How to run your Minus server as a Tor Onion Service

1. Create a new, empty folder called onion-service.
2. Find your Tor Browser folder. If you have no Tor Browser folder, download https://www.torproject.org/dist/torbrowser/11.0.14/tor-browser-linux64-11.0.14_en-US.tar.xz and then unpack it. Locate the folder you just created.
3. Inside the Tor Browser folder is a folder called Browser. Inside the Browser folder is a folder called TorBrowser. Inside the TorBrowser folder is a folder called Tor. Copy (do not move, but copy) the Tor folder to your new onion-service folder.
4. Save the two scripts below to the onion-service folder, and mark them executable with chmod or your graphical file manager.
5. Run start-service.sh. New folders and files will be created in your onion-service folder. The new file called hostname contains the name of your new Tor Onion Service. This will be a domain name that ends with .onion. My domain name is 7hinc6ucgvwbcjjoe44lhzzxyjptb3da6tzl33oe7ezl2qgwlrkfe6yd.onion so the URL of my Minus server is minus://7hinc6ucgvwbcjjoe44lhzzxyjptb3da6tzl33oe7ezl2qgwlrkfe6yd.onion/. Apart from reading the hostname file, you should leave these newly-created files and folders alone.

Here are the two scripts mentioned in number 4 above.

start-service.sh
````
#!/bin/sh

thisfile=readlink -e "${0}"
thisdir=dirname "${thisfile}"

chmod 700 "${thisdir}" # If this is not the permission, Tor will not run.

"${thisdir}/stop-service.sh"

printf "%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n%s\n" "SocksPort 0" "RunAsDaemon 1" "AvoidDiskWrites 1" "DataDirectory ${thisdir}" "HiddenServiceDir ${thisdir}" "PidFile ${thisdir}/tor.pid" "HiddenServicePort 1990 127.0.0.1:1990" > "${thisdir}/torrc"
chmod 600 "${thisdir}/torrc"

env LD_LIBRARY_PATH="${thisdir}/Tor" "${thisdir}/Tor/tor" -f "${thisdir}/torrc" # start Tor

exit 0
````

stop-service.sh
````
#!/bin/sh

thisfile=readlink -e "${0}"
thisdir=dirname "${thisfile}"

if test -f "${thisdir}/tor.pid"
then
theID=cat "${thisdir}/tor.pid"
if ps ${theID} | grep "${thisdir}/Tor/tor" > /dev/null
then
kill ${theID}
fi
rm -f "${thisdir}/tor.pid"
fi

exit 0
````

Please tell me about your new Minus servers. I want to keep and publish a list of all known public Minus servers and publish it on my Minus server.

#internet #protocol #tcp #file-server #hypertext #minus #minus-protocol #tor #onion-service #minus-server

Small but complete Minus server

implemented as a BASH script

This fully complies with the Minus Protocol Specification.

Save this as mserver and mark it executable with chmod or your GUI file manager. This requires mini-inetd, which you will probably find in a package called Tcputils. This package also includes tcpconnect which is mentioned below.

Start mserver with mserver start and stop it with mserver stop.

You are encouraged to edit the values of indexfile and requestlog. If you do not, a new directory will be created in ${HOME} called minus-contents. You can edit your index file and your pages with an ordinary text editor.

To experiment with your new server (before you start serving it as a Tor Onion Service) you can use tcpconnect. printf "" | tcpconnect -r -v 127.0.0.1 1990 will get your index.minus page. This is like the index.html page in HTTP. It should contain the URLs of your other pages and files.

The printf command sends the specifier to the server. In the example above, a zero-length specifier is sent, so, in accordance with the Minus specification, the specifier defaults to index.minus.

Please read the comments in mserver. Comments to this post are welcome.

#!/bin/bash

# mserver 1.0
# Copyright (C) 2022 the author indicated below
# The author of mserver made an OpenPGP,
# RSA key pair. The fingerprint of this key pair is
# BA34F30AC917CB0714884A3DA6BDBF5757B731E9
# mserver is distributed under the terms of the GNU General
# Public License, version 3 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html).
# mserver is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY--without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.

# Only the path name in indexfile determines the file served. No part of user input is used as
# part of the path name of the file. This is much more secure than determining the path name directly from
# user input. A file can not be served simply because it is in a certain directory. Only listing the file in
# indexfile makes it available. Specifiers need not contain any part of the path names of the files they
# specify.

