Welcome to the deep dive our mission here is well, it's pretty simple
We take these really complex ground breaking projects the kind of stuff
You'd normally need a PhD to understand and we try to just you know, pull out the
core insights for you
And today we are tackling a huge one. We're not just talking about a better app or
an upgrade
No, we're talking about framework that is designed to
To replace the entire foundation of the internet. It's all about security and
privacy by design
We are diving into gene in it exactly and we're gonna explore why the network we
all use every day is well
Fundamentally broken and how this peer-to-peer approach aims to fix it. It's a big
topic it is
So before we peel back all those layers, we have to give a huge and necessary
Thank you to the supporter of this deep dive safe server
Mm-hmm safe server focuses on hosting exactly this type of software and they
support you in your digital transformation efforts
You can find out a lot more at
WWW safe server dot DE. Okay. So the whole premise here is that the internet we
rely on
It was never actually built to protect us, right? It has these deep
Architectural flaws that you know, they allow for mass surveillance for centralization
of power and gnet is the answer to that
It's a decades-long
Academic effort to go back and fix those underlying flaws to build a network where
privacy isn't just an add-on. It's
It's guaranteed. Okay, so let's unpack this the source material kicks off with this
really powerful analogy to help us get our heads around just how
Damaged the current system is yeah, I love this one
They describe the conventional internet as a vast system of roads
But these roads are just filled with these deep unavoidable potholes and worse they're
crawling with highwaymen a perfect metaphor
Really? It shows a systemic failure
Imagine you're driving your car and your car is your data or your device down this
road
Okay, even if you lock the doors the car itself could be hijacked the long arms of
these
Unaccountable actors can just reach in and steal your stuff and they use that data
against you or they sell it, right?
And the scariest part of that which I think really captures the modern problem
Is that you the driver you often can't even tell it's happening
You don't even notice the theft and you certainly can't hold the scroungers as they
call them accountable in any real way
So where does that weakness come from? Well, it traces right back to the 70s. The
sources are really clear on this
The original internet protocols were just not developed with security in mind at
all not at all
So try to stop someone from say faking their network address or preventing a
central router from learning your metadata
It's incredibly hard. It's non-trivial and sometimes it's just plain impossible
with the current architecture
Now most of us think we've got this covered right we use VPNs HTTPS end-to-end
encryption
But the sources really stress that focusing just on the content of the message
Misses the biggest threat the metadata metadata. Exactly. Absolutely because your
metadata
That's who you talk to when you talk to them how often how much data you exchange
That is profoundly revealing more so than the message itself sometimes often
Yeah, so the sources make this massive claim that exposing this metadata actually
threatens democracy itself
Okay
how that seems like a huge leap it all connects to the chilling effect if a
powerful entity be it a corporation or a
Government can map out who is talking to whom they can identify journalists sources
or dissidents precisely
They do it just by analyzing the timing and frequency of communication
So what happens people's ability to exercise free speech just erodes you start to
self censor
I see so even with your messages encrypted this metadata trail allows for a total
identification
Centralization of power and ultimately political control that paints a very clear
picture of the problem
So if the old internet is that broken crime-ridden road then Geonet is the project
trying to build a brand new
Secure freeway underneath it all okay. Let's pivot to the solution though for a
beginner someone just hearing about this
How would you define gene it you can think of it as a whole new set of rules for
the internet a?
Network protocol stack a stack okay, and its whole goal is to be a direct technical
replacement for the old
Insecure stack we use now and it achieves that privacy by design idea. Yes, not
through patches or add-ons, but through
Fundamental improvements to how things like
Addressing routing and naming actually work. It sounds like they're building a
really complex foundation not just one simple app
Why is that framework approach so necessary for privacy? Why not just build a
better app? That is a crucial question
I mean if you look at the bigger picture in the peer-to-peer space you just see
massive inefficiency
How so every single PDP project is constantly reinventing the wheel
They all spend huge amounts of time and money trying to build reliable encrypted
channels or tools for resource discovery
And if they get it even slightly wrong, the users metadata is instantly leaked all
that work is for nothing
So G minute is providing those common pre-built components that are already robust
and tested to be metadata preserving
Exactly. It offers that solid foundation. It's rooted in you know, almost two
decades of continuous academic research
It's designed to withstand intense scrutiny. So developers can just focus on
building their apps
Let's move beyond the tech for a second and look at the philosophy behind it
because that seems to inform all the design choices
You said the goal is to support a free and open society. That's right
I mean today our freedoms are restricted by constant monitoring by centralized
network hubs
By software we can't even inspect and things like traffic shapers and firewalls
that just block
Communication all of it and here's where it gets for me really interesting the
software itself embodies that philosophy
The project is explicitly free software as in freedom, right?
