Linkspace - a motivation

Today there is a growing demand for non-centrally owned networks that support e.g.:

• Social media messaging and content sharing without monopolies.

• Open Internet of Things (IoT) networks, such as a decentralized app enabling taxi drivers to replace Uber with an open-market system.

• Blockchain-based value exchanges.

The question is: what tools and technologies do we need to build these open, virtual spaces?

Assembly languages consist of load, push, jump and similar instructions. During the sexties it lead to higher programming languages as Fortran, Cobol and Basic with language constructs as GOTO. Until goto's were banned as being risky structures are algorithm became what latter was called `unstructured`. It lead to more structured languages with If-then-else, function calls, etc. By the seventies, the software community was better able to to management the flow of executiong with better algorithms.

Next came the desire to better handle data. So constructs as structures and databases emerged during eighties. Languages as Turbo Pascal, a complete IDE in 80kB, and SQL appeared on the market. It was however still the time of mainframe, mini and the first personal computers. In general isolated computers with terminal or isolated computers. But next to algorithm, also data structures were well understood.

Then the desire grew to interconnect computers and share information between computers directly. All kind of protocols were developed, from simple to overly complex ISO stacks. However, during the mid and late eighties the Internet protocols stablized, but Ethernet, TCP/IP and HTTP/HTML reall to off during the nineties. Dispate it non-hierarchical architecture this set of protocols appeared to run stable and reliable, but even more important it provide just the right balance between usability and simplicity. During that time fundamental change was the the community understood how to construct communication protocols.

Next to by now well understood algorithms, data structures, and communication protocols security remained difficult. So during the zero decade of the 21st century, cryptographic keys and byzantine tolerance algorithm enabled the community to create blockchains and similar trust constructs. Now computers can exchange not only information, but also value between themself.

Still however, how to design distributed systems with interrupts, callbacks, multiple processes, etc. Internet allowed for distributed networks, but the services and apps developed over time still tend to be client server based. Even million client apps and central servers with a large back-offices and databases as if the area of mainframe and terminal still exists.

A possible source of the problem is that we don't know how to design distributed systems. There is still no commonly accepted paradigm for designing multiple distributed, but interconnected processes as we now have for structured algorithm, data management, worldwide communication and even digital value transfer.

Now let's assume we design not a system, but for every interested party a solution for its requirements, call it a chunk. But at the lowest level each chunk uses the same set of principle constructions such that one chunk can look into or can have access to other chunk. Of course in case of the proper security rights allow it as e.g., by validating public keys.

A Linkspace is a virtual environment composed of a network of messages distributed across multiple computing and communicating physical devices. These devices exchange messages with cryptographic hashes serving as the fundamental identifiers.

In a Linkspace, messages are uniquely identified by hashes, while participants whether individuals or devices use public/private cryptographic keys for authentication and message verification.

What sets Linkspace apart is its approach to make the system address free. Instead each message, or point in Linkspace terminology, has a unique addressable number.

Similar to blockchain, 18 years ago also a new type of supernet, Linkspace represents a paradigm shift that requires time and effort to fully comprehend. It opens the door to creating entirely new types of systems. For instance, platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Git, or Kafka could be rebuilt using Linkspace.

More importantly, a Linkspace reimplementation of such applications enables these new systems operating in a fully distributed manner, eliminating the need for central servers.

This means there is no central authority to control messages in favor of its owners, shareholders, or, as in the case of X, a single individual. Much like Bitcoin decentralizes value, Linkspace puts control in the hands of its users rather than a central bank.

Linkspace allows communication systems to be owned and managed collectively by their participants, be it human and/or (intelligent) devices.

Today social media systems and many other communication applications rely on central servers controlled by commercial entities, governments, or even individuals. Every message exchanged between friends, family, or even with your home devices passes through systems where these controlling parties hold the private keys. This grants them the ability to monitor, log, train AI models, and even manipulate or restrict the information you see.

Linkspace offers a fundamental shift by enabling social media and communication systems owned and controlled by their users. With Linkspace, individuals maintain control over their own keys, mirroring how communication happens in daily life. In the physical world, you identify yourself naturally through your face, voice, or presence, not by surrendering sensitive data like fingerprints or passwords to a third party. Similarly, in real life, you don’t need permission from a central authority to chat with friends at a bar.

In contrast, social media platforms today require users to log in, identify themselves to the platform owner, and provide data before they are allowed to communicate with others who are similarly vetted and tracked by the system. Linkspace replaces this centralized model with a bottom-up approach to software design, allowing us to create communication systems that mimic the freedom and privacy of real-life interactions.

Such a system may indeed spark ethical debates, as it enables private, encrypted communication that even state actors cannot intercept. But this is no different from face-to-face conversations, where societies have long-established rules and conventions for managing ethical boundaries.

The implicit promise of Linkspace is its potential to build systems that are not only better and simpler than existing technologies but also more aligned with natural human communication.

However, as with paradigm shifts like packet switching in the 1980s, HTTP in the 1990s, and blockchains in the 2000s, it is difficult to prove such claims upfront. What can be done is to motivate its value by drawing parallels to these evolutionary developments.

At its core, Linkspace introduces a new paradigm in digital communication, where each message has a unique number. Grasping this concept requires rethinking traditional approaches and leaving behind outdated frameworks.

In Linkspace:

• Messages are not merely part of a stream with headers, sequence numbers, and metadata. Instead, each message is uniquely identified by a cryptographic hash, which is globally unique across both space and time.

• Public and private cryptographic keys are used to secure messages and authenticate participants—a familiar concept to security experts and blockchain users.

• Security is not an afterthought but embedded in the architecture from the start. Passwords and keys are stored locally, and communication is secure by default, ensuring both privacy and authenticity.

