35C3 preroll music Herald-Angel: So, congress isn't only about techy meet ups. It's about personality. It's about humans. And what happens when block chain and social connection meet each other and have a baby? Well, Scuttlebutt: the decentralized social network may result. And Zenna or zelf will introduce Scuttlebutt to you. Thank you very much. Applause Zenna: So, hello! I'm Zenna or more maybe known in Scuttlebutt as zelf. That's my profile picture. I'm not just trying to put anything out there. laughing But yes, I'm zelf or Zenna and I've got a background of seven years in digital fabrication / the fab lab scene and I'm a grant writer for Scuttlebutt. That's why I'll be talking about Scuttlebutt today. So I'll take this off. Because it was making noise. So what's Scuttlebutt? Can we get a really really quick, how many people here have heard about Scuttlebutt before? Eeey, that's a few, that's pretty good. Okay. Second question: how many people got on Scuttlebutt? Okay, that's not all of you. Those of you who had heard about it but didn't get on: Uh, uh, mm. And yes. So the rest of you, we'll be telling you what Scuttlebutt's about. So, Scuttlebutt, it's a really strange name right? It's like the first reaction everyone has. So Scuttlebutt, originally, it's a sailing term for water container. It's slang for gossip, which is also why Scuttlebutt is created... whoops, is called the gossiping protocol. So, Scuttlebutt was created by Dominic when he was living on a boat and he was like "Huh, I'm living here on a boat, but I want to talk to all my friends. What should I do? Well, I'll build my own protocol." Of course that's the first thought everyone has, right? So he did. And Scuttlebutt was born. So it's a peer to peer gossiping protocol. So, some of you might be curious what specifically is that? It's not a centralized system. Most people here should recognize this casual one. Actually, oh wait, let me check it. Yeah. Okay. Good. It's more like, whoops, double, this. So, it's a distributed network with... distributed not decentralized, if anyone cares about that difference. Or this, which is by the way a picture of Andre Staltz actual network. And this is a picture of mix's network. Simply put, it's kind of like this. You got your friends. You got your friends' friends. This you can see and you can store on your computer, then you got your friends' friends' friends. This you can't see but you can store, except if you're using patch bay then you can also see it, but yeah. laughing And beyond! Which you don't even know exists. So, that's how we communicate. So, to point this out, this also means that no one else knows you exist, which makes it very difficult. Approximately right now we're around 10000 users on Scuttlebutt. The thing is... Afterwards! The thing is, we're not sure that's the exact number because it's impossible to actually be able to tell how many people are out there. Do you really want to... okay, okay. So, this means there can be communities using these in a mesh network village somewhere, for example, or it could be something else. And that's like, physically impossible. Like, it's not possible with the protocol. So, that's like the basics of it. But there's also pubs, and pubs are basically – OK, what if I want to know more people than the people who are within my friends' friends' friends' reach, you know? What if I want to know someone else who deals with shrooms? Not shrooms, mushrooms. As a shout out to gliph out there, who does that. Then we got pubs. And pubs is a very, very great analogy is actual physical pub. So you go there. You meet some people that are outside of your friendship circle. You talk, you hear their gossip about their friends that you are not connected to. And you tell them your gossip about your friends etc. And essentially, the Scuttlebutt protocol is very much replicating how real human interaction actually happens, rather than a centralized system which would be more like: Huh, I take everyone's data, and then I tell everyone what they need to know, sort of very generalized. OK, so there's a few quirks with Scuttlebutt and similar kind of protocols sometimes. So there's communal data privacy. It's impossible to see others data unless they are in your network proximity. That's what we mentioned previously, right? You've got offline usability. So this is one that surprises most people because most people think: Internet, huh, I need a connection. Well, you don't! So it's completely usable in mesh communities and over, for example, Sneakernet. And third quirk: You've got free listening. This is more of a design quirk but it's still one that's very important, I think. So rather than a top down censoring, there's a choice of blocking. So you can choose to not listen, rather than removing/revoking someone's right