[API] [Unmetered or cheap bandwidth] Tachyon Node Operators Need Machines

jacobipx · November 2020

Demand for our distributed VPN is booming.

We need to partner up with hosting providers that can allow us to launch nodes using their API and bake them into our software called "Node Manager".

Node manager allows our user community to easily host nodes at scale.

Quality bandwidth and peering is preferred as this results in better quality for end-users. Metered billing is making things a little bit unpredictable for our node operators. They cannot always know what the monthly cost of running a node is going to be.

So, any of you guys feel like having your service baked into our software?

If so, it is pretty straightforward. We are just going to need to know a bit about the shape of your API, and a bit about your pricing. After that, we are actually add you to our software so that our node operators can easily launch nodes with your company at scale.

"Floating IP" is a nice to have but not strictly needed.

Happy to guide you through the integration process, and promote you to our users.

stefeman · November 2020

So, basically VPNGate/Tor but more?

With partner, do you mean that you want supporters (Free hosting), or will you somehow pay for the servers?

How is this different from VPNGate/Tor? Why should the provider support you over them?

When you talk about partnership, do you represent this project as its original creator, or are you enthuasist user?

Also, looks very interesting to me, so I might spin something up myself.

jacobipx · November 2020

Hi, I am with the project, and due to the consequences of our success in penetrating content restrictions we have chosen to drop all public-facing roles/titles.

I am not the only person working on the project by any means, and our core network tech is not my personal invention, but it certainly was designed in-house.

Yes, VPNGate/Tor but more. Currently, I'd say more like VPNGate++ than like TOR as we have not yet launched relaying/multipath.

Later, very much like Tor++.

After that, probably more like i2p++ & Tor++ in a happy privacy sandwich.

We don't need free servers. In fact, we would not be purchasing servers at all. Instead, we would add support for your group services to our software. I'm going to see if I can attach a screenshot to illustrate what it would look like-- ok, done.

Node Operators download node manager 2.0.

After installing new manager 2.0 on an ubuntu 1804 machine, They visit a URL provided by the install script.

After that, they configure figure everything in their browser.

They would click the + that you see in the screenshot and then add API configuration information for your hosting provider.

This allows them to spin up as many nodes as they would like with ease.

few notes on tech stack:

Our VPN technology is currently proprietary, but will be open sourced soon. We use what we call protocol simulation to ensure that Tachyon traffic looks like plain old http/s, despite the fact that there's a full tcp/ip connection in there.

Because of this, we provide users in the most censored places on earth with reliable, fast connections to the true internet, with our most notable successes occurring in Belarus during the disputed election (138,000% growth in a single day) And in Azerbaijan since the beginning of the conflict with Armenians in the Republic of Artsakh, because the Azeri government has chosen to censor Internet access since they are bombing civilians in residential areas and don't want people to know about that.

https://gizmodo.com/belarus-turned-off-the-internet-its-citizens-hot-wired-1844853575

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/belarus-protests-telegram

Personal POV:

From the very beginning of my involvement, I knew that we had something really great, but none of us anticipated the kind of user growth and total success in penetrating contact blocks. So far, we have not met a contact block that we cannot somehow defeat. Intermittent issues in a few places, but after a few tweaks we are usually back at full capacity.

I'm absolutely thrilled to be working on something so important.

jacobipx · November 2020

Second link With some context from a guy who was actually in Belarus at the time.

estnoc · November 2020

@jacobipx said:
Hi, I am with the project.

Yes, VPNGate/Tor but more. Currently, I'd say more like VPNGate++ than like TOR as we have not yet launched relaying/multipath.

Later, very much like Tor++.

After that, probably more like i2p++ & Tor++ in a happy privacy sandwich.

We don't need free servers. In fact, we would not be purchasing servers at all. Instead, we would add support for your group services to our software. I'm going to see if I can attach a screenshot to illustrate what it would look like-- ok, done.

Node Operators download node manager 2.0.