Which gives the user four specific guarantees the freedom to run the network to
study the code to share information and to
Modify it or build new things on top of it
It's all about putting you back in control of your data
You determine what you share and with who without that external pressure to
compromise your privacy just to participate now speaking of philosophy
The sources take a very strong I'd say almost
controversial stance against some current tech trends
specifically
blockchains and
Distributed ledgers. They absolutely do the sources state that the hype around all
this is and I'm quoting here
Detrimental to the health of our planet Wow, that's a serious claim
But wait, isn't a decentralized ledger like the gold standard right now for trust
without a central authority
How can Gina do that without it and that's the key difference? Yes ledgers achieve
trust
But they do it through these incredibly wasteful consensus mechanisms. You mean
like proof-of-work mining exactly
It requires massive continuous energy use just to keep a public record that
everyone agrees on
The sources argue these systems just don't scale and are frankly
Ecologically unsustainable so Junionet's approach is fundamentally different
completely. They use decentralization only where it provides the most value
Like for naming or key management, they don't require a public globally validated
ledger for every little interaction
So it's more target. It's smart targeted decentralization. Not this broad
computationally expensive approach
It provides a path that is actually efficient and sustainable. This all sounds
incredibly ambitious
Maybe a bit high-level. So what does it all mean for the person listening at home?
What can you actually do with Junionet today?
Well, a number of applications have already been built on the framework that show
what it can do. Like what?
We're looking at things like anonymous and robust file sharing
Decentralized and confidential telephony and you mentioned
Decentralized naming and identity which sounds critical. It is it's called GNS the
GNU name system
Think of it as a replacement for DNS the domain name system
We use now which is a huge point of centralization and control a massive one
Yeah, GNS lets users manage their own identities and name their own services
without relying on those centrally controlled authorities
It's a huge step towards real network autonomy and beyond GNS and telephony you
said file sharing. Yes anonymous file sharing
It's sort of the original promise of P2P tech, but actually secured and anonymized
at the protocol level
They've also developed a way to tunnel normal IP traffic over GNE app
So you could use it as a kind of anonymizing layer for your regular web browsing
potentially
Yes. Now it's really important for our listeners to know where the project stands.
This isn't finished polished software
Is it no not at all. The sources are very clear. It is an LBHA release
That means there are known significant bugs. There are missing features. This is
the research frontier
But it is usable for someone who's curious
Okay, so for those in our audience who are comfortable messing around with their
operating system, how do they get started?
We don't need the exact commands. But what's the entry point like? Well, the great
thing is that it integrates pretty smoothly into modern operating systems
It's available for many Linux distributions
Debian Ubuntu Arch Linux and you can usually just install it with your system's
package manager and it runs as a local node
On your machine. That's right. And once that node is running you interact with the
network through some simple tools
So a command line interface there's one for people who prefer the console
Yeah, simple commands to search the network download files or publish your own
content
But for users who want a graphical interface
There are separate GUI tools for setting it up and for using things like the file
sharing system
Those are options. The focus is on functionality and user agency. This has been a
really fascinating deep dive
Geonet is I mean, it's a crucial attempt to build a robust private foundation for
the next generation of the Internet
It's directly addressing these deep security flaws this
Rampant exposure of metadata. It's an enormous undertaking one
That's required nearly 20 years of sustained work and that kind of raises an
important final question for you the listener
What challenge does the inherent complexity of a truly privacy preserving
architecture like G unit present?
When you compare it to the simple convenience of the centralized broken systems we
use every day. That's the real question
What trade-offs will people accept and what will it ultimately take for essential
projects like this to move from the research frontier?
To you know widespread mainstream adoption something to think about definitely
Thank you for joining us for this deep dive and once again a huge
Thank you to our supporter safe server for helping us bring you these insights. We
will catch you next time