Unseenet Working Group                                     A. Lorensen
UN-RFC: 0011                                              October 2026
Category: Standards Track
Status: Draft
Updates: 0005

          Unseenet: Node Information and Operator Contact

Abstract¶

A node tells clients and peers who operates it, how to reach the operator privately, and what its policies are. This document defines the LIST UNSEENET.NODEINFO command and the information it returns.

1. Motivation¶

On Usenet every server had an administrator reachable at a well-known address (usenet@, news@). Unseenet nodes are onion services with no domain and no mail, so the same need must be met inside the protocol: users must be able to report abuse, ask for a group to be carried, or just say thank you, and they should be able to see a node's policy before relying on it.

2. The NODEINFO Command¶

A node that implements this document adds the capability

UNSEENET-NODEINFO

and answers

LIST UNSEENET.NODEINFO

with 215 followed by a single line of canonical JSON (UN-RFC 0004 section 3) and the terminating .:

215 node information follows
{"contact":"operator@ab3k5x7qwe2rtz4m","description":"...","name":"mynode","operator":"ed25519:...","policy":{...},"software":"unseenet 0.2.0","v":1}
.

A node that has no information to give MAY omit the capability.

3. Fields¶

Field	Type	Req.	Meaning
`v`	integer	yes	`1`
`name`	string	yes	The node's name (as used for peering, UN-RFC 0005)
`operator`	key string	no	The operator's identity key
`contact`	Group ID	no	Where to write to the operator; SHOULD be an inbox
`description`	string	no	Free text, max 2048 characters
`policy`	object	yes	See section 4
`software`	string	no	Implementation name and version

Unknown fields MUST be ignored.

4. Policy¶

The policy object states the rules the node applies. Clients SHOULD show it to users when they add a node.

Field	Type	Meaning
`new_groups`	string	`accept`, `trusted` or `manual` (UN-RFC 0004 section 3.3)
`min_pow`	integer	Minimum postage
`retention_days`	integer	How long posts are kept
`max_size`	integer	Largest accepted article
`logging`	string	Free text: what the node logs
`archive`	boolean	Whether the node keeps posts longer (UN-RFC 0012)

5. The Operator's Contact Inbox¶

The RECOMMENDED way to set up operator contact is:

the operator creates, with an identity of their own, an inbox group (UN-RFC 0009) with "local": true, conventionally named operator, on their own node;
the operator puts its Group ID in contact and the identity in operator.

Because the inbox is local, messages to the operator stay on that node. Because it is an inbox, the node itself - and anyone who seizes it - cannot read them; only the operator's identity can.

6. Trust¶

The information is not signed. It does not need to be: the client reached the node through its onion address, which authenticates the node (UN-RFC 0005 section 1), so the information comes from the node it claims to describe. It is, however, only what the node claims: a client SHOULD present the policy as the operator's statement, not as something the protocol enforces.