Tor is a network, and yet you have to install a program to connect to it. You can think of the cjdns program like a driver that allows you to connect to a cjdns network.
To answer your question on what it does : cjdns is a routing protocol that intends to replace the current IP protocol. Like the standard IP protocol, it needs a way to communicate with another node to function (the default gateway). From there, you can communicate with the rest of the network. Your packets will go to the default gateway, who will then redirect it to the "closest node" recursively, until it reaches its destination.
You can setup cjdns over the current internet (essentially making cjdns an "overlay network" like tor) using UDP, or through an ethernet link.[1]
CJDNS indeed works in a mesh : anyone can route other people's traffic, somewhat similarely to tor. The only difference is that you need to manually configure your "Entry Node" (to lift tor terms). See [0] for the reasoning.
About the name, the creator is Caleb James DeLisle, so I guess CJDNS stands for Caleb James DeLisle's NameServer ? Doesn't really make much sense but I don't see how bad a thing it is.
To answer your question on what it does : cjdns is a routing protocol that intends to replace the current IP protocol. Like the standard IP protocol, it needs a way to communicate with another node to function (the default gateway). From there, you can communicate with the rest of the network. Your packets will go to the default gateway, who will then redirect it to the "closest node" recursively, until it reaches its destination.
You can setup cjdns over the current internet (essentially making cjdns an "overlay network" like tor) using UDP, or through an ethernet link.[1]
CJDNS indeed works in a mesh : anyone can route other people's traffic, somewhat similarely to tor. The only difference is that you need to manually configure your "Entry Node" (to lift tor terms). See [0] for the reasoning.
About the name, the creator is Caleb James DeLisle, so I guess CJDNS stands for Caleb James DeLisle's NameServer ? Doesn't really make much sense but I don't see how bad a thing it is.
[0]: https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns#2-find-a-friend [1]: https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns/blob/master/doc/configure...