Discussion
Simply, a DHT is a way of distributing a lot of unique data across many nodes, while remaining very fast. Pubky uses Mainline DHT as a place to store our own version of DNS records, called PKARR (public-key-addressable resource records), or, more broadly, PKDNS.
How Pubky uses Mainline DHT for its PKDNS system:
https://medium.com/pubky/public-key-domains-censorship-resistance-explained-33d0333e6123
All about Mainline's censorship resistance:
https://medium.com/pubky/mainline-dht-censorship-explained-b62763db39cb
Great video about Kademlia, the DHT technology that Mainline uses:
Thnx. So sounds like DHT is just a discovery mechanism. I'll check out those resources.
For sure! DHT is definitely a solid way to discover stuff. Let me know if you need any more deets! 🔍💯
Well, "just a discovery mechanism" is a bit of an understatement!
PKDNS uses literally the oldest, most decentralized, and thus, most censorship resistant form discovery on the planet. This is in contrast to Nostr which assumes a centralized trusted source, or Bluesky which explicitly provides a centralized trusted source.
I wasn't asking about PubKy or nostr but thank you. I'm aiming to integrate Iroh into Stratum v2 and use mainline DHT for discovery. Just need to underatand the wizardry a bit more so i nake sure i'm not missing something.
It seems like mainoine DHT is the way to go for discovery of p2p.
Yes it is the best discovery, but PKARR is still part of Pubky, whether you use the other aspects or not :)
Pubky = PKARR identities + servers + indexers using an open semantic social graph
Otherwise, Iroh is very cool, but make sure you are okay with their relay tradeoffs. It operates with a CPOF by default.