Zot Communications Protocol

From P2P Foundation
(Redirected from Zot)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

= protocol which provides decentralised communications and identity management across the matrix

URL = https://project.hubzilla.org/help/en-gb/developer/zot_protocol

Description

"Zot! is a communications protocol for social communications on the web. The protocol consists of two basic functions: send-message and remote-access.

These functions are built on top of other web standards, such as webfinger/lrdd and atom/activitystreams. Communications are encrypted and both sides of the communication verified through crytpographic means before communication is allowed.

Zot! does not prove identity. It verifies communications endpoints, and secures messages between those endpoints.

Zot! is an evolution of and a simplification of many concepts which originated within the DFRN protocol." (http://dfrn.org/zot-protocol.txt)

"Zot is a revolutionary protocol which provides decentralised communications and identity management across the matrix. The resulting platform can provide web services comparable to those offered by large corporate providers, but without the large corporate provider and their associated privacy issues. Communications and social networking are an integral part of the matrix. Any channel (and any services provided by that channel) can make full use of feature-rich social communications on a global scale. These communications may be public or private - and private communications comprise not only fully encrypted transport, but also encrypted storage to help protect against accidental snooping and disclosure by rogue system administrators and internet service providers.

We use the full power of the matrix to offer friend suggestions and directory services. You can also perform other things which would typically only be possibly on a centralised provider - such as "wall to wall" posts and private/multiple profiles and web content which can be tailored to the viewer. You won't find these features at all on other decentralised communication services. The difference is that Zot also provides decentralised identity services. This is what separates the men from the boys, and what makes life in the matrix so awesome."

Characteristics

Identity

Zot's identity layer is unique. It's like OpenID on steroids. It provides invisible single sign-on across all sites in the matrix; as well as nomadic identity so that your communications with friends, family, and business partners won't be affected by the loss of your primary communication node - either temporarily or permanently. The important bits of your identity and relationships can be backed up to a thumb drive and may appear at any node in the matrix at any time - with all your friends and preferences intact. These nomadic instances are kept in sync so any instance can take over if another one is compromised or damaged. This protects you against not only major system failure, but also temporary site overloads and governmental manipulation. You cannot be silenced. You cannot be removed from the matrix.

As you browse the matrix viewing channels and their unique content, you are seamlessly authenticated as you go, even across completely different server hubs. No password dialogues. Nothing to type. You're just greeted by name on every new site you visit. How does Zot do that? We call it "magic-auth" because it really is technology that is so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic. You login only once on your home hub (or any nomadic backup hub you have chosen). This allows you to access any authenticated services provided anywhere in the matrix - such as shopping and access to private information. This is just like the services offered by large corporate providers with huge user databases; however you can be a member of this community and a server on this network using a "plug computer" like a Rasberry Pi. Your password isn't stored on a thousand different sites where it can be stolen and used to clean out your bank accounts.

Access Control

Zot's identity layer allows you to provide fine-grained permissions to any content you wish to publish - and these permissions extend across the Red Matrix. This is like having one super huge website made up of an army of small individual websites - and where each channel in the matrix can completely control their privacy and sharing preferences for any web resources they create. Currently the matrix supports communications, photo albums, events, and files. This will be extended in the future to provide content management services (web pages) and cloud storage facilities such as WebDAV and multi-media libraries. Every object and how it is shared and with whom is completely under your control.

Again, this type of control is available on large corporate providers, because they own the user database. Within the matrix, there is no need for a huge user database on your machine - because the matrix is your user database and for all intents and purposes has infinite capacity and is spread amongst hundreds, and potentially millions of computers. Access can be granted or denied for any resource, to any channel or any group of channels; anywhere within the matrix. They do not need to have an account on your hub. Your private photos cannot be fusked. If you aren't on the list of allowed viewers for a particular photo, you aren't going to look at it. Not like this "private photo" from an unnamed website which only pretends to offer privacy..." (http://getzot.com/page2.html)