to speak. Then we got the fourth quirk which, yeah, it's in the air a little bit, but it's hardware bound. So the SSB accounts are tied to the device they're on. No passwords and more difficult to swarm, which, mmh, yeah, it could be discussed, but still it's hardware bound, so no passwords which currently means, if you have an account, you can't like log in with the same account on mobile and then use it on your computer as well. You have to have like two different ones. Yes, what if you loose your device though? If it's hardware bound, that sucks! This has happened to me. So that's where Dark Crystal comes in, and I hope Dan is OK with this because we've done this before, but he's going to explain a little bit about Dark Crystal. laughing Dan: incomprehensible ... technologies is the assumption that the human or machine or entity interacting with the protocol is the sole custodian of a private key. Try and imagine something really precious which if you lost it you would lose access capacity and affordances. So I'm not talking about a passport or a bank card. Those things you can go to a central authority and you can replace them. If you lose your password to Facebook, you could go through some process, such as showing them an identity card or some other identifying feature which they would determine binds to you, the human, who is the owner of that account. In peer to peer systems, there is no company, there's no central authority to whom you can go and jump through whatever process to regain access. So if you lose your private key, you are screwed in peer to peer world. This is your digital identity and if you lose it you're screwed. That's very fragile. Password managers are hard. About 17 percent of all bitcoins which will ever be minted, have statistically look like they've been lost. If you literally can't pay people to keep this stuff secure, I think it indicates that it's a right problem to solve. And that's really what we've been working on with Dark Crystal. If you're a Harry Potter geek, think Horcrux. If you're not a Harry Potter geek, it's a mechanism which leverages human relationships and trust, and you weave a spell saying of my five friends, let's say my mom, my dad, two brothers and my best friends. As long as three of these people out of the five confirm and grant me access, then you can regain the original secrets. In this case it might be a private key, without themselves holding the shards, the piece revealing anything to them. So it's pretty exciting. Hope that helps. Zenna: Thank you Dan, who is right here actually. No? Oh that's right, sorry about that. Dan: incomprehensible Zella: You're what? Dan: incomprehensible Zella: Okay, laughing, another Kiwi that was. I have yet to actually meet Dan in person. And there's a lot of people out here that is like the first time we meet because we work online only. So it's pretty exciting to be here. We like running around scouting, who could be that person on Scuttlebutt? Um, yes. This is Dan. He's the founder of Blockades, an acclaimed crypto guru. So, how do I use Scuttlebutt? The actual usage of Scuttlebutt could look like this. This is patchwork. Patchwork is the recommended one to use once you start using Scuttlebutt. But there's many other. Because remember, Scuttlebutt is only the protocol, and then you can place many different interfaces and applications over it. So you got Manyverse, which is a mobile client which André Staltz released like two months ago. And we got Patchbay which Dark Crystal currently is being run via. And it's more experimental, easier to change than Patchwork. And TickTack, which is like a blog stylish. And then you got more specialized applications because obviously you don't only have to use like a social media interface. You could also, for example, play chess. That's you! Eyy! Hello by the way. laughing Or, you can make book reviews applications, or skill sharing applications. And it goes on and on and on. Pretty much anything that has to do with connections between people. So, this is where we get to the second part. How does Scuttlebutt fit into the future? Ooh, what a yummy question. Before, oh, did I not add that? I had this gif. Is that coming soon? Right. Yes. OK, let's just jump to the gif because it's fun. Let's do the wave before because we're gonna get like shifted a little bit. Now you've heard about Scuttlebutt. You know what it is. Now we're going to kind of talk about like more futurists. So, could we try out quick wave starting from over there, spreading downwards, going up here, spreading backwards? Is that possible? Are you guys capable of this? Yes? Yes?! Are you down? That person over there, stand up if you're ready! Wooooh, OK, let's go! OK, we got it, ready. OK. It's somewhere goiiiiiiiing. laughing Good job people! OK, so instead