FTNet: FifthTry Network

FifthTry Network, FTNet, is an open source, general purpose, sovereign, decentralized (no blockchain/crypto stuff), peer to peer social network, free from any corporate control. Data stays with the user, and devices controlled by the user, and not with some central company.

FTN is available as an binary that you can download and run on your computer. We support Linux, Windows and MacOS from day one. We also want to create Apps that can be distributed through App Stores, and also support mobile devices.

FTNet: The Sovereign Network

FifthTry Network is a sovereign network. This means that the user is in control of their identity, there is no IP address that has to be leased/bought from central authorities, no account to create on any central website, there is no DNS service that can be taken down, etc.

Unlike other P2P networks, that are designed for single purpose, eg BitTorrent for file sharing, BitCoin for crypto/finance, FTN is a general purpose network, and designed for easy app development and extension, this is done by using fastn as the application development framework.

Technical Details: FTN is built on top of iroh, and uses BitTorrent's Mainline DHT for peer discovery.

FTN Identities

Once you install FTN, the first thing you do is create an identity.

The central concept of FifthTry Network is identities. An identity is an alias for a person or a group of people (e.g., a company, a school, etc.).

The identity is a public key, and the private key is used to sign or encrypt data and messages sent by that identity. The public key has a compact representation and can be shared easily over Email, WhatsApp, QR code, etc.

Once you create an identity, you share the public key with your friends and family, they add you to their network (after creating their own identity), and then you can share messages, files, etc., with them.

You can create multiple identities, and each identity is independent of each other; this facilitates anonymity, for example.

FTN Devices

An identity can own one or more devices. Each device is also identified by its public key. Example of a device could be a folder containing some files, meaning an identity can have a folder, and they want to share that folder with their social network, so they create a device for that folder.

Another example could be a HTTP or TCP (UDP etc) service, say if the identity has a local web service running, or a a VNC server running, they can create a device for that server, and share that device with their social network.

Other examples of devices could be a Printer, a USB device, a Bluetooth device, a webcam, and external hard drive.

For creating a "device", FTN has to be installed on the physical machine, and the primary identity has to be configured (either identity was created on that physical machine, or on another machine). Any service (USB, Bluetooth, HTTP) accessible from that machine can be shared as a device.

fastn Devices

Any fastn package can be installed on any FTN identity (FTN identity is also a device of kind identity, which is a HTTP service powered by fastn, and stored in ~/.ftnet/<identity>).

When creating a new device of fastn kind, the user can point the device to the folder in which fastn package is installed.

The fastn package for identity is special in that it must have a fastn app called lets-auth installed, which is the authentication service for fastn, and this is responsible for configuring which identities and devices can be accessed by which other identities and devices.

Licence

FTNet is licensed under the UPL license. UPL is MIT like license, with Apache 2.0 like patent grant clause.

Contributing

We welcome contributions to FTNet. Please read the CONTRIBUTING.md file for details on how to contribute.