# Each line of indexfile is

# <specifier>|<path name of file>

# specifier may not contain any characters except "0123456789abcdefghijklmonpqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ.-/_"
# because all other characters are removed from theinput.

# Path names that do not begin with / are relative to the directory of indexfile.

thisfile="$(readlink -e "${0}")"

if test "${1}" = "start"
then
  if test -z "$(ps -o args -C mini-inetd | grep -F "${thisfile}")"
  then
    mini-inetd 127.0.0.1:1990 "${thisfile}" & # start serving
  fi
  exit 0
elif test "${1}" = "stop"
then
  theID="$(ps -o pid,args -C mini-inetd | grep -F "${thisfile}" | sed "s/^[ \t]*//" | grep -o "^[0-9]*")"
  if test -n "${theID}"
  then
    kill ${theID} # stop serving
  fi
  exit 0
fi

# mini-inetd listens for tcp connections on port 1990.
# For each connection, this file is started with standard input and standard output connected to the socket.
# When this file exits, the tcp connection is closed.

if test "$(ps -o args -C "$(basename "${thisfile}")" | grep -cF "${thisfile}")" -gt 12 # mitigate DoS attacks
then
  exit 0
fi

read -t 30 -n 255 theinput # Read 1 line, but no more than 255 bytes. Timeout after 30 seconds to mitigate DoS attacks.
theinput="$(printf "%s" "${theinput}" | tr -dc "0-9A-Za-z\.\-/_" | sed "s/^\///")" # remove anything not allowed and initial /

# set indexfile and requestlog to desired values
indexfile="${HOME}/minus-contents/minus.index"
requestlog="/dev/null" # this can be /dev/null to prevent logging

indexdir="$(dirname "${indexfile}")"

if ! test -f "${indexfile}" # no index file
then
  mkdir -p "${indexdir}"
  printf "%s\n%s" "index.minus|index.minus" "other.minus|other.minus" > "${indexfile}"
  printf "%s\n" "This is the home or index page." > "${indexdir}/index.minus"
  printf "%s\n" "This is the other page." > "${indexdir}/other.minus"
fi

cd "${indexdir}"

if test -z "${theinput}" # if no input, default to index.minus
then
  theinput="index.minus" # This is the home or index page. It should have links to the other pages.
fi

if test -n "$(grep -m 1 -o "^${theinput}|" "${indexfile}" | grep -F "${theinput}|")" # necessary because theinput may contain .
then
  thefile="$(grep -m 1 "^${theinput}|" "${indexfile}" | sed "s/^[^|]*|//")" # use indexfile to find path name of the file
else
  thefile=""
fi

if test -n "${thefile}"
then
  cat "${thefile}" # return the file
  printf "%s sent %s\n" "$(date "+%Y-%m-%d %I:%M:%S %p")" "${theinput}" >> "${requestlog}"
else
  printf "\"%s\" does not specify a file that this server will serve.\nTry \"index.minus\".\n" "${theinput}" # return an error
  printf "%s miss %s\n" "$(date "+%Y-%m-%d %I:%M:%S %p")" "${theinput}" >> "${requestlog}"
fi

exit 0

#internet #protocol #tcp #file-server #hypertext #minus #minus-protocol

Second Release Version (See the first comment below.)

Minus Protocol Specification

The Name of the Minus Protocol

The name Minus was inspired by Gopher Plus. Gopher Plus added features to Gopher; Minus subtracts features from Gopher.

Minus Transactions

Server: listens for TCP connections on port 1990
Client: opens a TCP connection to the server on port 1990
Server: accepts the TCP connection
Client: sends a file specifier that specifies the file to be downloaded
Server: sends the requested file or a UTF-8 text message explaining why the specified file was not sent
Server: closes the TCP connection

The specifier is one line of text which can contain only the characters inside the following quotation marks.

"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789-_/."

If the specifier is / or zero-length, the specifier will default to index.minus. This is similar to index.html in HTTP.

The error message mentioned above should be UTF-8 text with \n at the end of lines, and not \r\n.

There must be no other communication between the server and client. Notice that no information about the client is sent to the server.

Avoiding Information Exfiltration

Exfiltration of information from the client is prevented by only allowing the transaction above, but indirectly exfiltrating information from the server is still possible.

This could happen if all the files served are kept in one directory, and the specifier is combined with the path name of this one directory to form the path name of the file served. This is obviously insecure, yet many file servers are designed this way. Such servers have to use various strategies to mitigate the insecurity created by this design.

