DPS-Discuss: Demonstrating Decentralized, Pseudonymous, Sybil-resistant Communication

A current trend on the Internet is the increasing surveillance of its users. A few big service providers have divided most of the user-facing Internet between them, observing and recording the activities of their users to increase profits. Additionally, government agencies have been found to practice mass surveillance. With regard to this it becomes even more important to provide online services that protect the privacy of their users and avoid censorship by single, powerful entities. To reach these goals, a trusted third party should be avoided. A prototype service which fulfills these goals is DPS-Discuss, a decentralized, pseudonymous online discussion application. It uses the libraries BitNym and Peer-Tor-Peer for pseudonym management and anonymous communication.