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Aether, (Ephemeral) Reddit Without Centralized Server

posted by cmn32480 on Sunday July 05 2015, @08:03PM   
from the i-wonder-if-they-run-rehash dept.

c0lo writes:

Stumbled upon this (disclaimer, I'm not affiliated and don't hold any special interest):

Aether is an app you install to your computer to connect to Aether network. This network is made of different boards (forums) where people post and discuss things. On the surface, it's fairly similar to Slashdot, Metafilter, Reddit, or any other community site on the Internet.

The different thing about Aether is that it doesn't have a server somewhere. The only thing the app does is that it finds and connects to other people using Aether. In other words, it's a distributed, peer-to-peer network.

This makes it impossible to censor, and renders its users anonymous. It's useful for people concerned about privacy, or pretty much anyone who doesn't want to be watched and catalogued for every word they write on the Internet (so, pretty much everybody).

It's also temporary. Whatever you post disappears after six months. It's designed to be an ephemeral space, and it's focused on now, rather than the past. Other people can still keep copies of what you wrote, but it won't last forever in the network itself. They also won't know who you are.

Community moderated, distributed and anonymous. Almost to good to be true, but... how do you know it is actually _gewg that's posting?

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Original Submission

• Usenet Usenet (Score: 3, Insightful) by darkfeline on Monday July 06 2015, @08:56AM

  by darkfeline (1030) on Monday July 06 2015, @08:56AM (#205522) Homepage

  Isn't this basically Usenet? Some of the technical details might differ, but fundamentally it sounds like the same thing.

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• Re:Usenet (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday July 06 2015, @12:03PM

  by FatPhil (863) <{pc-soylent} {at} {asdf.fi}> on Monday July 06 2015, @12:03PM (#205575) Homepage

  Everything old is new again. Exactly the same thoughts went through my mind. I'm still a usenet regular. (But my god, sci.math is 99.5% cranks and responders to cranks now, it's scary.)

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• Re:Usenet (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @02:49PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2015, @02:49PM (#205646)

  Yes, that's exactly what I thought, too, when reading the summary.

  Well, actually some people archived Usenet messages; one public archive actually became prominent and was later bought up by Google. But then, I wouldn't bet on nobody archiving messages on Aether either. Even if the developers don't intend it, the very nature of a distributed system makes it dead easy to do.

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• Re:Usenet (Score: 2) by mr_mischief on Monday July 06 2015, @04:51PM

  by mr_mischief (4884) on Monday July 06 2015, @04:51PM (#205723)

  It's similar to Usenet or FIDO. It's not really a new idea. It's just a new implementation.

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