A better design uses an index that contains entries for each file that can be served. Each entry relates a specifier to the path name of the file it specifies. With this design, only files listed in the index can be served, and the specifier need not contain any part of the path name of the file.

Transport Security

Minus is insecure unless TLS is used or the server is run as a Tor Onion Service. Running as a Tor Onion Service is preferred because it makes everything easier. No registration of a domain name is necessary, no TLS certificate is required, and both server and client are easier to implement without TLS.

If TLS is used, the scheme in the URL should be minuss:// instead of minus://.

Minus URL Format

Here is an example of a Minus URL.

minus://vdvfh9y003nvebcctyc67mnpl1fuvfayoh2qzyo9ksyj3m1so5idkyef.onion/index.minus

(There is not a server at this domain. This is just an example.)

This has three parts: the protocol (or scheme) minus://, the host (an FQDN or an IP address) vdvfh9y003nvebcctyc67mnpl1fuvfayoh2qzyo9ksyj3m1so5idkyef.onion, and /index.minus (the specifier sent by the client to the server). See the section above for the complete list of characters allowed in a specifier.

Minus URLs must be the only thing on the line they appear in.

Minus URLs in .minus documents should be selectable links that open the specified document. In a GUI client, these should be clickable.

If TLS is used, the scheme in the URL should be minuss:// instead of minus://.

The .minus File Type

Files with the .minus filename extension should be UTF-8 text files. The server should not limit the line length of lines in these files (as in Gopher). However, the client should.

Lines in .minus files should end with \n and not \r\n.

Minus URLs must be the only thing on the line they appear in.

The client should recognize Minus URLs in the text of .minus files and make them easily selectable. Selecting them should download the specified file. If the file downloaded is a .minus file, it should be displayed. If it is a .txt, .text, or .asc file, it should also be displayed, but without necessarily making URLs in the text selectable. All other files should be downloaded and saved to mass storage. The file names of files saved to mass storage will be the part of the specifier after the last /.

Minus does not allow for embedding other files in a .minus file such that they are displayed in the same window as the text. No URLs in the text should ever be automatically downloaded.

Display of Text in .minus Files

How the text of .minus files is displayed should be controlled by the client and its user. However, the text of the .minus file may indicate, with markings, what functions parts of the text play in the document.

For example, the text could indicate what lines of the document are headings and subheadings. This could be done by beginning the line with a # or more than one #, followed by a space. The client and its user could decide how headings should be displayed. Similarly, the ` could indicate the beginning and end of a code snippet, and the client could display these snippets differently from the rest of the text.

It is also acceptable for the client not to display marked text or markings differently from the rest of the text.

Minus Compared to Gopher, Gemini, and HTTP

Gemini is meant to be less complex and easier to implement than HTTP, but more complex than Gopher. Minus, on the other hand, is meant to be less complex and easier to implement than all of these others, including Gopher.

This simplicity is essential if the Internet is to, once again, become human-friendly.

HTTPS 1.1 and HTML5 are so complex that no single person can implement a server or a client that supports the entire HTTPS 1.1 and HTML5 standards. In fact it requires a large team of people to do so. It is, therefore, not surprising that there are very few clients or servers not based on some other client or server.

Because complexity is the enemy of security, this software is also insecure.

Perhaps the worst problem with HTTP 1.1 and HTML5 is the way, by design, that they spy on users of HTTPS 1.1 clients. In Minus, the only information communicated by the client to the server is the specifier that specifies the file to be downloaded. This is very different from HTTPS 1.1. Even worse, HTTPS 1.1 allows the server to download and store information on the client machine that is not explicitly requested by the user.

When I implemented my own Gopher server, I found that even Gopher has complexity I do not need or want. This is why I am doing this.

This document is 1117 words long. The official Gopher specification is 5395 words long. The official HTTP 1.1 specification is 61904 words long.

#internet #protocol #tcp #file-server #hypertext #http #gemini #gopher #minus #minus-protocol

Minus Protocol and EasyGPG 4.55

Work on adding Minus support to EasyGPG is finished. I will wait 24 to 48 hours before I publish EasyGPG 4.55 to be certain that it is ready.

EasyGPG's Read text from the Internet will be the only way to read the EasyGPG Minus server until I (and possibly others) can produce some Minus clients.

