[tech] Proposed reversed Gemini for uploads to servers - Feedback wanted

Hi all, I may have come up with a practical way to upload content to Gemini servers in-band, that is, speaking only valid Gemini (mostly) within the Gemini protocol specification. The proposed mechanism allows a Gemini client to temporarily act as a Gemini server, with the Gemini server briefly playing the part of a Gemini client. Entirely within an otherwise standard Gemini transaction, a server and client can agree to swap roles, with the server then waiting for any content that the client may send (i.e., "upload") to the server. Being in a sense, "reversed Gemini", I've decided to call this mechanism "Inimeg"[1]. Inimeg strictly follows the Gemini spec and only extends it in three respects: * The "inimeg://" URL scheme, used by a Gemini client for an Inimeg "upload" request * The 7X range of status code, sent by a Gemini server in response to an Inimeg request * The Inimeg transaction, a Gemini transaction with partial role reversal I was careful not break or be in conflict with solarpunk's excellent Gemini spec. A heavily inspired "speculative specification" for Inimeg can be found at [2]. Do not hesitate to try out Inimeg in the open Playground, as mentioned in [1]. Much less work has gone into the crude server implementation[3] than the spec but it should serve to demonstrate the general idea. (Note that the same server process that hosts the spec [2] also hosts the playground, so please don't be too unfriendly with it. It should hold up to casual experimentation though.) So. What do you think? benthor [1]: gemini://inimeg.space/ [2]: gemini://inimeg.space/specification.gmi [3]: https://git.sr.ht/~benthor/lunokhod (gemini://inimeg.space only speaks TLS 1.3 at the moment, I humbly apologize to the folks who are stuck with TLS 1.2)

> On Dec 30, 2020, at 01:29, benthor <benthor at posteo.de> wrote: > > Being in a sense, "reversed Gemini", I've decided to call this mechanism "Inimeg"[1]. Fantastic idea :) But I'm afraid Sean own that trademark already. The entire concept actually. Search the archive, circa June 14th, something related to "Uploading Gemini content"

It was thus said that the Great Petite Abeille once stated: > > On Dec 30, 2020, at 01:29, benthor <benthor at posteo.de> wrote: > > > > Being in a sense, "reversed Gemini", I've decided to call this mechanism > > "Inimeg"[1]. > > Fantastic idea :) > > But I'm afraid Sean own that trademark already. The entire concept > actually. > > Search the archive, circa June 14th, something related to "Uploading > Gemini content" Specifically, this message: https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/001650.html -spc

> On Dec 30, 2020, at 01:37, Sean Conner <sean at conman.org> wrote: > > https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/001650.html Still love the concept :) Very simple, and very elegant: inverse the command flow. Pure Gemini. What is there not to like.

Sean Conner writes: > Specifically, this message: > > https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/001650.html > > -spc Fascinating thread! Now I'm angry with myself that I haven't gone far enough in time on the ML to find this. My consolation price is the knowledge, that all the stuff I came up with on my own is apparently not completely silly. I've added a "Credits" section to the site, mentioning your names and the thread. Are you interested in fleshing this idea out a bit further with me? Anything you'd like to see changed in the speculative spec? I hope to at least contribute "inimeg.space" to the cause. (Oh how clever I felt when I came up with that one. Sigh.) Cheers, benthor PS: Solderpunk, I apologize for calling you "solarpunk" earlier. *shakes head*

It was thus said that the Great benthor once stated: > > Sean Conner writes: > > Specifically, this message: > > > > https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/001650.html > > Fascinating thread! Now I'm angry with myself that I haven't gone > far enough in time on the ML to find this. There's also the titan: protocol: https://communitywiki.org/wiki/Titan also an upload method for Gemini, and also originally an idea of mine (but developed almost exclusively by Alex Schroeder). There is also Dioscuri: gemini://rawtext.club/~sloum/geminilist/002792.gmi I have nothing to do with this one. So there's quite a bit of interest and work in this. > Are you interested in fleshing this idea out a bit further with > me? Anything you'd like to see changed in the speculative spec? I > hope to at least contribute "inimeg.space" to the cause. (Oh how > clever I felt when I came up with that one. Sigh.) I'd like to at least read the spec, but I'm still stuck at TLS 1.2 until I check out the newer LibreSSL library. But at the very least, check out the others methods as well. -spc

On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 9:34 PM Sean Conner <sean at conman.org> wrote: > There is also Dioscuri: > > gemini://rawtext.club/~sloum/geminilist/002792.gmi > That is the original version and no longer current. Please use http://tinyurl.com/dioscuri-home instead; that address is permanent. Note that Dioscuri is intended as a POST protocol rather than a PUT protocol. John Cowan http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan cowan at ccil.org A: "Spiro conjectures Ex-Lax." Q: "What does Pat Nixon frost her cakes with?" --"Jeopardy" for generative semanticists -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/attachments/20201230/404a9f79/attachment.htm>

> On Dec 30, 2020, at 02:28, benthor <benthor at posteo.de> wrote: > > (Oh how clever I felt when I came up with that one. Sigh.) My exact feeling every day: surely NO ONE must have thought of this :D inimeg ftw! > PS: Solderpunk, I apologize for calling you "solarpunk" earlier. *shakes head* Haha. Good one :)

> On Dec 30, 2020, at 03:34, Sean Conner <sean at conman.org> wrote: > > but I'm still stuck at TLS 1.2 until I check out the newer LibreSSL library. Perhaps take a look at "[gentoo-dev] [RFC] Discontinuing LibreSSL support?". Fascinating dynamic.

