On Thursday, August 27, 2026, at 3:45 PM, Matt Mahoney wrote: > Running a P2P network today would be vastly more difficult. Not only do you > not have access to your phone's firewall or IP address, but any app has to be > approved by Google or Apple. Even if they allowed it, a server would quickly > deplete your data limits and battery. Almost everyone who owns any crypto > today depends on a server owned by someone else to manage transactions and > often their private keys, even after massive frauds like Mt. Gox and FTX.
Typically in P2P there are different types of nodes with some hierarchy. Some node types are always running. Mobile phones are more on demand. A few years ago I developed one of those VoIP apps that can receive inbound IP voice calls even if the app is not running and changing it’s IP address frequently. VoIP has a special priority on mobile devices but most apps have networks they utilize like Apple APNS and Google FCM for push messages. ID tokens are used for push. Then there is STUN, TURN and ICE for firewall and IP address issues and keepalives outside of push. Even though SIP is imperfect to say the least it’s the wide standard and can be used to transmit non-media data streams. There is some fancy stuff being done on mobile devices now. But background apps are mostly shut off waiting for an event and minimal interaction is permitted so continuously running server nodes are needed for P2P if the network goes to zero peers unless you use some alternative mechanism. ------------------------------------------ Artificial General Intelligence List: AGI Permalink: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/T08974f0b616697ac-M0e5de1365eccab9688f2c4e9 Delivery options: https://agi.topicbox.com/groups/agi/subscription