After installing new manager 2.0 on an ubuntu 1804 machine, They visit a URL provided by the install script.

After that, they configure figure everything in their browser.

They would click the + that you see in the screenshot and then add API configuration information for your hosting provider.

This allows them to spin up as many nodes as they would like with ease.

few notes on tech stack:

Our VPN technology is currently proprietary, but will be open sourced soon. We use what we call protocol simulation to ensure that Tachyon traffic looks like plain old http/s, despite the fact that there's a full tcp/ip connection in there.

Because of this, we provide users in the most censored places on earth with reliable, fast connections to the true internet, with our most notable successes occurring in Belarus during the disputed election (138,000% growth in a single day) And in Azerbaijan since the beginning of the conflict with her media, because the Azeri government has chosen to censor Internet access since the beginning of the conflict.

https://gizmodo.com/belarus-turned-off-the-internet-its-citizens-hot-wired-1844853575

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/belarus-protests-telegram

Personal POV:

From the very beginning of my involvement, I knew that we had something really great, but none of us anticipated the kind of user growth and total success in penetrating contact blocks. So far, we have not met a contact block that we cannot somehow defeat. Intermittent issues in a few places, but after a few tweaks we are usually back at full capacity.

I'm absolutely thrilled to be working on something so important.

Can you please elaborate, what you mean by "We don't need free servers. In fact, we would not be purchasing servers at all. Instead, we would add support for your group services to our software." ?
Its so hard to understand, who's going to pay for those unmetered bandwidths etc etc.

jacobipx · November 2020

I'm sorry about that, let me try and clarify:

We make the software, which includes:

Tachyon Node Manager (Installed on a VPS using a bash script, accessed by the Node Operator through their web browser)
Tachyon Node (installed on nodes automatically by node manager)
Clients
- ios
- android
- mac
- windows (coming soon (tm))

Members of our community buy and run servers that provide bandwidth to end-users.

members of our community will download Node Manager, configure it with the API information for your provider, and our software will configure the servers (as many as the node operator wishes to launch) so that they participate in the Tachyon Network.

We can't tell you who would be paying you because we don't know who they are.

Demand on our network is growing very quickly, and our operators have asked us to find additional hosting providers because the current options are too expensive.

our operators would like to see more hosting providers supported in Node Manager.

Here is a user story:

As a Tachyon Node Operator I want A wider selection of hosting providers than the current lineup of AWS, GCE, Vultr, digital ocean, upcloud, and scaleway so that I can get better pricing and more global coverage, enabling me to provide proper Internet access to more people around the world and earn more session rewards.

jacobipx · November 2020

Your logo added to the list shown below, that's the big idea here.

tetech · November 2020

So much marketing blah and so little tangible stuff.

jacobipx · November 2020

@tetech said:
So much marketing blah and so little tangible stuff.

Guess you're not in Belarus or Azerbaijan.

tetech · November 2020

Nyr · November 2020

So why are you implementing proprietary APIs for a few cloud providers in such an inefficient and restrictive (for network diversity) way instead of delivering a simple platform agnostic daemon which users can deploy?

No offense, but from the looks of it, you lack some basic understanding of how this industry works. This is pretty obvious when you request things such as "floating IPs" (which provider would want entire subnets blocked by a country?). Your users also need to deal with a very big risk of abuse from the VPN traffic which most of them are probably not ready to deal with, and which can have very serious legal consequences.

I am sure that some in this community (including me) could with this project, but you will not be able to scale using cloud providers like you are currently doing and you will deplatformed sooner than later if serious network diversity can not be added or you achieve a deal with a (centralized) provider.

jacobipx · November 2020

Hi Nyr,

What if I told you that you were actually right about everything you said, and that at this stage, what I have described here remains the need we must fill currently.

Launching nodes via the API of other providers will not be our final state, and initially, we had a platform agnostic daemon.

We still do.

You can launch those with node manager 1.0.

