Distributed Social Networking
A protocol for social networking so that data can be decentralized.
Social media is moving into the commodity range. It would be nice to have a standard protocol so that the value of network could be leveraged while each node in the network specialized in a specific niche.
Core Components
- Servers: Represented by a URL, data lives here
- Users: This is the core representation of a user. A public/private key
- User-Data: Data owned by the users. SERVERS DO NOT OWN DATA, they hold it
- Permissions: Who has access to what data
- Trust: How much trust a server has earned from the network
- Escrow: Trusted servers that hold funds until contracts are met.
Contracts
There are specific types of contracts that servers and users can enter into. Broadly speaking, they are divided into content-delivery and processing.
BitCoin
BitCoin lends itself to this because it provides payment for micro transactions.
Security
Gives me a headache just thinking about this. A user has a private key that is either never shared or entrusted to server. If it is entrusted to a server, the user needs to have absolute confidence in that server. Other servers can get an executor-key (with specific permissions) which allow them to act on your behalf.
I think I'll go with the secure one-time pad model; a secure line of communication is established with the public key and only used to exchange one-time keys. This can even be done at the JavaScript level so that the public key is never transmitted.