Lopux-Internet

Beside the ordinary internet we run our own, with its own names and its own sites — reachable through the app and in no other way.

A name that exists only here

Every address on the ordinary internet is rented. A registrar issues it, a registry keeps it, and either of them can take it back. Lopux-Internet is a separate namespace whose registry lives on a blockchain: a name there belongs to whoever holds the wallet key, and a smart contract enforces that — it lets nobody but the owner do anything with the name.

This site is one of those names. You are probably reading it at lopux.net — the same pages are at lopux.ipvx, and that address only opens with our app.

What it is good for, and how it works

• A site that is in no classic registry: nothing to renew each year, and nobody to take it away.
• A name nobody watches you use: the lookup travels inside the tunnel, so your provider cannot see which addresses you visit — the ordinary internet ones included. From our side we see only the IP address that connected; unlike the provider that sold you the connection, we hold no passport details and no home address for you.
• A “padlock” in the address bar backed by the site's own key, published by its owner on the blockchain — nothing to fear from a certificate authority being breached.
• Our app contacts a resolver server, which checks the key the site presents against the key its owner wrote to the blockchain; if the two do not match it gives a warning and the page is not shown.
• If a site looks doubtful, anyone can go to the blockchain themselves, without using our resolvers, and check the state of the name and the key with their own eyes.

How the “padlock” works here

No certificate authority can vouch for these names: they are outside the ordinary internet, and an authority may only sign names inside it. So the owner publishes the fingerprint of their own key, and our app checks the server against that fingerprint before it shows you the page; if the two do not match, the page does not open and the reader gets a warning instead. The site is vouched for by the owner's key itself, rather than by hundreds of organisations any of which could issue a certificate in your name — potentially without your knowing.

What it is not

It is not a hidden network. Sites here run on ordinary servers with ordinary network addresses. What our namespace gives a site is a unique name that nobody can take away from it.