Node manager 2.0 attempts to solve certain problems of scale using cloud APIs to launch nodes.

3.0 will look like the fusion of these.

Anyhow the reason somebody might want to pursue this with us is that it is indeed a good deal of steady business and if needed it's pretty likely that we could work out appropriate pricing.

With this said, please feel free to bring up additional concerns, taking them into account is how we will make the whole thing work smoothly.

Thanks
-Jacob

jsg · November 2020

@jacobipx

About the only tangible and concrete thing I see re you and your group is that you are heavily biased and one-sided politically and that your real goal is not to give information of freedom to people but rather to influence politics in diverse countries.

You obviously are not communicating well
Tor and quite a few other available technologies and providers are far more trustworthy and battle proven.
You respond with propaganda when asked rather simple questions
You in fact all but ignore our questions and concerns
You don't care sh_it about us, your potential future "partners"
Your project is basically just yet another blockchain based attempt, and not even a well regarded one.

TL;DR You try to find idiots to pull into your game, and not honestly at that.

Thanks, No

sonic · November 2020

useless project
/thread

cspacews · November 2020

@jacobipx said: We don't need free servers. In fact, we would not be purchasing servers at all. Instead, we would add support for your group services to our software. I'm going to see if I can attach a screenshot to illustrate what it would look like-- ok, done.

@jacobipx said: Happy to guide you through the integration process, and promote you to our users.

@jacobipx said: Your logo added to the list shown below, that's the big idea here.

In short provider gets a Banner Advertisement with a Link back (or maybe not?), if you provide them with the free unmetered server with their software installed.

serv_ee · November 2020

@jsg said: About the only tangible and concrete thing I see re you and your group is that you are heavily biased and one-sided politically

Finally. You had a stroke. Fuck sake, where is he(they?) biased? Cause he linked two articles from Belarus that actually are true?

jsg · November 2020

@serv_ee said:

@jsg said: About the only tangible and concrete thing I see re you and your group is that you are heavily biased and one-sided politically

Finally. You had a stroke. Fuck sake, where is he(they?) biased? Cause he linked two articles from Belarus that actually are true?

Those articles are in media that are known to be biased
IF the belarussian government really turned off the internet, how would people use internet based apps?
You missed my point, which is neither pro nor anti this or that government or president but about not meddling in a sovereign states internal affairs.

jacobipx · November 2020

@cspacews said:

@jacobipx said: We don't need free servers. In fact, we would not be purchasing servers at all. Instead, we would add support for your group services to our software. I'm going to see if I can attach a screenshot to illustrate what it would look like-- ok, done.

@jacobipx said: Happy to guide you through the integration process, and promote you to our users.

@jacobipx said: Your logo added to the list shown below, that's the big idea here.

In short provider gets a Banner Advertisement with a Link back (or maybe not?), if you provide them with the free unmetered server with their software installed.

Node manager facilitates the creation of paid hosting via an API on behalf of tachyon node operators, who pay for that hosting.

We want to provide no operators with more options outside of the traditional enormous cloud providers.

Nothing here asks for anything for free, in fact the whole point on our project is to facilitate a marketplace.

jacobipx · November 2020

You missed my point, which is neither pro nor anti this or that government or president but about not meddling in a sovereign states internal affairs.

My friend was in Belarus at the time and he said that he was not able to access or a great deal of the internet at that time. He also said the tachyon solved that problem.

While we're discussing it though let's just touch on that point.

We have no intention or desire to "meddle in a sovereign states internal affairs" -- that is not a thing that we do.

We make an extremely effective tool for the preservation of privacy and circumvention of censorship.

We are apolitical, our tools and networks do not discriminate in any way.

We keep internet service providers from monitoring their users.
We allow individuals to use the internet without as much tracking by companies like Google.
We let people whose workplace blocks facebook on the wifi check in with their loved ones using Facebook.
We help Thai people get on pornhub.
We help people in Belarus access social media during turmoil.
We help people in Azerbaijan access the internet when their government has blocked it to prevent them from learning the truth about an expeditionary war.

