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770 points ananddtyagi | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.243s | source
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moneywaters ◴[] No.44487086[source]
I’ve been toying with a concept inspired by Apple’s Find My network: Imagine a decentralized, delay-tolerant messaging system where messages hop device-to-device (e.g., via Bluetooth, UWB, Wi-Fi Direct), similar to how “Find My” relays location via nearby iPhones.

Now add a twist: • Senders pay a small fee to send a message. • Relaying devices earn a micro-payment (could be tokens, sats, etc.) for carrying the message one hop further. • End-to-end encrypted, fully decentralized, optionally anonymous.

Basically, a “postal network” built on people’s phones, without needing a traditional internet connection. Works best in areas with patchy or no internet, or under censorship.

Obvious challenges: • Latency and reliability (it’s not real-time). • Abuse/spam prevention. • Power consumption and user opt-in. • Viable incentive structures.

What do you think? Is this viable? Any real-world use cases where this might be actually useful — or is it just a neat academic toy?

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littlecranky67 ◴[] No.44487111[source]
Neat academic toy - unless you can predict why a large-scale, long-term internet outage should happen.

Aside from that, most of what your concept includes (but uses Internet instead of BT) exists with Nostr+Lightning.

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hashworks ◴[] No.44488017[source]
There have been incidents where governments disabled routing to specific services or the Internet entirely to hinder demonstrations.
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1. Ray20 ◴[] No.44495016[source]
How relevant is this in the context of the mesh networks under discussion?

How resilient are those protocols to attacks on the integrity of the network, when most (or signicant part) of the nodes are controlled by a bad actor and deliberately operate in a mode that prevents the functioning of the network?