Techlore Talks

Peer-to-peer networks have no servers—just devices talking directly to each other. Henry interviewed Mathias Buus Madsen, CEO of Holepunch, about how BitTorrent handled 40 million users without servers, why their messenger Keet can't go down even when usage spikes, their new P2P password manager, and how P2P apps are more energy efficient than data centers.

🔗 LINKS
Holepunch: https://holepunch.to/
Keet Messenger: https://keet.io
Pears: https://pears.com
Pear Pass: https://pass.pears.com

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00:00 INTRO
00:01:25 WHAT IS PEER-TO-PEER (P2P)?
00:03:16 BENEFITS OF P2P
00:05:38 GETTING STARTED IN P2P
00:08:43 NEGATIVE P2P ASSOCIATIONS
00:14:13 P2P CENSORSHIP RESISTANCE
00:17:14 P2P SAFETY
00:21:29 KEET (P2P MESSENGER)
00:26:21 OPEN SOURCE?
00:27:12 BEING SERVERLESS
00:31:04 OPEN SOURCE VS. CLOSED SOURCE
00:34:05 ARE UPDATES P2P?
00:34:33 IS THERE AN APK?
00:35:37 BACKGROUND SYNC
00:39:27 WHAT ELSE DOES HOLEPUNCH WORK ON?
00:42:04 MORE INFO ON THE STACK
00:45:00 FUNDING + TETHER
00:48:09 P2P PASSWORD MANAGER?
00:54:48 AUDITS
00:55:57 AVAILABLE ON LINUX?
00:58:33 CENTRALIZED/HYBRID P2P?
01:01:49 P2P DOWNSIDES?
01:05:01 APPLE FINDMY NETWORK
01:07:16 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
01:11:48 SERVICE DOWNTIME
01:12:52 HOW TO FOLLOW
01:13:59 OUTRO

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SimpleX Chat is the only messaging network where users have no identifiers—no phone numbers, no usernames, no user IDs at all. Henry interviewed founder Evgeny Poberezkin about how unidirectional message pipes create a network where servers don't even know users exist, why this isn't federation, how it compares to Signal and Session, and why the company is based in the UK despite encryption battles.

🔗 LINKS
SimpleX: https://simplex.chat
Evgeny's Website: https://www.poberezkin.com/about.html

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00:00 INTRO
00:01:31 SIMPLEX NAME
00:04:20 SIMPLEX TEAM
00:05:10 SIMPLEX VS. MAINSTREAM MESSENGERS
00:08:05 WHY THIS APPROACH?
00:11:14 THE FUTURE OF SIMPLEX
00:14:28 SIMPLEX NETWORK + FEDERATION
00:20:46 REGISTRATION MODELS
00:23:11 GOVERNMENT REQUESTS TO SIGNAL
00:25:42 REGISTRATION MODELS (CONT'D)
00:27:52 MESSENGER DISCUSSION?
00:29:54 SIMPLEX LIMITATIONS
00:31:00 WAYS TO USE SIMPLEX + SCALING
00:37:27 OPEN SOURCE
00:42:21 SIMPLEX ENCRYPTION + DENIABILITY
00:54:00 SIMPLEX METADATA
01:00:53 IP ADDRESS OBSERVATION
01:05:02 USABILITY CHALLENGES
01:09:53 MESSAGE DELIVERY
01:10:58 OUTAGES
01:13:14 MULTI-DEVICE SYNC
01:13:56 DESKTOP ONLY?
01:18:10 BATTERY IMPACT
01:19:44 BACKGROUND SYNC
01:21:50 FUNDING + SUSTAINABILITY
01:30:38 JURISDICTION
01:31:56 LEGAL + LIABILITY
01:40:37 PRIVACY AS A MEANS, NOT AN END
01:41:55 PRIVACY FOR THE MASSES VS. THE FEW
01:45:27 WHAT'S NEXT FOR SIMPLEX?
01:50:57 HOW TO FOLLOW
01:52:09 OUTRO

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You don't have to trust Obscura—you just have to trust that not both Obscura and Mullvad are compromised. Henry sat down with Carl, former Bitcoin Core developer and founder of Obscura VPN, to discuss how it's the first VPN that mathematically can't log your activity, what makes it censorship-resistant against networks like the Great Firewall, and what it really means to build privacy that's more than "a pinky promise."