Minus is based on Gopher. It is Gopher without the odd type codes and Gopher menus. Gopher menus are not human-readable. A Gopher client is necessary to present these menus in a human-friendly way.

Because Minus is based on Gopher, it is possible to translate Minus URLs into Gopher URLs. While you are waiting on EasyGPG 4.55, you can use EasyGPG 4.54.7 to browse the EasyGPG Minus server.

gopher://7hinc6ucgvwbcjjoe44lhzzxyjptb3da6tzl33oe7ezl2qgwlrkfe6yd.onion:1990/9/

This just replaces minus:// with gopher:// and adds :1990/9 after the TLD of the domain. This is actually the simple way that EasyGPG 4.55 supports Minus.

Of course, you must have Tor to use .onion domains. However, using EasyGPG, it is only necessary to have the Tor Browser running, and curl installed.

In the next few days I want to start development of a very simple Minus client and server that others can use. These will be implemented as BASH scripts. The CLI client will probably not make Minus URLs links, as required by the specification, so it will not yet be a complete client implementation. It will, however, handle Tor in the same user-friendly way that EasyGPG does.

I hope to make the server and client so easy to read and understand that others will produce their own better alternatives. This applies especially to Minus clients.

#internet #protocol #tcp #file-server #hypertext #http #gemini #gopher #minus #minus-protocol #easygpg #gpg #encryption #privacy #surveillance #security #cryptography

First Release Version

Minus Protocol Specification

The Name of the Minus Protocol

The name Minus was inspired by Gopher Plus. Gopher Plus added features to Gopher; Minus subtracts features from Gopher.

Minus Transactions

Server: listens for TCP connections on port 1990
Client: opens a TCP connection to the server on port 1990
Server: accepts the TCP connection
Client: sends a file specifier that specifies the file to be downloaded
Server: sends the requested file or a UTF-8 text message explaining why the specified file was not sent
Server: closes the TCP connection

The specifier is one line of text which can contain only the characters inside the following quotation marks.

"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789-_/."

If the specifier is / or zero-length, the specifier will default to index.minus. This is similar to index.html in HTTP.

The error message mentioned above should be UTF-8 text with \n at the end of lines, and not \r\n.

There must be no other communication between the server and client. Notice that no information about the client is sent to the server.

Avoiding Information Exfiltration

Exfiltration of information from the client is prevented by only allowing the transaction above, but indirectly exfiltrating information from the server is still possible.

This could happen if all the files served are kept in one directory, and the selector is combined with the path name of this one directory to form the path name of the file served. This is obviously insecure, yet many file servers are designed this way. Such servers have to use various strategies to mitigate the insecurity created by this design.

A better design uses an index that contains entries for each file that can be served. Each entry relates a specifier to the path name of the file it specifies. With this design, only files listed in the index can be served, and the specifier need not contain any part of the path name of the file.

Transport Security

Minus is insecure unless TLS is used or the server is run as a Tor Onion Service. Running as a Tor Onion Service is preferred because it makes everything easier. No registration of a domain name is necessary, no TLS certificate is required, and both server and client are easier to implement without TLS.

If TLS is used, the scheme in the URL should be minuss:// instead of minus://.

Minus URL Format

Here is an example of a Minus URL.

minus://vdvfh9y003nvebcctyc67mnpl1fuvfayoh2qzyo9ksyj3m1so5idkyef.onion/index.minus

(There is not a server at this domain. This is just an example.)

This has three parts: the protocol (or scheme) minus://, the host (an FQDN or an IP address) vdvfh9y003nvebcctyc67mnpl1fuvfayoh2qzyo9ksyj3m1so5idkyef.onion, and /index.minus (the specifier sent by the client to the server). See the section above for the complete list of characters allowed in a specifier.

Minus URLs must be the only thing on the line they appear in.

Minus URLs in .minus documents should be selectable links that open the specified document. In a GUI client, these should be clickable.

If TLS is used, the scheme in the URL should be minuss:// instead of minus://.

The .minus File Type

Files with the .minus filename extension should be UTF-8 text files. The server should not limit the line length of lines in these files (as in Gopher). However, the client should.

Lines in .minus files should end with \n and not \r\n.

Minus URLs must be the only thing on the line they appear in.

The client should recognize Minus URLs in the text of .minus files and make them easily selectable. Selecting them should download the specified file. If the file downloaded is a .minus file, it should be displayed. If it is a .txt, .text, or .asc file, it should also be displayed, but without necessarily making URLs in the text selectable. All other files should be downloaded and saved to mass storage. The file names of files saved to mass storage will be the part of the specifier after the last /.

