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Comment by kiitos | Hacker News Reader

OK so given

    $ ./dumbpipe listen
    ...
    To connect use: ./dumbpipe connect nodeecsxraxj...

that `nodeecsxraxj...` is a serialized form of some data type that includes the IP address(es) that the client needs to connect to?

forgive me for what is maybe a dumb question, but if this is the case, then what is the value proposition here? is it just the smushing together of some IPs with a public key in a single identifier?

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The value proposition of the ticket is that it is just a single string that is easy to copy and paste into chats and the like, and that it has a stable text encoding which we aim to stay compatible with for some time.

We have a tool https://ticket.iroh.computer/ that allows you to see exactly what's in a ticket.

a URL is also a single string that's easy to copy and paste, the question I have is how these strings get resolved to something that I can connect to

if you need to go thru a relay to do resolution, and relays are specified in terms of DNS names, then that's not much different than just a plain URL

if the string embeds direct IPs then that's great, but IPs are ephemeral, so the string isn't gonna be stable (for users) over time, and therefore isn't really useful as an identifier for end users

if the string represents some value that resolves to different IPs over time (like a DNS entry) but can be resolved via different channels (like thru a relay, or via a blockchain, or over mdns, or whatever) then that string only has meaning in the context of how (and when) it was resolved -- if you share "abcd" with alice and bob, but alice resolves it according to one relay system, and bob resolves it according to mdns, they will get totally different results. so then what purpose does that string serve?

The value prop is that dumbpipe handles encryption, reconnection, UPnP, hole punching, relays, etc. It's not something I could easily replicate with netcat, for example.

ngrok and tailscale and lots of other services offer all of these capabilities, the only unique thing of this one seems to be the opaque string identifiers + some notion of "decentralization" which is what I'm trying to understand, particularly in the realm of how discovery works

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