Sean Conner writes: > There's also the titan: protocol: > > https://communitywiki.org/wiki/Titan > > also an upload method for Gemini, and also originally an idea of > mine (but > developed almost exclusively by Alex Schroeder). Very interesting. If I understand gemini://communitywiki.org/page/Titan correctly, the following should have worked: echo -en "titan://communitywiki.org/raw/Test;token=hello;mime=text/plain;size=12\r\nHello World\n" | socat - ssl:communitywiki.org:1965,verify=0 However, gemini://communitywiki.org/page/Test remained empty. Even after creating the page via the http interface, I couldn't update it. In general, I am not sure whether the token requirement couldn't be dropped in favor of exclusively client certificate-based authentication. > There is also Dioscuri: > > gemini://rawtext.club/~sloum/geminilist/002792.gmi > > I have nothing to do with this one. So there's quite a bit of > interest > and work in this. Oh, I like this approach! Unfortunately the Gemini version of that page is a bit taxing to read due to issues with newline conversion. Here is the HTML version for anyone who is interested: https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/2020/002792.html Does anyone know whether at least a toy implementation of this already exists? The ML thread seems to have derailed pretty quickly unfortunately... > I'd like to at least read the spec, but I'm still stuck at TLS > 1.2 until I > check out the newer LibreSSL library. But at the very least, > check out the > others methods as well. Could you check again if you can access the site? It's now using a taditional ECDSA certificate instead of the previous newfangled ED25519 cert. gemini://inimeg.space benthor

It was thus said that the Great Petite Abeille once stated: > > > > On Dec 30, 2020, at 03:34, Sean Conner <sean at conman.org> wrote: > > > > but I'm still stuck at TLS 1.2 until I check out the newer LibreSSL library. > > Perhaps take a look at "[gentoo-dev] [RFC] Discontinuing LibreSSL > support?". Fascinating dynamic. Thanks for the pointer. Interesting read. I don't use Gentoo, so this isn't affecting me, but I doubt it would anyway, as I have downloaded and installed LibreSSL myself (on a system with an older OpenSSL---what fun! [1]). I was happy to find a libtls for OpenSSL: https://git.causal.agency/libretls/ which would simplify things for me quite a bit. Might have to play around with that. Seriously, I wish libtls was more popular because it's a *very easy* library to use. -spc

It was thus said that the Great benthor once stated: > Sean Conner writes: > > There's also the titan: protocol: > > > > https://communitywiki.org/wiki/Titan > > > >also an upload method for Gemini, and also originally an idea of > >mine (but > >developed almost exclusively by Alex Schroeder). > > Very interesting. If I understand > gemini://communitywiki.org/page/Titan correctly, the following > should have worked: > > echo -en > "titan://communitywiki.org/raw/Test;token=hello;mime=text/plain;size=12\r\nHello > World\n" | socat - ssl:communitywiki.org:1965,verify=0 You might want to talk about Alex about that. I think he has the only titan: enabled server right now. > However, gemini://communitywiki.org/page/Test remained empty. Even > after creating the page via the http interface, I couldn't update > it. In general, I am not sure whether the token requirement > couldn't be dropped in favor of exclusively client > certificate-based authentication. If I were doing it, I would use a certificate, but Alex doesn't want that complication, thus the token. > > I'd like to at least read the spec, but I'm still stuck at TLS 1.2 until > > I check out the newer LibreSSL library. But at the very least, check > > out the others methods as well. > > Could you check again if you can access the site? It's now using a > taditional ECDSA certificate instead of the previous newfangled > ED25519 cert. That works. Thanks. -spc

On Wed, Dec 30, 2020 at 11:50 AM benthor <benthor at posteo.de> wrote: > > There is also Dioscuri: > > Oh, I like this approach! Unfortunately the Gemini version of that page is a bit taxing to read due to issues with newline > conversion. Here is the HTML version for anyone who is interested: > Please, everyone, stop propagating the mailing-list link to Dioscuri! The permanent HTML link is <http://tinyurl.com/dioscuri-home>. I'm pretty much done changing it until I get some feedback, so I would be glad for someone to convert it to text/gemini (it is currently Git-flavored Markdown) and host it on Gemini, somewhere handy. There is no implementation right now because I haven't found a toy thing to do with it yet. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://lists.orbitalfox.eu/archives/gemini/attachments/20201231/ffecf302/attachment.htm>

> On Dec 31, 2020, at 00:27, Sean Conner <sean at conman.org> wrote: > > Seriously, I wish libtls was more popular because it's a *very easy* library to use. Gentoo has reached the same conclusion: [gentoo-dev] [News review] LibreSSL support discontinued "To the best of our knowledge, the only benefit LibreSSL has over OpenSSL right now is the additional libtls library. For this reason, we have packaged dev-libs/libretls which is a port of this library that links to OpenSSL." ? ???