Out into the world¶
Inside Tor, Unseenet is a closed world: nodes have no address outside it, and everyone who takes part runs an Unseenet client. That is what makes it hard to watch and hard to switch off - but a network nobody can reach is not much use either. This chapter is about the doors between Unseenet and the rest of the internet: web entrances, which let an ordinary browser in, and gateways, which connect Unseenet to other networks such as Usenet, Matrix and Nostr.
Every door is optional, sits at the edge, and is run by someone who chose to run it. None of them changes what happens inside: nodes stay hidden, posts stay signed, and private things stay encrypted.
Web entrances: a browser way in¶
Most people will not download a program or boot from a stick before they have seen what a network is like. A web entrance lets them in from an ordinary browser, on a computer, phone or tablet, with nothing to install.
What the entrance does is small on purpose. It serves the graphical client to the browser, and then it carries the browser's connection to a node over Tor, copying bytes both ways - nothing else. All the real work happens in the browser: the client there opens the vault, signs, encrypts, decrypts and pays the postage itself. So the entrance:
- never sees a passphrase, a private key, or what is in a closed group or a private post;
- cannot change or forge a post, because every post is signed and checked by the client;
- writes nothing about its visitors - no access log, no addresses in its errors.
The honest price¶
An entrance stands on the open web, and that has a cost, which the browser client shows in a bar at the top at all times:
- The entrance sees your IP address - unless you use Tor Browser and the entrance's onion address.
- Your network sees you visit it, so someone watching can tell you use Unseenet.
- You trust code served from the web. Versions of the client are signed, and clients check them, but the page is still delivered by the entrance.
What does not change is why Unseenet is worth using in the first place: groups and nodes still cannot be removed by anyone, nobody can delete or change someone else's post, and nodes still never learn where anyone is. An entrance is for people who want that freedom more than full anonymity. Those who need to hide that they use Unseenet at all should use the portable or bootable client.
When an entrance is blocked¶
An address on the open web can be blocked. Unseenet answers that with numbers: anyone can run an entrance - one install command on a free cloud VM - and the project publishes a signed list of known entrances in the network. If the browser's entrance stops answering, the client switches to another from the list. The list can also be saved as a small file, kept, and passed to friends; opened from disk, it shows which entrances answer and opens one. Every entrance someone else runs makes the network harder to block.
Gateways: other networks in¶
A gateway brings groups, rooms or areas from another network into Unseenet, and can carry answers back. Each network has its own top-level hierarchy, so a reader always sees where a group comes from:
| Network | In Unseenet | State |
|---|---|---|
| Usenet | usenet.*, e.g. usenet.comp.misc |
import, in the lab |
| Matrix (public, unencrypted rooms) | matrix.* |
import and export, tested |
| Nostr (NIP-29 groups) | nostr.* |
import, export and portals, in the lab |
| FidoNet | fido.* |
planned |
A gatewayed group is an ordinary moderated group whose moderator is the gateway. That is the trick that makes gateways cheap: nodes and clients carry such a group like any other and need to know nothing about gateways. Every imported post is signed by the gateway and says where it came from - the network, its ID and date there, and its author there. From Nostr, where posts are signed too, the original signed event comes along, so a reader can check that the gateway did not change it.
When you answer a gatewayed post from Unseenet, your answer goes to the gateway as a submission, the way posts reach the moderators of any moderated group, and the gateway sends it on under its own name.
Consent, and more than one gateway¶
A gateway does not take a room or group without being asked. On Matrix, the room's moderators invite the gateway's account, which is the room's consent; the gateway's operator then approves it, and the room appears as a group. Removing the gateway from the room stops it.
A group need not depend on one gateway. Several can serve the same group: they take turns, carry each message once, and take over for one another if one stops. Gateways announce themselves in a directory group, so people on other networks can find one to invite, and a gatewayed group stays active only while at least one of its gateways still announces it.
Portals: Unseenet groups out¶
A portal goes the other way. An Unseenet group - say dk.snak - gets
a counterpart on another network, such as a Nostr group or a Matrix room,
where people can read and write without Unseenet software. Their messages
come into the Unseenet group through the gateway, marked with where they
came from.
A portal publishes what Unseenet authors wrote outside Tor, where it may be kept and indexed for years. That is a different promise from the one the group's authors chose, so:
- only the group's owner can open a portal, in the group's settings, and the gateway stops when it is removed;
- authors are told: before your first post in a group with a portal, your client says that it will also be published elsewhere;
- only open groups can have portals - never closed groups, inboxes or private posts.
What never crosses a door¶
Some things stay inside whatever door is open:
- Nothing encrypted - no closed group, inbox or private post - is ever exported or published elsewhere.
- No timing signals. Other networks may show when someone is typing, has read a message or is online. A gateway never sends such signals for Unseenet authors, because they would reveal when someone is active and undo the random delays that hide where posts come from.
- No origins. A gateway receives posts from the network like any node: it does not learn where a post was written or who holds a key.
- Withdrawals stay home. A post withdrawn in Unseenet is withdrawn here; whether the other network forgets it is up to that network.
Where it stands
Entrances run, and the project runs one. Gateways run in the lab and against the project's own Matrix room; export to Usenet is not built yet, and nothing is connected to real Usenet peers. None of it has had a security review.
Details: UN-RFC 0023 (gateways and portals), 0024 (Usenet), 0026 (Nostr), 0037 (Matrix), 0038 (several gateways, the directory), 0043 (web entrances). For using and running them: In your browser, Running an entrance and Gateways to other networks.