The main focus is to get the Vaults (software people run from home that "makes" the SAFE Network) in people's hand again. We had these during several testnets. Now they are being optimized against security attacks and for different bandwidth nodes. This is what they say about it in yesterday's update:

We finally got the routing churn test to pass consistently with disjoint groups: It simulates a network with joining and leaving nodes, and after each change verifies that the new network invariant is satisfied, i.e. every node has made a connection to every node that it needs in its routing table according to RFC 371,

And there's more:

We're down to 3 failing tests out of 102, and those all point to a particular problem with groups failing to send a message while they're in the process of merging. We're already working on the fix for that.

After sorting those out, we will move on to testing a routing example application on droplets, while some of us will iron out any remaining test failures in safe_vault. When those tests pass, too, we will test vault binaries on droplets again, and start implementing the Node Ageing RFC1.

So what is this all about:

"Node Ageing" is the way new nodes join the network. People could start 1000 nodes and try to take over the network when it's small. "Node Ageing" prevents this. So we need this before we get Vaults.
"Disjoint Groups" is the new logic used for routing. It makes the network more secure and probably faster. The Maidsafe devs not only implemented this, they also implemented several tests for this new logic. It tests splitting and joining groups, the join of new nodes etc. Next to that Maidsafe keeps refactoring modules, which means optimizing code to make it faster, more secure and therefore better.

"Disjoint Groups" is almost done, "node Ageing" will probably take around 5 weeks is my guess. They also work on several other things at the same time as you can read in the update. So my guess: We'll see Alpha 2 with Vaults we can run from home in Q1 of 2017. After that they probably focus on the "Datachain" and the implementation of "Farming" with "Safecoin". A lot of great work is done at the moment, but it's not stuff we can see with installers. We'll have to wait until the features are done and tested.     

Here's the full update:

https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-dev-update-november-22-2016/11818


Enjoy!@!

https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-dev-update-november-15-2016/11747


Enjoy!@!!

https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-dev-update-november-8-2016/11717

I guess this is the most important part of the update:


We had several testnets with Vaults, but now they're optimized. Slow nodes will be dropped while faster ones take more load. A Vault
is a piece of software that routes and stores chunks for The SAFE Network. It's where "farming" takes place. I'm quite curious to see how
the new Vaults behave   

Global SAFE events. Finally 




https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-dev-update-october-25-2016/11621

Enjoy@#!

They announced they will deliver Alpha 2 after Alpha 1. So no BETA in the coming weeks/months. We might even see Alpha 3 as well, I don't know. Things change quick as they work quite fast  .
Data needs to be secure all the time, even when the whole internet goes down for several days. That's why they're working on datachains. We NEED these before that goal is ever reached.

Routing needs to be fast and secure, that why they've implemented 'Disjoint Groups" over the last weeks. Nobody should be able to attack the network by starting thousands of nodes to target groups. That's why they invented "Node Ageing". They talked about a solution to this problem for several days with several devs. And Node Ageing was the outcome:

https://github.com/maidsafe/rfcs/blob/master/text/0045-node-ageing/0045-node-ageing.md

So these things need to be implemented before we can ever have the full SAFE Network with nodes from home an data that's secure even without being touched for years. But it won't take years to do this. They have around 12 coders at the moment and things go quite fast. Check the weekly updates to get a grip of where they are:

https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-dev-update-october-18-2016-test-11/11562

We used "mixed browsing" on several testnets with Chrome and Firefox and Waterfox. It used a proxy-setting delivered by Maidsafe. But as you might know there are a lot of trackers that follow you in the browser. That's why the proxy was removed. And all connections to the "normal" internet are being removed from the SAFE Beaker Browser as well. This is to make things really secure. Same for TOR. SAFE is something completely new and you don't need a server for it. So no WWW and no FTP-connections etc. My guess is people will use the SAFE Beaker Browser for SAFE.

Will some folks create plugins and proxies and bridges? Probably. But Maidsafe chooses the path of real deep security. It's up to you to use third party plugins that make things more easy but less secure. I like TOR and I2P and others. But I do understand the vision by Maidsafe not to support everything.

You don't ever have to pay to download and or "surf" the SAFE Network. At least, that's the idea for a very long time  . If it really isn't possible they might change that but BitTorrent, Freenet, Skype and others are working for years with free downloads so it shouldn't be a problem I guess.