Minus does not allow for embedding other files in a .minus file such that they are displayed in the same window as the text. No URLs in the text should ever be automatically downloaded.

Display of Text in .minus Files

How the text of .minus files is displayed should be controlled by the client and its user. However, the text of the .minus file may indicate, with markings, what functions parts of the text play in the document.

For example, the text could indicate what lines of the document are headings and subheadings. This could be done by beginning the line with a # or more than one #, followed by a space. The client and its user could decide how headings should be displayed. Similarly, the ` could indicate the beginning and end of a code snippet, and the client could display these snippets differently from the rest of the text.

It is also acceptable for the client not to display marked text or markings differently from the rest of the text.

Minus Compared to Gopher, Gemini, and HTTP

Gemini is meant to be less complex and easier to implement than HTTP, but more complex than Gopher. Minus, on the other hand, is meant to be less complex and easier to implement than all of these others, including Gopher.

This simplicity is essential if the Internet is to, once again, become human-friendly.

HTTPS 1.1 and HTML5 are so complex that no single person can implement a server or a client that supports the entire HTTPS 1.1 and HTML5 standards. In fact it requires a large team of people to do so. It is, therefore, not surprising that there are very few clients or servers not based on some other client or server.

Because complexity is the enemy of security, this software is also insecure.

Perhaps the worst problem with HTTP 1.1 and HTML5 is the way, by design, that they spy on users of HTTPS 1.1 clients. In Minus, the only information communicated by the client to the server is the specifier that specifies the file to be downloaded. This is very different from HTTPS 1.1. Even worse, HTTPS 1.1 allows the server to download and store information on the client machine that is not explicitly requested by the user.

When I implemented my own Gopher server, I found that even Gopher has complexity I do not need or want. This is why I am doing this.

This document is 1117 words long. The official Gopher specification is 5395 words long. The official HTTP 1.1 specification is 61904 words long.

#internet #protocol #tcp #file-server #hypertext #http #gemini #gopher #minus #minus-protocol

Fifth preliminary draft

Minus Protocol Specification

The Name of the Minus Protocol

The name Minus was inspired by Gopher Plus. Gopher Plus added features to Gopher; Minus subtracts features from Gopher.

Minus Transactions

Server: listens for TCP connections on port 1990
Client: opens a TCP connection to the server on port 1990
Server: accepts the TCP connection
Client: sends a file specifier that specifies the file to be downloaded
Server: sends the requested file or a UTF-8 text message explaining why the specified file was not sent
Server: closes the TCP connection

The specifier is one line of text which can contain only the characters inside the following quotation marks.

"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789-_/."

If the specifier is / or zero-length, the specifier will default to index.minus. This is similar to index.html in HTTP.

The error message mentioned above should be UTF-8 text with \n at the end of lines, and not \r\n.

There must be no other communication between the server and client. Notice that no information about the client is sent to the server.

Avoiding Information Exfiltration

Exfiltration of information from the client is prevented by only allowing the transaction above, but indirectly exfiltrating information from the server is still possible.

This could happen if all the files served are kept in one directory, and the selector is combined with the path name of this one directory to form the path name of the file served. This is obviously insecure, yet many file servers are designed this way. Such servers have to use various strategies to mitigate the insecurity created by this design.

A better design uses an index that contains entries for each file that can be served. Each entry relates a specifier to the path name of the file it specifies. With this design, only files listed in the index can be served, and the specifier need not contain any part of the path name of the file.

Transport Security

Minus is insecure unless TLS is used or the server is run as a Tor Onion Service. Running as a Tor Onion Service is preferred because it makes everything easier. No registration of a domain name is necessary, no TLS certificate is required, and both server and client are easier to implement without TLS.

If TLS is used, the scheme in the URL should be minuss:// instead of minus://.

Minus URL Format

Here is an example of a Minus URL.

minus://vdvfh9y003nvebcctyc67mnpl1fuvfayoh2qzyo9ksyj3m1so5idkyef.onion/index.minus

(There is not a server at this domain. This is just an example.)

This has three parts: the protocol (or scheme) minus://, the host (an FQDN or an IP address) vdvfh9y003nvebcctyc67mnpl1fuvfayoh2qzyo9ksyj3m1so5idkyef.onion, and /index.minus (the specifier sent by the client to the server). See the section above for the complete list of characters allowed in a specifier.

