patrick.net

There is a need to be able to publish at least short messages worldwide such that censorship is impossible.

Here is an idea for the simplest possible system that works without requiring a domain name or an SSL certificate, both of which are vulnerabilities to censorship:

The writer generates an ssh keypair like this: ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "your_email@something.com"

Writer writes message, which can be arbitrarily large and complex, but needs to be a single file.

Writer timestamps message, includes public key, and signs message with private key.

Writer publishes message by uploading it via Bittorrent.

Users who know the writer can search for the writer's public key on Bittorrent, and thus see all of that writer's messages.

Reader checks that the message was signed with private key corresponding to included public key, so that writers cannot be spoofed and messages cannot be edited.

But how to know the real-world identity of the writer? That seems difficult, but perhaps it is for the best, so that anonymity is preserved.

To reply, one need simply refer to the writer's public key and the timestamp.

The writer of the original post could create a stream of conversation by choosing to search for and republish replies. This would give that writer some measure of control over the conversation.