Tachyon is an effective solution for privacy and freedom in many places and in many contexts.

Sometimes, it is not the government that is blocking or surveiling internet access, instead it is a corporation.

We build tools that extend and preserve open networks globally, and we couldn't care less about politics.

What do we care about?

Privacy
Security
Freedom

jsg · November 2020

@jacobipx said:

You missed my point, which is neither pro nor anti this or that government or president but about not meddling in a sovereign states internal affairs.

My friend was in Belarus at the time and he said that he was not able to access or a great deal of the internet at that time. He also said the tachyon solved that problem.

So, you have 1 data point - and one we can't verify ...

While we're discussing it though let's just touch on that point.

We have no intention or desire to "meddle in a sovereign states internal affairs" -- that is not a thing that we do.

Let me quote you:

@jacobipx said:
Because of this, we provide users in the most censored places on earth with reliable, fast connections to the true internet, with our most notable successes occurring in Belarus during the disputed election (138,000% growth in a single day) And in Azerbaijan since the beginning of the conflict with Armenians in the Republic of Artsakh, because the Azeri government has chosen to censor Internet access since they are bombing civilians in residential areas and don't want people to know about that.

.

We make an extremely effective tool for the preservation of privacy and circumvention of censorship.

But you repeatedly failed to explain how and to respond to technical questions.

Tachyon is an effective solution for privacy and freedom in many places and in many contexts.

Tachyon is - somehow you repeatedly failed to mention that - based on blockchain tech. and well noted on questionable blockchain tech.

I'm not the least interested in your heavily one-sided political views. So, kindly do the one thing you've been asked for multiple times and provide us tangible, concrete, and verifiable information of a more technical nature and why we should drop Tor and other established and battle proven technologies and instead use Tachyon.

jacobipx · November 2020

Tor and tachyon are not the same thing, and you would do well not to conflate them. Certainly, over time we will overlap a number of Tor's offerings.

They'll never be the same product, and that's fine.

the only question you asked me

IF the belarussian government really turned off the internet, how would people use internet based apps?

Specifically, it seems that their government disabled access to foreign social media sites, as well as a number of local language sites hosted in foreign countries.

I don't think they turned off the whole internet, they just temporarily broke it in ways that they felt were favorable to them, and our software was used very successfully to solve the "routing problems" that suddenly cropped up during the recent political turmoil there.

Blockchain technology

yeah, we definitely use a blockchain and it's a good one.

To get specific what we use the blockchain for is payments. Everything else is fairly standard but extra carefully concealed so that and observer, attacker, or censor equipped with DPI cannot detect Tachyon users.

Azerbaijan / Armenia

I am Armenian American and absolutely, 100% biased.

Speaking from a personal perspective, once I learned that AZ had chosen to censor networks, I pretty much knew they were lying. there's a lot more evidence that but I don't think it's relevant at this time. I just felt that it was right that I disclosed that in fact I am highly biased on this issue.

Speaking as someone involved in the Tachyon project, our software did not require any customization of any kind to be effective in the AZ context.

Like I said, our tools are a political and do not discriminate in any way shape or form. For all I know, the AZ government is using our tools right now to keep their communications secure.

Software and systems are either secure or insecure. We don't get to choose which user groups we like or protect.

Tachyon is highly effective against surveillance and circumvention, and extremely secure.

Warm Regards

deank · November 2020

The end is nigh.

This is domestic gibberish at its worst. Whatever that means.

jsg · November 2020

@jacobipx said:
Tor and tachyon are not the same thing, and you would do well not to conflate them. Certainly, over time we will overlap a number of Tor's offerings.

They'll never be the same product, and that's fine.

That was not the question.

the only question you asked me

IF the belarussian government really turned off the internet, how would people use internet based apps?

I wasn't referring to my questions only.

Specifically, it seems that their government disabled access to foreign social media sites, as well as a number of local language sites hosted in foreign countries.

