L0 — Decentralized Cloud
Maturity: Implemented capability. A permissionless CoNET-SI fleet, LayerMinus workers, storage services, and application integrations use L0 resources today. Resource availability, operator diversity, capacity, and client coverage remain deployment-specific.
Resource plane
L0 is CoNET's decentralized cloud resource plane. Participants can contribute measurable infrastructure rather than placing every application behind one stable platform origin.
| Resource | L0 role | Application responsibility |
|---|---|---|
| Network forwarding | Carry encrypted traffic between entries, routes, mailboxes, egresses, and application hosts | Select routes, encrypt for the correct recipient, authenticate responses, and handle failure |
| Ciphertext storage | Retain encrypted mailbox or fragment material | Define keys, fragmentation, redundancy, recovery, deletion, and availability checks |
| Service hosting | Expose wallet-addressed Web, API, AI, or TCP services through contributed hosts | Define the application protocol, authorization, isolation, and output verification |
| Compute | Contribute CPU/GPU capacity where an application defines work | Verify results and avoid trusting a single unproven provider |
| Metering | Measure eligible resource use in GB | Define who pays, what completion means, and how disputes are resolved |
L0 runs above the existing TCP/IP Internet. It is not a replacement IP network, a new physical transport, or proof that participating machines are independently controlled.
Layer Minus uses L0
Layer Minus is the privacy-routing protocol built on these resources. It binds durable wallet identity to OpenPGP and mailbox routes, forwards recipient-encrypted traffic through separated entry and mailbox roles, and uses HTTP(S)-shaped carriers.
The distinction is important:
- L0 supplies decentralized cloud resources.
- Layer Minus specifies how wallet/OpenPGP-addressed ciphertext is routed across those resources.
- Application protocols such as
web3://define request, response, stream, authorization, and rendering semantics. - Products such as SilentPass, CoNET Chat, and Beamio compose these capabilities into user-facing behavior.
Layer Minus is not synonymous with L0, and an application using L0 does not become an L0 wire command.
Permissionless does not mean trusted
Any L0 participant may be unavailable, malicious, colluding, or incorrectly configured. Applications must not give an infrastructure intermediary the keys or plaintext it does not need.
Depending on the product, robust composition can require:
- recipient-specific encryption;
- separation of entry, mailbox, storage, compute, and application-host roles;
- fragmentation with independently controlled keys;
- redundant execution or verifiable outputs;
- acknowledgement and replay rules;
- local-first trusted state that is not erased by an untrusted network failure; and
- explicit payment, expiry, challenge, and recovery semantics.
These properties are application work. Fragmentation and operator independence are not automatic properties of all L0 traffic.
Freedom and privacy, precisely stated
Moving durable application identity away from one fixed public origin can reduce dependence on a single intermediary and reduce direct origin exposure. OpenPGP encryption prevents forwarding nodes from reading application plaintext when clients use the correct keys. Separated roles can limit what one participant observes.
The architecture does not promise absolute anonymity, untraceability, unblockability, or immunity to traffic analysis. TCP/IP remains visible to the endpoints of each connection. Stable wallets, timing, traffic volume, browser identifiers, compromised devices, operator collusion, and application-level logging can recreate linkability.
Infrastructure relationships
TCP/IP underlay
│
▼
L0 contributed resources
│
├── Layer Minus wallet/OpenPGP routing
│ └── web3://, Chat, SilentPass, Beamio envelopes
│
├── ciphertext storage and service hosting
└── metered compute and forwarding
L1 anchors shared identity, assets, and settlement.
DLE L2 specifies specialized parallel application ledgers.
L1 and L2 complement L0; neither is replaced by Layer Minus. Public CoNET L1 nodes currently join through conventional geth and Prysm P2P. The wallet-addressed L1-over-L0 overlay is an under-development laboratory capability, not the production join requirement.
Developer paths
| Goal | Start here |
|---|---|
| Understand the cloud and zero-trust model | Permissionless cloud and zero-trust applications |
| Understand wallet/OpenPGP privacy routing | Layer Minus |
| Build a Layer Minus client | L0 development |
Implement SI /post behavior |
SI developer guide |
| Implement Chat envelopes and receipts | CoNET Chat developer guide |
| Build a wallet-addressed application | web3:// Application Protocol |
| Publish or open a Linux service | conet-l0d |
| Review protocol security limits | Security limits and threat grades |