Blue Ribbon Autonomous Network for Carrier Hopping

The Blue Ribbon is alive again.
From symbol to protocol.

B.R.A.N.C.H. is an open communication protocol built around portable identity, public rendezvous surfaces, direct peer-to-peer connections, and a community-run mesh of interchangeable relays.

The project is an independent technical tribute to the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign and its defence of freedom of speech, press, and association on the Internet. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The original Blue Ribbon was displayed on websites as a symbol of free speech online. B.R.A.N.C.H. brings it back not merely as a symbol, but as a protocol.

The ribbon no longer merely hangs on the Web. It becomes a route through it.

In B.R.A.N.C.H.:

• identity belongs to the person, not to a server;
• any public writable surface may carry a rendezvous event;
• clients prefer direct P2P communication;
• any enthusiast may operate a compatible relay;
• no relay, platform, directory, or project-controlled service is mandatory;
• carriers can change while identity and conversation continuity remain intact.

A carrier is any medium capable of carrying a signed rendezvous event or an encrypted packet: a GitHub Issue, a forum, a public comment feed, Nostr, DHT, email, a community relay, or a direct peer connection.

A session may begin on one carrier and continue on another:

public board -> rendezvous -> community relay -> direct P2P -> another relay

The carrier is replaceable. The relationship between people is not.

This repository currently contains the founding documents and the first protocol sketch. The next milestone is a desktop proof of concept with two clients, one public-board adapter, direct connectivity, and two independently operated relays.

• MANIFESTO.md — purpose and non-negotiable principles.
• HERITAGE.md — the Blue Ribbon historical foundation.
• ARCHITECTURE.md — system boundaries and components.
• PROTOCOL_V0.md — initial protocol sketch.
• ROADMAP.md — staged path to a working prototype.
• OPEN_QUESTIONS.md — questions intentionally left open.
• ENGINEERING.md — repository architecture, code style, test strategy, and quality gates.
• OBSERVABILITY.md — logs, metrics, traces, diagnostics, privacy boundaries, and optional development monitoring.

The Docker deployment includes an opt-in, operator-owned coturn profile for WebRTC validation. It is not advertised to clients and does not issue ICE credentials: the authenticated, short-lived credential flow remains future protocol work. Operators can find the required environment variables, firewall ports, and start command in deployments/docker/README.md.