EDIT: sorry for the rambly post here’s a quick clarification I wanted a decentralized/open source variant of something like NordVPN etc.
Crypto-based options I found: Sentinel, Mysterium , Orchid All of those are on the Blockchain and use their own coins as a payment system, both to pay usage fees and to pay out node-hosts. Not sure if that’s my jam.
I tried to use the search and came up short - so point me elsewhere if there’s already a discussion.
Let me preface this by saying I’m pretty green when it comes to a lot of the deeper aspects of FOSS privacy tools. Meaning that i’m probably more clueless about this topic than I realise.
Had a bit of a shower thought moment earlier and googled if decentralized VPNs are an option for the occasional torrent.
Did a bit of a google and came up with a couple of options, seemingly all tied into a blockchain with their own coin for payments - either using or hosting a node.
I’m a bit allergic to cryptobros and their blockchain-everything-mentality but I suppose it’s not a terrible system for the usecase?
So are there people on here who have hands-on experience with this? Is it a valid tool for safer browsing and torrenting?
Are there any obvious alternatives I should look into?
Are there any obvious risks I’m not aware of?
Is the concept flawed altogether?
Something like tinc? (1)
Is this like Tailscale? Maybe closer to Headscale, as tinc seems to be completely self hosted.
I think the OP is looking for a decentralized alternative to something like Nord/Express/Mullvad to hide their traffic, and not a way to connect their devices together.
exactly! Sorry if i didn’t write that clearly in the post.
Ah yes, there’s no turnkey, pay 5USD, tinc provider.
From a users point of view, it’s like wireguard, without the star configuration and manual ip config and routing.
WireGuard supports mesh as well, but it requires to manually configure all the keys and all the IPs on all devices.
There is wgsd, which supposedly makes WireGuard mesh networking easier, but I haven’t tried it.