Community: Infrastructure
Network and development onramps, and upcoming governance dialogue.
SAM Documentation Updates
With every release comes testing of new code, but not often do FOSS projects have an opportunity or resources available to test documentation.
Documentation, like UX, is one of the first impressions a project makes on people. Research, testing and engineering of information resources is critical to new participants and developers.
Recent review and testing revealed confusion regarding FROM and TO ports being TCP/UDP ports as well. For people who are familiar with networking glossaries, terms like "destination"( a place to get to or a place to be?) and "source" (a movement toward or from?) propose different function in I2P documentation.
"What was confusing at first was using a common term in networking for something completely different. (Anyone bothering to read I2P specs is going to be a network person anyway.) Same as with "destination", which implies a movement toward just like "source" is movement from. Both words are in the TCP/IP packet documentation. My "destination" is a place I want to get to, not where I am now."
Thank you for working together to test issues that have resulted in finding areas for improvement!
On the topic of updating documentation and the need for review, the I2P Secure Design Collective has submitted PR's to I2P www that have been merged and are waiting to be merged. These are part of the process of an information overhaul that will be implemented in a community Gitbook project. See our Threat Model PR https://github.com/i2p/i2p.www/pull/14/commits/de5c181addc5a62ccb4d066f83a592064f7af61c
Thanks to the contributors who are working on the many areas of the project to improve and update its documentation, design, and code!
Reseed Operators Support
On the topic of documentation and resources, we will be producing updated resources for reseed operators along with the option to join a Reseed Operators workgroup where operators can share information specific to reseed monitoring, best practices, health and blocking.
For example, reseed.diva.exchange is blocked in Switzerland by Swisscom, a large internet providers in Switzerland. However, the "block" is just a filter. If someone is using a docker container, trivial blocking strategies by ISPs no longer create an issue. See DIVA's I2P Reseed repo here: https://github.com/diva-exchange/i2p-reseed
A great resource for monitoring I2P blocking can be found via OONI, https://explorer.ooni.org/domain/i2p2.de?since=2023-09-25&until=2023-10-25
We may assume that some of this information is not new, however, as we have seen in the SAM spec, there is always room for improvement in our resources. It is also important for our operators to maintain strategy building connections that monitor blocking attempts and solutions. If you are an existing reseed operator, or are new to the community and would be interested in becoming an operator, please reach out to DIVA and Sadie to help us with our outreach, and watch for our blog posts!
SplinterCon
Sadie will attend SplinterCon in December to participate in discussions regarding the fragmentation of the internet, the reasons, implications, and issues. This is part of our ongoing dialogue in the Internet Governance space and the real need to include overlay networks like I2P in discussions regarding human rights frameworks for communication. I would encourage people who are interested in this topic to watch PNIF What does Internet fragmentation mean to you: Identifying fragmentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhVaovkSq0o
As always, I encourage dialogue and coordination with our communities , and I am looking forward to our conversations in Montreal!
Our community and technical infrastructure, along with governance considerations is where our privacy and circumvention work requires focus for true resilience.
The next I2P community meeting with be held on November 24th, at 19:00 CET on our Discord server. The server is invite only, and we do offer a Matrix bridge as well. Please reach out to Sadie if you are interested in an invitation.