How it works¶
This section explains Unseenet from end to end, in ordinary prose, with the technical words introduced as they are needed. This page is the whole idea on one page; each part links to a chapter that goes deeper. It sits between Why Unseenet, written for people who have never heard of Tor, and the UN-RFC series, written for people who build nodes and clients.
The specification decides
These pages are not normative. They simplify on purpose, and they may lag behind a change. When they and a UN-RFC disagree, the UN-RFC is right - and these pages have a bug. Every chapter ends with the UN-RFCs it covers.
Unseenet on one page¶
Why. Most conversation online now happens in places with an owner who can decide who may speak, remove what was said, sort what you see and hand over who said what. Unseenet offers the same ways of talking - discussion, chat, feeds, pages, private posts - with nobody in that position. → Why it matters
Everything is an article in a group. A post, a chat line, a page and a private post are all short signed texts in a group. Nodes store them and pass them to each other, the way Usenet servers did - with no route recorded and a random delay, so nobody can tell where a post was written. → A post's journey
You are a key. There are no accounts. Your client makes a key pair,
keeps it in an encrypted vault, and signs everything you write with it, so
nobody can post in your name. Names such as @yourname are optional
labels on top. New keys ripen for a while before they post cheaply, which
keeps spam out without asking anyone for a phone number. → Identity
Groups have owners, the network does not. Each group has an owner who chooses who may write (open, moderated, channel, closed, inbox) and how it is shown (threads, chat, feed, pages). Owners, moderators, node operators and hierarchy maintainers each have a little power, and nobody has all of it. → Groups
Spam is reported, not censored. Anyone can publish signed spam reports; your client hides what the issuers you follow report - those a group or its hierarchy names for you by default, and those you choose - and always says by whom, one click from showing it. Reports to the people who can act on a post land where they read them. → Spam and reports
No algorithm - unless you write one. Your feed is newest first and a group is its threads in order. If you want friends first or a subject out of sight, you write your own rules; they run only in your client and nobody else sees them. → Your own rules
Nodes are onion services. Anyone can run one, on a Raspberry Pi or a free VM, with no public address. Nodes peer with nodes their operators choose, check everything they receive, and forget posts after the group's retention period. → The node
One core, many clients. The terminal client, the graphical client, the browser version and the command line all use the same core, which holds the keys, talks Tor and checks every signature itself. → The clients
Doors at the edge. A web entrance lets an ordinary browser in, at the price of the entrance seeing the visitor's address. Gateways bring groups from Usenet, Matrix and Nostr in, and portals let an owner open a group to another network. Nothing encrypted ever goes through a door. → Out into the world
Tor hides who talks to whom. Every connection goes through Tor, so no node learns where its users are, and nobody watching your connection sees what you read or write. → Tor and Tails
Honest about the limits. Unseenet hides where people and servers are, proves who wrote what and keeps private things private. It cannot protect you from what you write yourself, from a compromised computer, or from someone watching the whole internet - and it has not been reviewed yet. → The threat model in plain words
Build your own. Everything is written down in the UN-RFCs, so anyone can build a compatible node, client or gateway in any language - or build on the project's core. → Build your own
Some of what these pages describe is still being built. Where that is so, they say which release brings it.