Files
fips/docs
Johnathan Corgan c9abe10f3c Stop claiming the Noise handshake hash provides transcript binding
The published crypto tables named the bare Noise pattern strings without
recording that this construction passes an empty associated-data field where
standard Noise feeds the handshake hash. The security reference now carries a
short deviation subsection stating what that choice does and does not buy:
domain separation and DH binding survive through the chaining key, while
transcript binding is the property actually absent.

The comment on the hash field called it transcript binding and four getters
called it channel binding. Nothing in production reads the value, so all five
overstated it. They now describe what the field is, and the field comment
records that anything built on it will silently not work until the associated
data carries the hash.
2026-08-16 16:34:40 +00:00
..

FIPS Documentation

FIPS (Free Internetworking Peering System) is a self-organizing encrypted mesh network built on Nostr identities, capable of operating over arbitrary transports — local networks, the public internet, Tor, Bluetooth, or point-to-point links — without central infrastructure.

With FIPS, your machine becomes a node in the mesh with a self-generated cryptographic identity. There are two ways to deploy it.

As an overlay on top of existing IP networks, FIPS lets your node reach any other FIPS node wherever it sits — behind a NAT, on a different ISP, on a phone over cellular, on a laptop with only Bluetooth in range, or behind a Tor onion. The mesh forwards IPv6 traffic transparently and end-to-end encrypted, with no central VPN concentrator or coordinating server.

From the ground up over raw Ethernet, WiFi, or Bluetooth, FIPS provides a complete permissionless network without any pre-existing IP infrastructure, ISP, or DNS. Any node that joins the link gets routable IPv6 addresses, peer discovery, and a path to every other node automatically.

Either way, existing networking software runs over it unchanged: SSH, HTTP servers, file transfer, anything IPv6-native works the same way it would on a local network.

New to FIPS? Start with the Getting Started guide.

Documentation Sections

Tutorials

If you are starting from scratch and want a guided path to a working mesh, go here.

How-To Guides

If you have a specific task in mind — enabling a feature, deploying a component, diagnosing a problem — go here.

Reference

If you need to look up wire formats, configuration keys, command flags, or counter inventories, go here.

Design

If you want to understand how the mesh self-organizes, why FIPS makes the choices it does, or how the pieces fit together, go here.