A peer-to-peer microblogging service based on IP multicast and social virtual private networking

Microblogging services such as Twitter have become an indispensable communication tool on the Internet. However, due to their centralized nature, microblogging services have been susceptible to blocking by governments and powerful groups. To address this issue, we present a peer-to-peer microblogging service that is resistant to government intrusions and censorship. The strength of our design lies in the fact that we leverage trusted, peer-to-peer connections for the dissemination of information. Our proposed design consists mainly of two key components: a microblogging service which uses UDP and IP multicasting to push and pull updates, and a peer-to-peer VPN (SocialVPN) which enable IP multicasting over the Internet and provide direct IP connectivity among social peers. We also implemented and deployed a prototype to show the feasibility of our approach.