Minus URLs must be the only thing on the line they appear in.

Minus URLs in .minus documents should be selectable links that open the specified document. In a GUI client, these should be clickable.

If TLS is used, the scheme in the URL should be minuss:// instead of minus://.

The .minus File Type

Files with the .minus filename extension should be UTF-8 text files. The server should not limit the line length of lines in these files (as in Gopher). However, the client should.

Lines in .minus files should end with \n and not \r\n.

Minus URLs must be the only thing on the line they appear in.

The client should recognize URLs in the text of .minus files and make them easily selectable. Selecting them should download the specified file. If the file downloaded is a .minus file, it should be displayed. If it is a .txt, .text, or .asc file, it should also be displayed, but without necessarily making URLs in the text selectable. All other files should be downloaded and saved to mass storage. The file names of files saved to mass storage will be the part of the specifier after the last /.

Minus does not allow for embedding other files in a .minus file such that they are displayed in the same window as the text. No URLs in the text should ever be automatically downloaded.

Display of Text in .minus Files

How the text of .minus files is displayed should be controlled by the client and its user. However, the text of the .minus file may indicate, with markings, what functions parts of the text play in the document.

For example, the text could indicate what lines of the document are headings and subheadings. This could be done by beginning the line with a # or more than one #, followed by a space. The client and its user could decide how headings should be displayed. Similarly, the ` could indicate the beginning and end of a code snippet, and the client could display these snippets differently from the rest of the text.

It is also acceptable for the client not to display marked text or markings differently from the rest of the text.

Minus Compared to Gopher, Gemini, and HTTP

Gemini is meant to be less complex and easier to implement than HTTP, but more complex than Gopher. Minus, on the other hand, is meant to be less complex and easier to implement than all of these others, including Gopher.

This simplicity is essential if the Internet is to, once again, become human-friendly.

HTTPS 1.1 and HTML5 are so complex that no single person can implement a server or a client that supports the entire HTTPS 1.1 and HTML5 standards. In fact it requires a large team of people to do so. It is, therefore, not surprising that there are very few clients or servers not based on some other client or server.

Because complexity is the enemy of security, this software is also insecure.

Perhaps the worst problem with HTTP 1.1 and HTML5 is the way, by design, that they spy on users of HTTPS 1.1 clients. In Minus, the only information communicated by the client to the server is the specifier that specifies the file to be downloaded. This is very different from HTTPS 1.1. Even worse, HTTPS 1.1 allows the server to download and store information on the client machine that is not explicitly requested by the user.

When I implemented my own Gopher server, I found that even Gopher has complexity I do not need or want. This is why I am doing this.

This document is 1116 words long. The official Gopher specification is 5395 words long. The official HTTP 1.1 specification is 61904 words long.

#internet #protocol #tcp #file-server #hypertext #http #gemini #gopher #minus #minus-protocol

Third preliminary draft

Minus Protocol Specification

The Name of the Minus Protocol

The name Minus was inspired by Gopher Plus. Gopher Plus added features to Gopher; Minus subtracts features from Gopher.

Minus Transactions

Server: listens for TCP connections on port 1990
Client: opens a TCP connection to the server on port 1990
Server: accepts the TCP connection
Client: sends a file specifier that specifies the file to be downloaded
Server: sends the requested file or a UTF-8 text message explaining why the specified file was not sent
Server: closes the TCP connection

The specifier is one line of text which can contain only the characters inside the following quotation marks.

"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789-_/."

If the specifier is / or zero-length, the specifier will default to index.minus. This is similar to index.html in HTTP.

The error message mentioned above should be UTF-8 text with \n at the end of lines, and not \r\n.

There must be no other communication between the server and client. Notice that no information about the client is sent to the server.

Security

Minus is insecure unless TLS is used or the server is run as a Tor Onion Service. Running as a Tor Onion Service is preferred because it makes everything easier. No registration of a domain name is necessary, no TLS certificate is required, and both server and client are easier to implement without TLS.

If TLS is used, the scheme in the URL should be minuss:// instead of minus://.

Minus URL Format

Here is an example of a Minus URL.

minus://vdvfh9y003nvebcctyc67mnpl1fuvfayoh2qzyo9ksyj3m1so5idkyef.onion/index.minus

(There is not a server at this domain. This is just an example.)