we'll go back a bit, because we're switching. We're talking about the future and we're talking about solar punk. So solar punk is a common futuristic approach. It started as a sci fi genre which many people in this kind of community also very much enjoys. It's a way of looking at how we can shape the future. And it's also an aesthetic, or guess sometimes. So there are very, very many different views of how the future could be. So I'm talking right now, so obviously I'll be presenting my view, and what maybe some of my friends and I talk a lot about. But there are as many different future views as there are people. So none of this is fact, swish? But, yeah, take it with a grain of salt. So obviously I put this in the wrong wave thing. We're be coming from the perspective of digitally fabricatable society. So solar punk also kind of merges very much technology with ecology, and how to live sustainable in a world without ravishing it. But still utilizing the developments we do have, and the knowledge we do have in a good way. So, there are a few ingredients that I kind of like cherry picked for this. So it's FabCity, Machines Building Machines, Open Source Ecology and Electronics Home Production or Home Electronics Production, however you want to put it. So we start with FabCity. FabCity is an initiative. It's an offspring from the FabLabs movement. It's globally connected cities for local manufacturing. And this is kind of a mapish with a few of the countries. But as you can see, I'm not going to read all of these cities out. But you can see that there's many, and they're all kind of connected in this big network of cities who have proclaimed themselves for local manufacturing. So you got Paris in there, you got Barcelona in there, you got Seoul, you got Oakland and Detroit, etc. etc. That's one ingredient. These are just flavors. And then we got Machines Building Machines. Machines Building Machines is kind of the component that can accelerate this movement. Because sure, you want local manufacturing. But are you gonna buy all the machines yourself? Like, is everyone gonna spend a bunch of money to buy them? No, that's unsustainable. But, if you get the machines to build the machines, who can then continue building machines, you got this rapid movement going on, right? So Machines Building Machines is a movement that was also started at Fellesverkstedet in Oslo, together with MIT. So, Fellesverkstedet is a Fab Lab sprung out of Bitraf, the hacker space in Oslo, beautiful place. And they've built the first large scale open source CNC machine that's completely parametric and parametric means it's scalable and you can build a small scale CNC machine with the same design. So CNC, a good one is all you need to build all the other machines. So we got the first key, which is pretty damn cool. So what else kind of machines we want to build? Well we want to be able to sustain ourselves, right? So we got Open Source Ecology, right? Open Source Ecology is amongst one, a project where they're building 50, I think, agricultural machines in order to locally produce the food you want. And also 'cause the way the industry around farming works is a little bit corrupt. And we also have projects such as Romi. Romi project is robotic micro scale for farming. They've just received a bunch of funding from European Union, yes, to develop the small scale farming in Barcelona. Here's a brief map on different farms across Europe which have started or are in the process of actually becoming digitally fabricatable farming spaces. Yes. Another one, which we mentioned previously this morning, was Libre Silicon which is really really cool. It's the first time we've kind of completed the kit now; we can build computers from scratch. And you can do it in your basement. But this one specifically was for semiconductors, which was like the missing link. And this is another. It's a ISP programming board which is standardized by MIT, which they use in Fab Academy, which is hosted all across the world. And yeah, it's just yet another example of how easy it is to make circuit boards. All right. So, all that is cool right. But what does it really mean? It means shoes. No, I'm kidding. But... so to wrap this up we're gonna use an analogy. So, the analogy starts with shoes. So, let's say you want your shoes. Because that's something we all use, it's something we all need, right? Let's say you want shoes, but you don't want to buy them. So you decide to learn how to make your shoes. Fabulous, right? But let's say the neighbors around you they're like, "Huh I want shoes too." And previously what we had to do was, obviously, well if one city learns... has like a shoemaker well then another city has to have one person who spends all their time learning how to make shoes. That's a lot of time