I don't think they turned off the whole internet, they just temporarily broke it in ways that they felt were favorable to them, and our software was used very successfully to solve the "routing problems" that suddenly cropped up during the recent political turmoil there.

BS! No government can selectively disable the internet (as the telegram vs. Russia "war" demonstrated).

yeah, we definitely use a blockchain and it's a good one.

... says the Tachyon evangelist ...
Unfortunately (for you) blockchain tech and implementations are judged by technical merits and you - again - fail to offer any tangible, concrete, and verifiable information.

To get specific what we use the blockchain for is payments. Everything else is fairly standard but extra carefully concealed so that and observer, attacker, or censor equipped with DPI cannot detect Tachyon users.

Unfortunately (for you) blockchain tech and implementations are judged by technical merits and you - again - fail to offer any tangible, concrete, and verifiable information.

Speaking as someone involved in the Tachyon project, our software did not require any customization of any kind to be effective in the AZ context.

>
... says the Tachyon evangelist ...
Unfortunately (for you) software judged by technical merits and you - again - fail to offer any tangible, concrete, and verifiable information. Hell, you do not even tell us what languages were used.

Software and systems are either secure or insecure. ...

Tachyon is highly effective against surveillance and circumvention, and extremely secure.

>
... says the Tachyon evangelist ...
Unfortunately (for you) those qualities are judged by technical merits and you - again - fail to offer any tangible, concrete, and verifiable information.

LETters aren't stupid clueless sheep to manipulate to your liking. So, stop the BS blabla and offer tangible, concrete, and verifiable information. ... or shut up already.

stefeman · November 2020

Guys, stop arguing with JSG about Belarus and other shit hole countries like Russia..

According to JSG, the belarus vote is actually legit and Lukashenko won without any lies, and instead the west was caught faking votes for opposition. He also thinks that Ukraine Jet shot down the MH17 plane, instead of Russia BUK Missle system operated by Russian GUR/Army people.

Putin is the saivour of the world, etc, etc.

deank · November 2020

There is nothing at all in living among hallucinations.

As long as you don't force such hallucinations upon others.

jacobipx · November 2020

Unfortunately (for you) those qualities are judged by technical merits and you - again - fail to offer any tangible, concrete, and verifiable information.

You are welcome to download Tachyon and attempt to compromise it. That would offer tangible, concrete, and verifiable information to support your claims.

jsg · November 2020

@stefeman said:
Guys, stop arguing with JSG about Belarus and other shit hole countries like Russia..

According to JSG, the belarus vote is actually legit and Lukashenko won without any lies ...

Sorry to disturb with facts: NO. I did not make such a statement, and in fact I do not even care who won/wins/rules Belarussia as long as they themselves decide it.

Putin is the saivour of the world, etc, etc.

>
No I never said that and it's also not what I think.

jsg · November 2020

@jacobipx said:

Unfortunately (for you) those qualities are judged by technical merits and you - again - fail to offer any tangible, concrete, and verifiable information.

You are welcome to download Tachyon and attempt to compromise it. That would offer tangible, concrete, and verifiable information to support your claims.

Nice try, but no. It's your claims and your job. It's about time to start doing your job...

jacobipx · November 2020

I think wired magazine and others have had a look at what we are up to and like myself, think it's pretty great.

jsg · November 2020

@jacobipx said:
I think wired magazine and others have had a look at what we are up to and like myself, think it's pretty great.

Which part of "Please respond to questions and provide tangible, concrete, and verifiable information" do you fail to understand?

It's not my job, it's not wired magazines job - it's your job.

I'll help and kickstart you: Is there a formal specification of the relevant algorithms? Has it been formally verified? In what language(s) has it been developed? Do you have any other tangible, concrete, verifiable and relevant technical information to offer, maybe information that helps us to understand - and that's what you want, right? - why exactly using and/or joining Tachyon is offering a significant and relevant advantage?