victorb / tree-talk

A tree in the merkle-forest where you can just hang around and talk

Tree-Talk

A tree in the merkle-forest where you can just hang around and talk

What is this?

Tree-Talk is a forum that works over IPFS, mainly the pubsub part. There is no servers involved in sending the threads/posts to other users but there is a signaling server for helping peers to discover each others.

Tree-Talks data is completely distributed among the peers that are using the application, with no central storage/database for threads and posts.

Running

• Official IPFS link: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmdsQExVDxp2EgERDZFn2Q7Q6Ldi3uH4XSpQTu4L7aUeTU/#/
• Locally: http://localhost:8080/ipfs/QmdsQExVDxp2EgERDZFn2Q7Q6Ldi3uH4XSpQTu4L7aUeTU/#/

Installing

Requirements

• node
• npm

Setup

• git clone https://github.com/victorbjelkholm/tree-talk
• cd tree-talk
• npm install
• npm start
• Visit http://localhost:3000

Publishing your own copy

Requirements

• IPFS https://ipfs.io
• IPFS daemon running

Setup

Make sure you're running the IPFS daemon somewhere

$ ipfs daemon

Initializing daemon...
Swarm listening on /ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/4001
Swarm listening on /ip4/192.168.1.128/tcp/4001
Swarm listening on /ip4/37.133.29.47/tcp/4001
Swarm listening on /ip6/::1/tcp/4001
API server listening on /ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/5001
Gateway (readonly) server listening on /ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/8080
Daemon is ready

Then run npm run publish to build a production build, add it to IPFS and publish on IPNS.

You can then visit https://ipfs.io/ipfs/:hash or https://ipfs.io/ipns/:ipnfs-name

Architecture

Tree-Talk is using the pubsub and DAG API in js-ipfs to publish and retrieve content.

It publishes resources in a pubsub channel and also listens on the same channel.

There is also a implementation of a caching server who listens to a pubsub channel and reshares all the content it can find.

Open Problems

• Spam - Anyone can publish events on a pubsub channel and spam the network

  • Possible Solutions:
    • Every client keeps track of how many threads/posts they received from another client and if 2 posts > 1 minute, put the client on cooldown

• Messaging

  • Should always one message per second

• Authenticity

  • All messages should be signed
    • UI needs to show if message is signed or not

Testing

Should include a acceptance testing suite for making sure everything is always working as it should.

• Start signal server
• Start browser 1
• Start browser 2

Scenarios:

• Browser 1 & 2 are connected, showing "1 peer" each

License

MIT 2017 - Victor Bjelkholm