🛰️ Joining the Invisible Web
📆 2026-03-19 10:12
I recently expanded my website beyond the traditional internet and brought it onto two alternative networks: Yggdrasil and I2P.
Sava.Rocks is now available on:
Email you say ? ✉️
I also got an email address from mail.i2p which is, you know it, sava[@]mail.i2p. Give me a shout there if you use I2P. It can also be reached at sava[@]i2pmail.org.
It was equal parts curiosity, experimentation, and a desire to understand how these parallel networks actually function under the surface.
Yggdrasil 🌲
Yggdrasil is a peer-to-peer IPv6 mesh network. Each node connects directly to others and participates in routing traffic across the network. There are no central servers and no traditional DNS. Instead, every node has a stable IPv6 address derived from its cryptographic key.
Connections are end-to-end encrypted by default, and the network forms a distributed structure reminiscent of its mythological namesake - the world tree.
To make sava.ygg I had to:
- install the Yggdrasil daemon
- peer with several public nodes
- bind my web server to my Yggdrasil IPv6 address
- mine a key and the domain with the help of Alfis
Once configured, my site became directly reachable inside the Yggdrasil mesh.
It feels like a quiet, experimental version of the internet - smaller, cooperative, and very community-driven.
I2P (Invisible Internet Project) 🧅
I2P (Invisible Internet Project) is an anonymity-focused overlay network. Instead of exposing services directly via IP addresses, sites live behind cryptographic destinations called "eepsites".
Traffic is routed through encrypted tunnels, and both client and server identities are obscured. The result is strong anonymity at the cost of some latency.
To make sava.i2p I had to:
- install and start the I2P router
- configure a reverse proxy to my local web service
This generated a long .i2p address that only works from within the I2P network.
http://4e73k4n6yefuakwwmxnq7ciyco2kx7osuvw72dk6lcuoktubbrvq.b32.i2p/
It's easy to remember, right ?
I then had to submit sava.i2p to be available in the register the hostname sava.i2p on http://stats.i2p/i2p/ .
It is noticeably slower than clearnet hosting, but that is the trade-off for layered routing and privacy guarantees.
Why do this? 🤔
- to understand alternative routing architectures
- to make my content accessible beyond the mainstream web, gopher and gemini
- to experiment with decentralization
- because it is interesting and fun
There is something satisfying about watching your site resolve over a mesh network or load inside an anonymized ecosystem.
The internet is far larger - and far more diverse - than the slice most people use every day.
Now my small corner of it exists in a few more dimensions. 🚀