327 sats \ 4 replies \ @rtr 26 Apr \ parent \ on: TCP/IP Alternatives? tech
There have been attempts. I don't know what you'd count as serious but here's some of the projects that are non HTTP-based are being used to some extent today:
  • Gopher - This predates HTTP, basically a more presentation-strict protocol that displays information as either text or links. Very lightweight as a result.
  • Gemini - A "souped up" version of Gopher. Aims to recreate that "lightweight web" that's common in the mid to late 90s.
  • Urbit - An overlay OS with its own network stack. Very interesting project.
There's probably more. But those are the ones that I've used so that's what I'm familiar with.
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10 sats \ 3 replies \ @siggy47 OP 26 Apr
Thanks. I'll check out Urbit. Edit: I looked at the site for 30 seconds. This is exactly what I was looking for. I heard of it before, but didn't know anything about it.
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54 sats \ 2 replies \ @rtr 26 Apr
Urbit is very interesting. It can be a bit esoteric for most but I think what they're doing there is really cool.
I wish they base their PKI on Bitcoin though.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @alt 26 Apr
That's something that put me off when reading, the idea sounds great but they say your ID is registered "on a Blockchain", I couldn't even see anywhere which Blockchain it was.
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5 sats \ 0 replies \ @rtr 26 Apr
They're using Ethereum as their PKI.
That's why I said I wish they've used Bitcoin instead. As far as I understand it, the smart contract that handles the identity management is something that Bitcoin can't handle yet. Maybe if BitVM becomes a thing.
From what I gather though, they're trying to bootstrap away from Ethereum into an Urbit-specific solution. That's probably the reason why you can't easily find the blockchain that they're using for the identity layer.
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