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DotMesh

Open source macroblogging application ready to be deployed on any PHP/MySQL server.

What is DotMesh?

Dotmesh does not run on a central server. It is by its nature decentralized and crowd-sourced. It is the complete mesh of independent community members of the world that make up the Dotmesh network. It can never be wholly blocked or eliminated, because the global network of Dotmesh nodes are self-sustaining in the absense of one or many others.

It is exciting to see how Dotmesh will be adopted by the community. We understand that the original motivation of the creators does not determine its possible use, and all the creative ways in which it will be used by the community to enrich lives and promote communication can never be predicted.

What prompted the creation of Dotmesh

We watched the world stage as the undemocratic nations of the world abused their powers against their own citizens.

As recent world events unfolded, it became clear that the law-abiding, honest citizens of the world needed the tool necessary to communicate in privacy, without fear of persecution.

We believe that a tolerating world that promotes peace and freedom of opinion and expression, is the highest aspiration of the common people. Dotmesh is our small contribution in hopes of a tolerant, free world.

See it in action

Go to http://dotmesh.org and sign up!

Features

  • Use as local Twitter clone
  • Subscribe to local and remote Users and Tags
  • Pin new posts as admin, and unpin later
  • Star (Favorite) posts
  • Flag (Report as offensive) posts
  • Vote posts up and down
  • Echo (Retweet) posts
  • Send Private posts (visible only to mentioned users)
  • Sort timelines by: Recent, Hot, Best, Worst, Controversial
  • Search for posts, users and tags
  • RSS Feeds for all timelines
  • Inline YouTube videos and images
  • Fully extendable via plugins
  • Twitter integration (sign up, login, cross-post)
  • Markdown post formatting
  • Custom theming (plugin skeleton included)
  • Servers communicate using SSL if supported by either
  • Run multiple nodes from the same code/db instance
  • Supports i18n
  • Canonical URLs allow SEO for posts (add your own text in URL)

Security measures

  • User passwords are hashed using bcrypt with difficulty 10
  • Remote users are validated using SHA512 double hash: SHA512( [agent ip] * SHA512( [local node secret key] * [remote node secret key] * [remote user secret key] ))
  • Remote user signatures are re-validated against claiming node when needed
  • Server to server communication is DNS validated
  • Use SSL when available
  • If a node database is compromised, change local node secret key and send request to remote nodes to invalidate all user signatures (roadmap)

Immediate Roadmap

  • Finish i18n
  • Admin interface (manage nodes and users)
  • Block nodes and users on node level (admin)
  • Block nodes and users on a user level
  • Responsive HTML

Known Issues

  • Post Feedback synchronization between remote nodes of subscribed users. Currently only the local node of the post has full feedback totals. Other nodes that have this post have only local totals.
  • Admin can only delete others' posts. Full functionality will include deleting local users, blocking remote users and nodes.

Wishlist

  • Post attachments
  • Per user page design
  • Edit posts
  • Inline reply
  • Post from header popup
  • Implement other OAuth/OpenID adapters (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, HotMail, Yahoo)
  • Implement User page as OpenID identity
  • Guest user API
  • Client side AES256 encryption
  • User/tag Karma
  • Most of functionality should work without JS
  • The sky is no limit

Potential Uses

  • Personal use (only 1 user, private notes, communicate with other nodes)
  • Share with friends
  • Setup a node for company, organization or school
  • Use for crowd voting (e.g. features wishlist)

Benefits

  • If using as purely local node, all your data is on your server only.
  • If communicating with other servers, the data is on yours and the other servers only, no middle man.
  • Full control over your own data
  • No inline advertisements (unless the node admin decides to inject)
  • Multiple nodes increase difficulty for blocking on infrastructure level

Trade offs vs Cloud solutions (e.g. Twitter)

  • Maintain your own real/virtual server, backups, host security, upgrades, etc.

Installation Instructions

  • Clone git repository (https://github.com/unirgy/dotmesh)
  • OR Download as zip (https://github.com/unirgy/dotmesh/zipball/master)
  • Make dotmesh/thumbs folder writable for web service
  • Copy dotmesh/config.php.dist to dotmesh/config.php
  • Edit dotmesh/config.php and follow instructions to configure the instance
  • If running Apache, the rewrites should be handled by .htaccess
  • If running other web service, please configure it to rewrite all calls to dotmesh.php/$1
  • Navigate to your node web address, setup page should be shown
  • Fill out setup page (node and admin user info)
  • Enjoy your own DotMesh node!

How you can help?

If you like what you see, do what you can:

  • Help to write documentation
  • Help to test the software, by using it and reporting issues or writing PHPUnit tests
  • Help to secure the software, by examining the code and do blackbox audits
  • Help to develop the software, by forking it and submitting pull requests
  • Help to increase awareness, by talking with your friends and co-workers
  • Help to make it pretty, by creating custom themes
  • Help to translate it to other languages

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