--- sheet_format: 1.0 id: 2026-05-maci-160 title: "Asynconf, Nostr et open source" title_en: "Asynconf, Nostr and open source" speaker: Erwan Rougeux with: [Horacio Gonzalez (host), Graven (Lorenzo Cacciato, Its Async), Yannick Guern (Clever Cloud)] date: 2026-05-12 event: "Message à caractère informatique #160" place: "online / studio" format: podcast language: fr duration: "1:05:55" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk slides: null topics: [developer conferences, ai and society, nostr, mesh networks, splinternet, open source communities, web serial, fido keys] source: "Summary written by Claude (AI) from the local Whisper transcript, with statements attributed to Erwan by local identification of his voice only (other speakers are not identified). Not a verbatim transcript; check the recording before quoting." review: spot-checked review_date: 2026-10-18 --- # Asynconf, Nostr et open source **In one sentence:** The first MACI episode with guest Graven, on his Asynconf conference and Herald tool; Erwan explains Nostr and his project to carry it over LoRa mesh networks, and worries that open-source communities are turning into "islands of solitude". ## TL;DR Recorded on 12 May 2026, the episode opens with Graven, a developer and YouTuber since 2015, on Asynconf, which started online in 2020 and returns to Paris La Défense on 27 June 2026. The panel compares the AI wave with blockchain; Erwan sees AI as an engine that turns energy into "brain". He explains Nostr, where users sign and own their content across relays, and his project to run it over LoRa mesh networks in a fragmenting internet. Other segments cover Karpathy's "LLM wiki", Graven's code-analysis tool Herald and Web Serial in Firefox. Erwan ends on open source as a commons now hurt by anti-AI reflexes, overwhelmed maintainers and a project that wiped its public code. Graven's question on monetising an open tool is answered in the next episode, #161. ## Erwan's key points - He introduces himself as in charge of international growth at Clever Cloud, "the nice little hippie" who travels from country to country to promote French tech ([02:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=150s)). - He compares AI to the invention of the engine: the engine turned energy into muscle and drove the industrial revolution; AI turns energy into "brain", even if LLMs remain probabilistic machines. Blockchain turned an internet of data into an internet of value and spread slowly; AI has reached every job, down to people questioning their banker with Claude or ChatGPT in hand ([13:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=783s), [13:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=836s)). - He explains Nostr ("Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays") with a joke about two "totally unknown companies", "piou-piou" and "ciel bleu": instead of the platform owning your posts, you sign them, they live on relays anyone can run, and you hand a public key to the platform you choose, so you can leave with your content ([18:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1129s)). He refers to a talk on Nostr by a former Twitter figure ([21:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1316s)). A self-described lover of privacy, he cites NIPs for syncing relays (negentropy) and for torrent-like exchange. - He wants to combine Nostr with LoRa mesh networks (Meshtastic, MeshCore) into a "mini agora": an ephemeral local network for a conference or festival, or a backup when mobile networks fail ([25:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1501s)). He hopes to present it at FOSDEM ([18:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1101s)). - Working internationally, he sees the world fragmenting: the 1990s internet was "the hippies' internet", now there are three or four internets and he does not get the same one in the United States, South America, Africa or Asia ([26:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1563s)). - He says mesh links can reach about 370 km peer to peer, with many nodes in Europe, South-East Asia and the US but few in Africa. He is building his relay with Claude and the Nostrastic library on a Raspberry Pi, within Europe's 1% duty cycle (about 36 seconds of transmission), which forces heavy compression. Claude called it a multi-year project; he disagreed, but admits it is niche and local ([27:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1656s), [31:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1864s)). - He welcomes Web Serial in Firefox: one less reason to use Chromium, and a way to flash an ESP32 or a FIDO key, or configure a drone, from a phone. He does not believe an expensive iPhone protects privacy and prefers a rooted Android with GrapheneOS ([47:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=2822s), [49:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=2940s)). - He learned to code and to reverse-engineer through open source; he is "not a computer engineer" but a scientist by training. He never publishes under his own name, for privacy, and finds it stupid that good merge requests get refused only because they say "co-authored by Claude". He fears projects once run by passionate people will be maintained by AI alone (he cites the xz backdoor) and that communities become "islands of solitude" ([50:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3026s), [52:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3136s)). - He calls open source a commons, a good of humanity like Mozart or Beethoven, and trusts it because he can audit the code. Against AI-generated floods of issues, you have to fight fire with fire. He is angry that pico-fido2, which turns his cheap Raspberry Pi Pico boards into FIDO and OpenPGP keys (one per project), went paid with version 2.6 and purged its repository; he found an up-to-date fork ([54:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3252s), [59:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3572s)). Likely his but mixed voices: the same people moving from blockchain "bullshit" to AI (08:58), decentralisation breeding closed communities, as with Mastodon (24:29), Africa developing with LoRa rather than 5G (31:30), WebUSB demos in 2016–2017 (46:33). ## Outline - [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=0s) Opening of episode 160. - [01:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=80s) Introductions: Graven (content creator since 2015, teacher, freelance mobile developer), Yannick (R&D engineer at Clever