Software platform for creating decentralized alternatives
to today's centralized tech companies with familiar tools
like React and Vue.js.
The name - Locutus - may still be changed.
An Early Prototype is being worked
on and expected for August 2022.
The Internet has grown increasingly centralized over
the past 25 years, such that a handful of companies
now effectively control the Internet's infrastructure.
The public square is privately owned, thus not only
threatening freedom of speech but also democracy.
Locutus as an alternative platform wants to make
decentralized apps be easy to use, scalable & secure
through cryptography to regain these lost freedoms.
Ian gave a talk on Decentralized Reputation and Trust.
Ian gave an introductory talk on Locutus.
What can be built on Locutus.
| Decentralized Micro-blogging | Decentralized Email | Search |
|---|---|---|
| Twitter , Facebook | With a gateway to legacy email via the @freenet.org domain |
Google , Bing |
| Instant Messaging | Video Discovery | Online Stores | Discussions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whatsapp , Signal | Youtube , TikTok | Amazon | Reddit , HN |
We want Locutus to be useful out-of-the-box, so we plan to
provide reference implementations for some or all of these.
Decentralized services that can be used by one another.
This system allows users to build up reputation over
time based on feedback from those they interact with.
Think of the feedback system in services such as Uber,
but with Locutus it will be completely decentralized and
cryptographically secure.
It can be used for things like:
-
Spam Prevention
With IM and email
-
Fraud prevention
With an online store
This is conceptually similar to
Freenet's Web of Trust plugin.
Arbiters are trusted services that can perform tasks
and authenticate the results, such as verifying that
a contract had a particular state at a given time, or
that external blockchains - like Bitcoin , Ethereum ,
Solana - contain specific transactions.
Trust is achieved through the reputation system.
Locutus is a decentralized key - value database.
It uses the same Small World routing algorithm as the
original Freenet design, but each key is a cryptographic
contract implemented in Web Assembly and the value
associated with each contract is called its state .
The role of a contract is to specify what
state is allowed and how it is modified.
A very simple contract might require that the state is a list of
messages, each signed with a specific cryptographic keypair.
The state can be updated to add new messages
if appropriately signed, which could for example
serve as the basis for a blog or Twitter feed.
Locutus is implemented in Rust and will be available
across all major operating systems, desktop & mobile.
-
In addition to creating the excellent libp2p library,
which we use for low-level transport, they have
also generously supported our work with a grant.
Either one of the following licenses is applicable.
