Interactive Protocol Guide
Learn FIPS
FIPS is a self-organizing encrypted mesh that works over anything you can send packets through. This site teaches you how it works, layer by layer, with interactive simulations.
Start LearningLessons
What is FIPS?
The problem with centralized networks, and how a self-organizing mesh changes the picture.
Identity
Your keypair is your address. Generate one and watch the derivation pipeline.
The Protocol Stack
Four layers, each doing one job. Click through them to see how they fit together.
Transports
WiFi, Ethernet, UDP, Tor, serial. Same protocol, same mesh.
Spanning Tree & Routing
How the mesh self-organizes, builds coordinates, and routes packets.
Encryption
Two layers of encryption: hop-by-hop and end-to-end. Watch a packet traverse the mesh.
Putting It Together
From cold start to steady state. The full lifecycle of a FIPS connection.
When Things Go Wrong
Coordinate warmup, the three error signals, and how the mesh heals around broken paths.
Reading the Wire
The byte-level layout of a FIPS packet, layer by layer. Toggle fields and watch the overhead change.
Measuring the Mesh
MMP, link cost, and how per-link RTT and loss push traffic onto better parents.
Who Sees What
The four adversary classes FIPS is designed against, and what each one can actually read off the wire.
Talking to Legacy Apps
The IPv6 adapter, the fips-gateway NAT sidecar, and how unmodified SSH or curl end up speaking to a mesh peer.
Try It
Install a node, join the public test mesh, and send your first packet across it.
Engineering solutions to problems is mostly about assembling existing pieces into a new whole, more so than inventing a new wheel.
FIPS combines known, battle tested concepts going back decades in the fields of networking, cryptography, distributed computing, resilient communications, and operating systems, with full credit to those who came before.