This has three parts: the protocol (or scheme) minus://, the host (an FQDN or an IP address) vdvfh9y003nvebcctyc67mnpl1fuvfayoh2qzyo9ksyj3m1so5idkyef.onion, and /index.minus (the specifier sent by the client to the server). See the section above for the complete list of characters allowed in a specifier.

Minus URLs in .minus documents should be selectable links that open the specified document. In a GUI client, these should be clickable.

If TLS is used, the scheme in the URL should be minuss:// instead of minus://.

Names of Files

The client must use the specifier that specified the file as its name, even though the file may be saved on the server with a different name. The client will not know what directories and files are on the server, nor how directories there are structured.

The .minus File Type

Files with the .minus filename extension should be UTF-8 text files. The server should not limit the line length of lines in these files (as in Gopher). However, the client should.

Lines in .minus files should end with \n and not \r\n.

The client should recognize URLs in the text of .minus files and make them easily selectable. Selecting them should download the specified file. If the file downloaded is a .minus file, it should be displayed. If it is a .txt, .text, or .asc file, it should also be displayed, but without necessarily making URLs in the text selectable. All other files should be downloaded and saved to mass storage, unless the client is also a browser for other file types (for example, .html).

Minus does not allow for embedding other files in a .minus file such that they are displayed in the same window as the text. No URLs in the text should ever be automatically downloaded.

Display of Text in .minus Files

How the text of .minus files is displayed should be controlled by the client and its user. However, the text of the .minus file may indicate, with markings, what functions parts of the text play in the document.

For example, the text could indicate what lines of the document are headings and subheadings. This could be done by beginning the line with a # or more than one #, followed by a space. The client and its user could decide how headings should be displayed. Similarly, the ` could indicate the beginning and end of a code snippet, and the client could display these snippets differently from the rest of the text.

It is also acceptable for the client not to display marked text or markings differently from the rest of the text.

Minus Compared to Gopher, Gemini, and HTTP

Gemini is meant to be less complex and easier to implement than HTTP, but more complex than Gopher. Minus, on the other hand, is meant to be less complex and easier to implement than all of these others, including Gopher.

This simplicity is essential if the Internet is to, once again, become human-friendly.

HTTPS 1.1 and HTML5 are so complex that no single person can implement a server or a client that supports the entire HTTPS 1.1 and HTML5 standards. In fact it requires a large team of people to do so. It is, therefore, not surprising that there very few clients or servers not based on some other client or server.

Because complexity is the enemy of security, this software is also insecure.

Perhaps the worst problem with HTTP 1.1 and HTML5 is the way, by design, that they spy on users of HTTPS 1.1 clients. In Minus, the only information communicated by the client to the server is the specifier that specifies the file to be downloaded. This is very different from HTTPS 1.1. Even worse, HTTPS 1.1 allows the server to download and store information on the client machine that is not explicitly requested by the user.

When I implemented my own Gopher server, I found that even Gopher has complexity I do not need or want. This is why I am doing this.

This document is 988 words long. The official Gopher specification is 5395 words long. The official HTTP 1.1 specification is 61904 words long.

#internet #protocol #tcp #file-server #hypertext #http #gemini #gopher #minus #minus-protocol

#dwr #foto #fotografieren #mywork #goodmorning #fbg #fbd #jamendo #CC

#Tousled #Crane on #Tour

Guten Morgen #Welt!

#Minus 20°C …

… das war eine eindeutige #Ansage! Kleidungstechnisch sah es dann wie folgt aus:

• warme dicke #Schuhe
• warme dicke #Hose
• warmer dicker #Pullover
• warme dicke #Jacke
• warme dicke #Mütze
• warme dicke #Handschuhe

Fertig!

Jetzt, mummelig warm mit über 6°C und reichlich #Tauwasser, ist die Frage:

#Hawaiihemd und #Flip-Flops oder #Neoprenanzug und #Taucherflossen?

Keine Frage ist es ob #Kaffee oder nicht!

Bleibt senkrecht und gesund!

https://www.jamendo.com/track/101602/water-santoor-by-manish-vyas

#Frühstück #Kaffee #Kakao #Welt #Tee

#dwr #foto #fotografieren #mywork

#Tousled #Crane on #Tour

#Schulöffnungen

Wer bei uns die #Schulen jetzt schnell öffnen will, der erkläre mir mal bitte ein #Lüftungskonzept bei #Minus 20°C. Auch bei halben #Klassen muss ja gelüftet werden.

Bleibt senkrecht und gesund!