In part 1 of this series we examined the altruistic origins of Skycoin and how the developers set out to build a crypto ecosystem which holds true to Satoshi's original vision of a planetary distributed currency free from centralised control, looked at why that vision can be said to have failed and how Skycoin restores the ethos of the vision.
In this article we will take closer look at Skywire; the new, improved internet being built by Skycoin.
Let's start off by reviewing the reasons why we even need a new internet. The current one has been around for decades and functions pretty well doesn't it? We can access it easily, search for and find the information we require, post on social media, chat to our friends all over the world via email or a myriad of chat applications and conduct most of our business using it. On the surface, all appears to be peachy in userland. That surface veneer is microscopically thin though and even the most ignorant of Internet users are becoming aware that something is rotten in the state of net neutrality.
The information superhighway which once expedited the flow of data to where it was needed has been hijacked by a few large corporates and their minions in government. Users literally pay to be spied on, have their data mined and sold to the highest bidders and have shaped and censored content pushed onto them. Where Bitcoin failed to deliver a decentralised currency, the current (soon to be legacy) Internet failed to deliver freedom as it pertains to the flow of information.
The evolution of human society at large is heavily influenced by the individual's ability to freely access uncensored information. Look at how Guttenberg's invention of the printing press changed the world. Essentially, it bought a do it yourself attitude to the world, effectively unburdening people from the church, teachers and other bottlenecks of information flow and engendered a larger degree of autonomy and sovereignty to humanity.
The advent of the Internet had a similar but exponentially larger impact. Would it then not be reasonable to state that any attempt at obstructing the free flow of information equates to the impediment of humanity's progress? The crew at Skycoin certainly seems to think so and I see Skywire as a means to subvert this attempted suppression of our ability to reach our full potential.
So what exactly is Skywire, how does it work and how does it fix the Internet? I am so happy you asked.....
According to skycoin.net, "Skywire is the next evolutionary step in the internet’s development and use". Think of it as Internet 3.0, a secure, fast and resilient Internet owned by the people, for the people.
This compelling claim is possible because, unlike previous attempts at rectifying the internet which focused on solving single symptomatic issues instead of addressing the cause of these symptoms, the Skywire crew understood that the current (soon to be legacy) internet can't be fixed and set out to build a new one.
The nucleus of Skywire is a new multi layer packet switching protocol and an entirely new, non-hierarchical namespace. It is essentially software defined networking which will replace TCP/IP and the DNS system in it's entirety. The protocols ensure that all data on Skywire is end-to-end encrypted by default with nodes uniquely identified by a public key hash rather than an IP address.
Skywire assumes a mesh network topology. Nodes in the meshnet are special computers known as Skyminers which are custom data routers hosted by participants in Skywire and which will form the backbone of the new Internet. Despite it's revolutionary and futuristic nature, Skywire is backward compatible with the current (soon to be legacy) Internet and these nodes will initially peer via VPN tunnels across the current (soon to be legacy) Internet but, as node density increases, will be able to connect peer to peer via wifi. Once critical mass in terms of node density has been reached in a given location, reliance on the current (soon to be legacy) internet will cease.
Now here comes the really good part...
As if completely private, resilient, fast, community owned Internet wasn't enough, Skywire is incentivised. Participants earn cryptocurrency for hosting a Skyminer and routing data to end users as well as to the rest of the network. What this translates to is that anyone with a Skyminer can now become an ISP and earn an income from a planet wide, distributed network of private and autonomous ISP's, a truly decentralised Internet.