consumption. So, you have this one city, they learn how to build shoes. You have another city, they learn how to build shoes. You have another city, they learn how to build shoes! That's a lot of learning of how to build shoes that's happening, right? So, what if you just have one person learn how to build shoes and then they share that information open source. Yaay! Now so many people can build shoes. Wow. It's incredible. And then, what if you have like villages, spread out across the world, building shoes and making open source design for maybe even like toilets or like houses or like showers or kitchen equipment. And they're connected in a network, then they can share together and continuously develop the resources and the knowledge on how to actually live. Which is the knowledge that somehow managed to be forgotten in modern society. So yes. A quick side note to this: I recently heard from Europe's future research director. I don't know if there's such a thing, but somehow that was kind of her title. The Adidas, I think, are currently getting into the market of building micro factories instead of stores. So you can go in there with your old shoe, they'll reuse the material, break it down, and then you can buy the new design – you don't actually have to buy the material for the design. So that's kind of their new thinking concept of how to develop these stores. So, shout out to hackers out there. Just saying. But yeah. Yes. So, for this we need digital files, right? And how do we spread digital files? Well, our means, our roads, are kind of being compromised in current society. Which is sad. So this is kind of how I ended up on Scuttlebutt. I was talking to Alex. He's sitting right there. mumbles user name on Scuttlebutt. And he was like... I was like, oh, in order to build this new society and like if we're actually gonna do it, and have a change, make a change in the world, we really need to have like means of communications that can't be compromised. But... and he was like, huh, haven't you heard of laughing Scuttlebutt or Dat, that project shoutout, or IPFS, shoutout as well. And I was like, no I haven't, what is this. And then I got on, and yeah, the story continues. But either way, to get back what we were talking about: digital files and we need to be able to spread them. And in order to move freely, we need new protocols, which is what Dat, IPFS, and Scuttlebutt can do. And new protocols could mean freedom of information and Scuttlebutt could mean freedom of information. So that's why I'm on Scuttlebutt. Uhm, yes. Welcome to the Scuttleverse. That's it for me. Thank you. Applause Herald Angel: Thank you, Zenna. Zenna: Thank you. Herald: Do we have questions in the room? Please go to the microphone number one or number two because the people on the stream also want to hear you. So who's first? One, two, one, two? I think number two was the first. Say your question please. Question: So how does Scuttlebutt actually work? What's the transport layer? Answer: What's the what what? Q: What's the transport layer? Do you use Wi-Fi, do you use Bluetooth, do you use something custom? A: As mentioned previously I think, you can you Sneakernet, you can use... we're actually developing, or some people are, I don't know who exactly, but I've heard rumored, using Bluetooth. You can use mesh networks, you can use regular Wi-Fi. Choose your means. You can use radio, if you really want to. Yeah. Q: So what is implemented right now? A: Currently, there's been people researching Bluetooth as I mentioned. I thought I heard a rumor was radio something. That's been on the air. No? Yes? Yes! It has. Then we've had, I know mesh networks, actual like protocols built for mesh networks have also been researched upon. Personally, that's the one I'm looking into the most. And yeah, obviously regular Wi-Fi as well. Yeah. H: Thank you. Microphone number one please. Q: You stated that information spread via Scuttlebutt won't travel more than three degrees of separation. But what about pubs? If someone in your network joins a pub, won't he flood all his network through the pub? A: Yes. Q: And because pub usage is common, you should get a fully connected graph? A: Yes and no. So what's pretty common now in the early stages: that's kind of what's happening, we think. Obviously we don't know, but that's what we think. So. Since the community is small enough-ish that a lot of people have joined similar pubs, there is a pretty cohesive use case of the pubs. But you're also very capable of just joining your friends' pub for example, or setting up your own pub, or not using pubs, which is not super recommended, but it's possible. Yeah. I think that answers the question-ish. Do want to add onto it? No? Okay. H: Thank you for that. Microphone number two please. Q: Hello. I have a question. So