@tasty AKA Сёма Мрачный, an acquaintance in the twister P2P network (a project I thanked in a past #ilovefs :-), responded to the above with a link to https://medium.com/clebertech-en/the-definitive-guide-to-secure-scuttlebutt-a1b3a3fd73f6

I found it such a great intro to SSB!  thanks, Cléber, for writing it up, and tasty for bringing it to my attention.