🔗 LINKS
Obscura: https://obscura.net
GitHub: https://github.com/Sovereign-Engineering/obscuravpn-client
Trust, 2-Party Relays, and QUIC: https://obscura.net/blog/bootstrapping-trust/
Mullvad: https://mullvad.net

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00:00 INTRO
00:01:50 CARL'S BACKGROUND
00:10:47 APPLE'S PRIVATE RELAY
00:17:11 TRUSTLESS MODELS
00:19:05 MULTI-PARTY RELAY PARTNERSHIP
00:21:39 TRADITIONAL MULTI-HOP
00:23:39 CENSORSHIP RESISTANCE
00:27:33 MULLVAD VS. OBSCURA TRAFFIC
00:29:35 EXIT IP
00:30:18 BLOCKS, CAPTCHA, & SPLIT TUNNELING
00:31:16 CUSTOM DNS
00:32:41 PARTNERING WITH MULLVAD
00:36:05 OBSCURA VS. PRIVATE RELAY
00:37:10 OBSCURA VS. MULLVAD
00:38:33 OBSCURA VS. DECENTRALIZED VPNS
00:40:57 OBSCURA VS. TOR
00:41:58 REPRODUCIBLE BUILDS
00:50:23 CLIENTS & DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE
00:55:24 SPEED
00:59:06 DEFAULTS VS. CUSTOMIZATION
01:00:48 PRICING
01:02:43 OPEN SOURCE
01:03:34 THE OBSCURA TEAM
01:05:39 THOUGHTS ON THE VPN INDUSTRY
01:07:49 OUTRO

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The Digital Markets Act is a can opener for Big Tech's walled gardens, forcing Apple, Google, and Microsoft to open their platforms whether they like it or not. Henry sat down with Lucas Lasota from the FSFE (Free Software Foundation of Europe) to understand what the DMA actually does, why Big Tech is fighting it in court, and what it means for open source software and your digital freedom.

Topics Covered:
The Digital Markets Act explained - how the EU is regulating Big Tech platforms (and what's missing from the law)
Interoperability: the "can opener" for competition - why forcing WhatsApp, Apple, and Google to work with smaller apps matters
Apple's gatekeeping tactics - billion-euro barriers and why no independent app stores exist on iPhone yet
Small tech vs Big Tech - why 94% of EU software comes from companies with less than 9 employees (and why the DMA forgot them)

Links:
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE): https://fsfe.org
Free Software Foundation (FSF US): https://www.fsf.org
Public Money, Public Code campaign: https://publiccode.eu

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS
0:00:00 INTRO
00:01:36 WHAT IS THE FSFE?
00:04:12 LUCAS' ROLE AT FSFE
00:05:44 INTRO TO THE DMA
00:09:45 THOUGHTS ON REGULATION
00:12:47 PUBLIC MONEY, PUBLIC CODE
00:21:25 BREAKDOWN OF THE DMA
00:30:54 DMA ENFORCEMENTS
00:31:44 INTEROPERABILITY
00:36:20 DMA ENFORCEMENTS (CONT'D)
00:38:50 DMA CRITICISMS
00:50:41 USB-C ON IPHONES
00:53:03 APPLE'S "MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE"
00:56:57 UNDERSTANDING THE EU
01:02:12 EU COMMISSION & OTHER ORGANIZATIONS
01:06:58 DMA'S GLOBAL INFLUENCE
01:11:57 BIG TECH + INTERPRETATION OF LAW
01:18:23 OUTRO

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This special compilation episode brings together exclusive interviews from the Ad Filtering Dev Summit (AFDS) in October 2024. Henry sat down with developers and leaders from AdGuard, Brave, and the creator of the legendary Peter Lowe block list to discuss the state of ad blocking, new privacy features, and the future of tracking protection.

Featured Interviews:
Andre (AdGuard CTO) - Apple's new system-wide filtering API and what it means for iOS privacy
Sofia Orlova (AdGuard UX Writer) - Designing ad blockers for everyone from "grannies to techies"
Anton Lazarev - How Brave Shields works, AI privacy features, and why native ad blocking beats extensions
Peter Lowe - The 28-year journey of maintaining one of the internet's oldest and most trusted block lists

Topics Covered:
Apple's new URL filtering API for iOS/macOS
System-wide ad blocking vs browser-only protection
Manifest V3 and the future of extension-based blockers
Privacy-focused AI tools in browsers
The philosophy behind different ad blocking approaches
How tracking actually works (and why it's creepy)

Links:
AFDS Recap Video: https://youtu.be/dr7XSnbyv7w

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