuinely concerned about privacy encroachment, say,
someone who supported the trucker convoy in Canada, has every reason not
to trust an HTML page, not even over Tor because of fingerprinting and
potential out of band leaks... problems gemini doesn't really suffer
from yet. (and won't, as long as every page is self contained)
They're just text files, they don't consume a lot of bandwidth either.
It's quite practical to put one on your home computer, over Tor in much
the same way gopher used to be done on work stations.
The requirement for SSL really shoots a lot of advantages down.
Gemini could, in my view, be a very practical and useful thing. It
doesn't have to be limited to a novelty. If it supported markdown, it
would instantly have millions of pages available to it. (but really,
there's no reason one couldn't just pipe from the mailcap file like mutt
does)
This kind of behavior is what you would want on the darkweb. Whistle
blowers, journalists would also want some way of uploading files, ftp
doesn't work over onion very well... and you'll never be able to
implement an interactive site or "pastebin" in gemini.
Maybe "apollo://" could have uploading, work without SSL, support
markdown and even have some kind of mechanism where it prompts you to
upload your PGP key and uses it to encrypt stuff. (PGP would actually be
AWESOME over networks like Tor, which doesn't have much for DNS, but it
would introduce the need for some kind of session management. The server
would need to know which key to encrypt with)
I'll get to work on apollo as soon as I'm done with all the other projects
I'm procrastinating on... :-)
Parent:
Re: teletext-ish pages? (by meff <email@example.com> on Sat, 5 Mar 2022 00:50:38 -0000 (UTC))
Start of thread:
teletext-ish pages? (by <joe@example.invalid> on Thu, 3 Mar 2022 06:49:40 -0000 (UTC))