you know how people use social media... A: Be a little closer to the microphone. Q: You hear me now? A: Yes, a little better. Q: OK. So you know people use social media to talk to their friends... A: No no no, a little bit closer. Q: OK, they want to talk to their friends. So like, for example like, if a person... I'll rephrase my question. OK. So, if a person, like wants to talk to their friend on Facebook, they know that their friend has a Facebook account, so they can just use Facebook. So like... and you said like Scuttlebutt has a very small community. So how do you entice people to join, if there's not many people using it? So how does Scuttlebutt address this problem? Hopefully you understood my question. A: Yes. Oh, actually I think Andre Staltz would be better at answering this question, because he's more into the whole, bringing Scuttlebutt to the masses. Personally, I think we're still in a phase where there's enough things we need to set... more stable before it reaches the massive public. That's personally. But I think as any other network, I mean it's the biggest question for any social media ever out there. How do we get users, you know? It's what they always ask. And you could say, we could use the route of eco villages and eco villages using Scuttlebutt. Or we could use the route of showcasing how much better it is with data privacy. Or we could use the route of waiting for society to become infringing enough on people's privacy that they have to use scuttlebutt, or etc., you know? But yeah. It's not a goal of mine, so I'm not the best person to answer that. Andre Staltz would be much better to answer that. Yeah. H: Do we have a question from the interwebs. Not so far, is it? Yes? No? Okay. So microphone number one please. Q: Hello. My name is Matthew. I'm already a member for scuttlers for two years and it's more like a question for audience, since we don't meet in real life. Can we have some family photo? A: Aahh, I think that's a great idea! clapping Should we finish after the last question, people who are on Scuttlebutt, if you come up here, we can take a picture together. It'll be one of the biggest crabs' meets. H: Nice! Connecting in real life, I love that. Microphone number two please. Q: So before even centralized social networks were in existence, people were kind of worried about, what happens if someone creates lots of fake accounts. And this is a simple attack. Now because the scuttlebutt is distributed, and how does that work the scuttlebutt? Do users have to manually block these accounts? Or is there some centralized system that blocks fake accounts? A: So there is no centralized system, to start there. If someone creates a fake account, I mean, define a fake account. If I use an account and don't use my real name is that a fake account? You mean harmfull accounts. Q: Well, just like, you mentioned that you have three degrees of separation. I could just add lots of bots to your agent network through that degree of separation, and then flood your feed with nonsense. A: OK. Well, there is two responses there. Number 1: There's the whole hardware thing, that usually when you create an account, it's kind of tied to the hardware. It's hard to run multiple instances of Scuttlebutt from the same computer. But that could also be round about it, eventually if research comes on enough. The second answer would be the whole, you can block people. So yeah, it's the whole free listening, non-censoring thing. Q: Ok, yeah. Another thing. You said that, I think, you mentioned that the graph on one of the first slides, it was distributed but not decentralized? A: So could you repeat, sorry? Q: On one of the first slides, you said it was distributed but not decentralized. Could you kind of expand on that a little bit? A: Uh oooh. Honor had a great slide about this. I did a talk with them recently, it's uh, there's like, if you actually search difference between distributed and decentralized, there's this beautiful picture you can get where it shows like, the mapping of a centralized system was like a node in the middle that's giant, and those, like small peaks. And then you have a mapping of a decentralized system where you have the big nodes, and you have everyone kind of criss crossing, but also very much on focusing on the nodes. And then you have the whole distributed system. And the distributed system, it's more direct between peers to peers to peers to peers to peers to peers. But some people may argue: What about pubs? That make's it decentralized, right? Obviously, yes and no because you don't have to use pubs. So, yes. H: So in this case I think we're done. Thank you very much. Zenna: Thank you! H: People, a warm applause for Zenna! Applause postroll music subtitles created by c3subtitles.de in the year 2019. Join, and help us!