Cloud), Erwan. - [03:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=182s) Asynconf: online 2020–2022, in person in 2023, back on 27 June 2026 in Paris La Défense with partners including Clever Cloud, a computer museum and two CTFs. - [06:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=363s) Why another conference: going deeper than business-oriented fairs; only a handful of the 25 talks on AI, which the panel sees as one tool among others. - [08:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=512s) Comparison with the blockchain hype; another participant argues AI is a lasting, geopolitical change, like smartphones. - [13:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=783s) Erwan: energy into muscle, energy into brain; AI in every job. - [15:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=932s) Erwan on forgotten optimisation skills: NES cartridges, GTA III streaming its city through the PlayStation 2's 32 MB of RAM. - [16:56](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1016s) Another participant recommends Olivier Poncet's analysis of Another World. - [18:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1129s) Erwan explains Nostr: signed content, relays, public keys. - [21:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1286s) Devil's advocate on scaling to millions of users; NIPs, negentropy and torrents. - [23:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1406s) Comparison with Bluesky's AT Protocol, which another participant finds more scalable. - [25:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1501s) Erwan: Nostr over LoRa mesh networks, a local "agora" for events or emergencies. - [26:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1563s) A fragmenting internet; the splinternet as a reality in many countries. - [27:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1656s) Erwan: 370 km mesh links, Nostrastic, the 1% duty cycle. - [32:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1926s) Another participant on Karpathy's "LLM wiki": hyperlinked knowledge instead of vector search, to save tokens. - [36:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=2160s) Graven presents Herald, an open-source "guardian angel" for code with no LLM behind it, rebuilt from scratch to regain control of its codebase. - [45:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=2753s) Web Serial lands in Firefox Nightly; Erwan on flashing boards from a phone. - [49:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=2940s) Erwan on iPhones, GrapheneOS; another participant on Android restricting unsigned apps. - [50:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3001s) Erwan's view of open source today: AI-labelled code refused, maintainers replaced by AI, islands of solitude. - [53:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3193s) Maintainers flooded with pull requests, poisoned libraries; Erwan: open source as a commons. - [54:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3280s) Graven: more "source" than "open"; another participant praises the SmolVM community. - [57:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3443s) Thousands of AI-generated issues; Erwan: fight fire with fire, and the pico-fido2 story. - [1:03:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3809s) Graven asks how much to open while charging a small subscription; answer in the next episode. Closing music: YENA, "Catch Catch". ## Notable quotes > "On a transformé de l'énergie en muscle, ça a été une révolution industrielle. On a transformé de l'énergie en cerveau." — Erwan Rougeux, [13:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=783s) *"We turned energy into muscle; that was an industrial revolution. We turned energy into brain."* > "Maintenant tu as trois ou quatre internets différents." — Erwan Rougeux, [26:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1589s) *"Now you have three or four different internets."* > "Je suis pas ingénieur informaticien, moi je suis un petit scientifique tu vois qui aimait faire n'importe quoi dans un laboratoire." — Erwan Rougeux, [50:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3026s) *"I'm not a computer engineer; I'm a little scientist, you see, who liked messing around in a lab."* > "L'open source c'est à mon sens un bien des communs, tu vois, un bien de l'humanité." — Erwan Rougeux, [54:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3252s) *"To me, open source is a commons, you see, a good of humanity."* ## Questions this answers **Q: What is Asynconf?** A: Graven's developer conference, created online in 2020 and in person since 2023; the 2026 edition is on 27 June in Paris La Défense. See [03:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=182s). **Q: What is Nostr and why does Erwan like it?** A: A protocol where you sign your own posts, which are stored on relays anyone can run; platforms only get your public key, so you keep ownership of your content and can move it. See [18:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1129s). **Q: Can Nostr work over LoRa mesh networks?** A: Erwan is building a Nostr relay over a mesh network with a Raspberry Pi and the Nostrastic library. Europe's 1% duty cycle forces heavy compression, so it is meant for a local area such as a conference, not for scale. See [28:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=1687s). **Q: What worries Erwan Rougeux about open source today?** A: Good code refused because it is co-authored by an AI, projects maintained only by AI, and communities withdrawing into themselves. He also criticises projects that delete their public code when they go paid, citing pico-fido2. See [50:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3054s). **Q: How does Erwan use cheap hardware security keys?** A: He flashes Raspberry Pi Pico boards with pico-fido2 to get FIDO and OpenPGP keys for GitHub, code signing and SSH, one per project, rather than buying a YubiKey each time. See [1:01:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgnkpM1UQIk&t=3685s). ## Mentioned Asynconf, Clever Cloud, Paris La Défense, blockchain, Claude, ChatGPT, Google I/O, NES, GTA III, PlayStation 2, Olivier Poncet, Another World, ESP32, Nostr, Twitter, Bluesky, AT Protocol, Mastodon, LoRa, Meshtastic, MeshCore, Nostrastic, Raspberry Pi, splinternet, Andrej Karpathy, Wikipedia, Obsidian, Herald, GitHub, GitLab, Firefox Nightly, Web Serial, WebUSB, Chromium, iPhone, Android, GrapheneOS, xz, SmolVM, Bruce Almighty, pico-fido2, Raspberry Pi Pico, YubiKey, OpenPGP, YENA