That number is the maximum amount. We won't get there in 20 or 50 years. If you have 1 Safecoin farmed, and let's assume you could PUT (upload) several GB's of data to the network, what happens? Well, you are the owner of the Safecoin. When you PUT data to the network your close nodes want you to "burn" that coin so you can upload data. "Burning" isn't the right word as the address for the coin become available again for farming. And the Farming process picks a random Safecoin address to see if it's free. So all data that's uploaded to the network removes Safecoin out of the system. The "many decimal places" are there for a reason. the Farming Reward (how much coins you get to deliver a mb of data to the network) changes. So when there's enough storage space the reward goes down. So you get less coins when you deliver data tot he network. So let's say it's 1 Safecoin when you delivered 1 TB of data while the price is $0.10 per Safecoin. Two days later the price goes up to $0.12 per Safecoin. The algorithm kicks in because more people tried to Farm coins. The Farming Reward will drop 20% because the price of Safecoin got up. So there's still balance even if the price goes up to $0.30 or $1.00

There's also caching in the network. So a new episode of Games Of Thrones watched by thousands of people doesn't trigger a lot of farming because chunks get delivered faster by closer nodes from caching. Another thing to add is that "structured data" which is dynamic data (like a editable reply on a forum) costs more than just plan storage of an mb. of data. People also pay (burn!) Safecoin when they want to register a name in the DNS or use other services. So a lot of coins get removed until they get farmed again at that address (if they even ever will). So it all depends on the algo's created by Maidsafe for test_Farming and test_safecoin. So we start with 450 million coins. If the algo's for Farming are really strict we might only see 50 million new coins in a year with 1 million users. If the algo's are very loose we might see double that amount. Every Vault is in a close group that's part of Farming as well. So if you calculate the number of successful farming attempts in your close group you might calculate how much coins are out there. So if 150 from 1000 attempt fail it means that 15% of the Safecoin addresses are already Farmed. That means 654 million coins out there. That's why we have test_farming and test_safecoin. All these things will tested before implemented.     

We've seen the weekly Maidsafe dev-update yesterday. TEST 11 is currently active. For those that want to connect I organised some links to get you started:

To connect to TEST 11 you need to make a map on your desktop and put the next 4 elements in it:

https://github.com/maidsafe/safe_launcher/releases/tag/0.9.2

https://github.com/maidsafe/safe_examples/releases/tag/0.8.0

https://github.com/joshuef/beaker/releases/tag/v0.3.5

https://github.com/maidsafe/safe_examples/releases/tag/0.9.0

As you can see all these links point to the Maidsafe GitHub REPO. There's support for Linux, Windows and OSX. What you nee to do is the following:

Put all these binaries in 1 map to keep things simple. It should look something like this:



As a first step for using SAFE you need to run the Launcher. It's a binary (executable file) in the Launcher-map:



This piece of software connects you to SAFE (in this case TEST 11). It allows you to create an account where the login details never leave your computer. Make sure to remember your login details. You could also write them down, as long as you keep it safe of course  . Next step is to start the Demo App.



Notice that it's start will trigger the Launcher! That's right, the Launcher will ask you for permission when it get's a request from the Demo App. You can use the Demo App to upload a website, register an public ID and upload private/public files like website and more. You have up to 500 mb of free encrypted storage.

Another cool thing to do is using the SAFE MAIL. You probably guessed that the program is in the map: Safe mail tutorial. It's another binary:



You are asked to provide a name. Mine is zeeman so feel free to send me a mail!

Finally there's the SAFE Beaker Browser. It's in that map called win-unpacked. Just search for the binary:



You want some safe://domains to browse?? There's someone on the forum who made a website where people add their sites.

https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-dev-update-october-18-2016-test-11/11562/15

Once you've started the SAFE Beaker Browser you can open that website using this link: safe://diy.yvette/

So here you are: TEST 11 with websites, registered domains, email, storage and more. Hopefully we have test_safecoins and a nice wallet in a few months as well.   

 




 

https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-dev-update-october-18-2016-test-11/11562

Enjoy!@!

We've seen 10 testnets and Alpha so far. Yes, this stuff works. From the DNS to self encryption to self authentication to routing and mail  . several things need to be optimized:

• Data persistence - upload once and your data (private/public) is there as long as you want. Even if you don't touch it for years.
• Routing - reward faster Vaults and block the really slow ones that can't route any chunks.
• Protect against attacks - no one should be able to "target a group" and take it over.

All these points have the focus of the team. Check the RFC's for "Data chain", "Disjoint Groups" and "Node age". The Disjoint Groups was implemented last week, coding for the Data chain is already done for a big part and Node age was agreed on  . https://github.com/maidsafe/rfcs/blob/master/RFCs-by-status.md#active-rfcs

Overall they're heading in the right direction IMO. But don't expect test_safecoin in the coming weeks. They need to workout the algo's for "Farming" as well. Luckily they have around a dozen devs working full time on this project now.

MAID is just a proxy-token released in 2014 as an alt-coin using the Bitcoin blockchain. I agree it can be confusing but I use both a "cold wallet" and Omniwallet to store my coins.

https://www.omniwallet.org/

When the real Safecoins are released they can be exchanged 1-on-1 for MAID. The real Safecoin will have a nice GUI-wallet and the system won't use a blockchain. It's expected that Safecoin transactions
will finalize under a second. So quite different from any blockchain technology. Until that moment we have to use MAID running on the blockchain. Make always sure to be the owner of the public keys of your address.
Don't use multisig. 

