Proposal: HOPR network's SOCKS5 client

The client is server app which exposes SOCKS5 as service for other applications (implements SOCKS5 proxy protocol) and uses HOPR network on backend as client.
This is a very useful solution as there are many different existing applications that can be run through SOCKS5:

  • Crypto wallets
  • Messengers
  • Browsers
  • Many others

Existing app —> socks5 client —> HOPR network

Existing apps sends and receives its data, without even noticing that it wasn’t talking to a “normal” SOCKS5 proxy

My solution is more useful than for example creating web proxies or desktop / mobile clients as it covers a large number of existing applications without having to change their code.

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Cool idea!

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A good challenge for hopr dev team.

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Thanks! I’m sure it’s possible )

I like the idea and have had thoughts around this topic before.

While its enticing to enable any app to run through the HOPR network, similar to how TOR can be used, it does not highlight the strength of the protocol and network.

Specifically anybody using such a SOCKS5 proxy would notice that the HOPR network is very slow compared to “normal” internet use. This “bad” UX might be understood by few, but most users will take this as a hint of a bad product and glance over the actual benefit of strong metadata privacy. This is not to say, that such a proxy shouldn’t be available. I simply think its not a silver bullet because it doesn’t play on the USPs and strengths of HOPR.

Generally, this sounds more like a larger bounty task (?) and less applicable to the DAO round, since its not a dApp but a general system application.

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Yes, maybe this sounds like the team task.
If HOPR network is very slow then it will never be popular.
It means that it is would be more correct to work on speeding up the network than to expand the number of apps.

Slow network level 0, by design - it sounds strange :slight_smile:

This is my favorite idea, congratulations. :clap: :muscle: I’ve looked at Socks5 projects, so now I’m re-editing my post. You are thinking of an application like Shadowsocks, is it true?
https://shadowsocks.org/en/download/clients.html

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Yes indeed, the idea is the same as shadowsocks proxy.
By the way, it can probably be implemented as a shadowsocks plugin! :thinking: Of course research is needed :slight_smile:

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This great idea of yours threw out all the other ideas, including mine.It will be really fun to work on this. It will make Hopr accessible to all users.

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I like this, and in fact, it’s very similar to something I proposed for a light weight web proxy. I think for this there would also need to be some sort of exit node that actually pulls the data and some mechanism to ensure the wrong data isn’t being returned.

:laughing: sorry
There may be a growth problem due to the large number of applications that can immediately use HOPR.
But I think this can be solved by access control and traffic restriction.

Thanks, I saw your suggestion and unified it a bit :)
About the exit node. You are probably right, but I have not yet dived into the details…