Linkspace eliminates the need for complex IP security measures, message encryption add-ons, and (hackable) centralized password administration systems that were bolted onto the Internet—an infrastructure originally designed in the 1970s and 1980s, where security was not a primary concern. However, don’t worry; we’re not discarding TCP/IP for now.

Instead, Linkspace builds on it, reducing much of today’s operational overhead for web servers. Key functionalities, such as security and message storage, are automatically managed by Linkspace library routines (or Linkspace Rust cargos), significantly minimizing or even eliminating the reliance on central servers to handle messages.

In Linkspace, every participating device manages its own security and message storage, ensuring a decentralized and robust approach to communication.

Questions like 'What is it?' and 'When should I use it?' often arise. Simply saying, 'It’s new, and you can replace existing systems with it?' is unhelpful. Lesson one in software development is: never replace well-functioning systems.

Take Kafka as an example: If a bank uses Kafka to log every single transaction within its organization, and a manufacturing company wants to implement traceability, it doesn’t rewrite Kafka but adapts it for factory use. However, when logging transactions between separate legal entities, blockchain becomes a better solution. Its Byzantine Fault Tolerance and cryptographic keys are designed to prevent tampering and ensure integrity.

Now, consider today’s monopolized social media systems, dominated by central servers and controlled by powerful entities and more and more unknown and untraceable algorithm to control the user interest. Replacing these with a fully distributed social media system demands an entirely new foundational concept.

Picture a world where the richest individual or a state cannot control communication systems. A truly decentralized system like Linkspace would empower users and prevent any single entity from monopolizing the flow of information.

This new approach doesn’t just change the mechanics of communication it redefines how we think about ownership, privacy, and autonomy in the digital realm.

Many of today’s programmers have witnessed the transformative impact of software technologies like Kafka and Bitcoin. A similar shift occurred between the 1970s and 1990s when national telephony companies dominated with circuit-switching networks. These monopolies allowed CEOs of telecom giants to earn billions by overcharging for long-distance and international calls, failing to foresee how packet switching would disrupt their business model.

It took decades of innovation and programming—developing ARP, IP, DNS, routing protocols, HTTP, and later additions like IPSec, DNSsec, and HTTPS. By the early 2000s, the concept of “the death of distance” became a reality, enabling people to communicate globally through platforms like Skype and Zoom.

The shift from circuit-switching to packet-switching rendered the old model obsolete, leading to massive job losses—500,000 out of 750,000 workers at telecom equipment vendors were displaced. However, this disruption also gave rise to the internet and web services, creating far more jobs than were lost.

But what will evolve if we understand how to design distribute systems with concepts as Linkspace and then create new solutions which undermine today's central social media systems. What if the users decide to pay for their own small computing costs to communicate to their friends and family themselves and not exposing their privacy to advertising entities and more and more aggresive scammer clans.

4 bits can be written in 16 hexademical code as 0-F and 8 bits, i.e. 1 byte, can be written from x00-xFF resulting in 256 combinations.

16 bits lead 64K

32 bit IPv4 numbers are commonly written as 192.168.10.1, four numbers 1-256 or four groups of 8 bits. One can write IPv4 numbers as F0.C8.0A.01, but over time IPv4 numbers are normally not written in hexademical numbers. 48 bit Ethernet MAC numbers, less used than IP numbers, are commonly written in 6 double hex numbers.

With IPv4 there are around 4 billion numbers possible. Not enough for each human to have its own IPVv4 numbers for private computers and mobiles. 128 bit IPv6 was seen as the solution, but writing IPv6 numbers is for 30 years still cumbersome.

And now we have 32 byte hashes and groupnames, that are 256 bits. How to write them down?

In theory you can write it by 32 double hex combi's in 64 characters. Or if, really needed, you can write 32 bytes in 43 ASCII characters.

Not ever 8 bit, one byte, is a valid ASCII character, so 32 zero bytes can be represented as a string of 43 capital A characters: 'AAAA….AAA". But any other number gets less readable as [#:pub] in 43 ASCII characters becomes `j0SWgDvDOLIEny0eEoWgDKWyxpmRmavdvbtXfQYz2bE`

Still, if you have a list of points distributed over several groups, you won't see the difference anymore, but a computer faces no problems to process them. (For what it is worth, this is the reason with the logical order group:domain:path in Linksapce, similar to IP:port:path in Internet/webservices, is not listed in this order, but in domain:group:path. You might survive therefore the first confrontation if you ever encounter such a list.)

Internet http://www.xyz.ab:port/index.html etc. consist of the name space for 4 billion IP nummers (in case of IPv4), 64k port numbers and a variable length path. In linkspace the groups name space is not 2^32, but 2^256, increadible large. The domain name space is an ASCII string of max 16 characters, not 16 bits as with internet ports. And a linkspace path is the same as with internet. In other words, we are leaving the 16-32 bits world and are entering a 4 to 8 time larger 64-256 bits world.

Linkspace is written in Rust, a modern programming language designed 30 years after C. Rust avoids many of the pitfalls of older languages, such as memory leaks and security vulnerabilities. While it’s possible to improve memory safety in C through additional pre- and post-processing, Rust’s design inherently ensures memory safety without the need for extra layers.

In the same way that Rust represents a leap forward from C, Linkspace represents a leap forward from traditional technologies for building distributed systems. By embracing modern concepts like those in Linkspace, developers gain significant advantages without the overhead and complexities required by older technologies.

Nevertheless the documentation examples are presented in Python, more commonly know, easier to understand, but slower in execution. And for the more web oriented apps there is also a Javascript interface as well as a command line utility, named `lk` For Python and the command line utility there are quick-start description available. For Python, Javascript and Rust that are also examples programs.