I'm a buy-and-holder and this is just a weekly dev-update. Be part of the forum if you want the latest "news".

https://safenetforum.org

https://safenetforum.org/t/maidsafe-dev-update-october-11-2016/11497


Enjoy!@!

David Irvine replied to this question again.



I think the network will show it's full potential when we run Vaults from home and people have youtube-like websites where we watch clips on a P2P-network. BETA and test-Safecoin will ben great as well. So even without the full launch this could be very great.  

https://safenetforum.org/t/safenet-progress-questions/11446/49?u

Yes, everything is encrypted from bit 1. The nodes run indeed in a datacenter but even the owners of the datacenter can't see what's in the packages. Your ISP can't see anything either. The SAFE Mail App is probably the most secure email on the planet at the moment. You don't need to use PGP-keys as all encryption is done in the background. 

Over 3000 people have tested the Alpha network. This doesn't mean 3000 connected at the same time. So over 3000 clients downloaded the client in the first couple of weeks and connected to the Vaults. In the testnets where we ran Vaults from home I think we had over 1000 now and then. But this was all limited use. Before they deliver Vaults again for people to run from home they have to implement the new routing and the protection against nodes that keep connecting to target a group.

This one is implemented right now: https://github.com/maidsafe/rfcs/blob/master/text/0037-disjoint-groups/0037-disjoint-groups.md
This one should follow in the coming weeks: https://github.com/maidsafe/rfcs/blob/master/text/0029-data-chains.md/0029-data-chains.md
Same for this one: https://github.com/maidsafe/rfcs/blob/master/text/0045-node-ageing/0045-node-ageing.md

Coding this stuff is not the only thing they do, they need to invent and discuss the logic as well. On the Dev Forum you'll see some long discussion about all of these RFC's. At the same time they're delivering API's so external devs can work with the system before it's fully capable. Several projects from external devs are active at the moment.  

The world did transactions for decades without a blockchain. In SAFE they do use cryptography to change ownership of an address or some data. Think of it this way:

You are in a group with 15 close nodes. You can't pick your own address so the address you have you got from the group. Now you say to them: I own Safecoins at address "HHGTFGHH" and you prove it with a crypto sign. Your close nodes will contact the group responsible for that address to see if that's indeed the case. If your sign is correct the group replies to your close nodes > yes, this person indeed has Safecoins. Next thing you say is > I would like to move 1 Safecoin to address "JGFJVGH". You sign your request and your close nodes will forward to the group responsible for your coins. They will change the ownership of 1 Safecoin to the desired address and send a confirmation back. In reality several other groups are included as well. So let's assume it's 100 people. So 100 people are involved in a transaction. It's signed by all groups.

I know for sure this will work because you are able to register a domain in the DNS (decentralized Name System) as well which works exactly the same way. The domain you create (say safe://mycatwebsite) uses the same mechanism as well. You become the owner of the address that's the hash of your domain so to speak (simple version). So Safecoin transaction are expected to take place under a second. The network allows thousands transactions per second as the network grows. It's all based on ownership. They have several patents and papers as well. Things changed over the years though, here some links:

http://docs.maidsafe.net/Whitepapers/pdf/Safecoin.pdf

https://www.google.com/patents/WO2008065347A2?dq=ininventor:%22David+Irvine%22&cl=en

https://www.google.com/patents/US20100064354

Here's a RFC (Request For Comment) for Safecoin.

https://github.com/maidsafe/rfcs/blob/master/text/0012-safecoin-implementation/0012-safecoin-implementation.md

Here are other active RFC's including the ones currently implemented.

https://github.com/maidsafe/rfcs/blob/master/RFCs-by-status.md#active-rfcs

That's the thing with SAFE/Maidsafe. People see this as another cryptoproject with a coin. It's more than that. It allows for storage, coins, email, chats, downloads, websites and more. Maidsafe just announced a joint venture with a company from Hong Kong (Maidsafe Asia) which will sell these technologies to companies. They run a "local" version of the Safenetwork where all stuff is encrypted even while it can be stored in a datacenter from Amazon. It get un-encrypted in the terminals of the users, but even Amazon can't see what's going on. All they see it nodes that store and deliver encrypted chunks.      

SAFE doesn't use a blockchain, that's the big difference with other crypto projects. Think of it as nodes that connect just like BitTorrent but with messages and a cryptocoin implemented. SAFE solves a lot of things at once. So you can share data just like BitTorrent but in this case it's encrypted. You can register a domain just like on the normal internet, but in this case decentralized. You can update data that's stored on the system. At the moment the nodes run locally on a datacentre  but we've had several testnets where we ran nodes from home. This thing scales to 100K users at ease. To a million as well. With Bitcoin you need to have some dedicated hardware to mine coins. On SAFE you just use your computer to deliver data to the network. That's called "Farming" and I think we'll reach a million users quite fast when the network goes to BETA. But first we'll see Alpha 2 and maybe 3. Not really sure.