Going Back To The Past of the Internet

*no comment* writes "deadly.org currently has a story about a new grassroot network springing up. It consists of free shell access, and is trying to revitalize the olden days of the Internet. Free speech, free information are the key features, but I wonder if this is jsut another free DDoS drone as well."

Comments

You can never go back

[sane?]

That country does not exist, its faded; been erased from you memory.

You can never return to the past, instead live in the present and create the future.

Take what was good and move on.

Re:I'd be wary....

[dattaway]

A great advantage of using wireless is the ability to put up a box for learning without using internet bandwidth. Put up a tall mast for your antenna, open all the ports, and watch the fun begin! More fun that any lame net honeypot for everyone.

Going Back To The Past of the Internet...

[BrookHarty]

Humm, The good ole days.

1. People on IRC who talked about things other than mod chips/xbox/playstation isos/porn/divx/mp3s...
2. Usenet newsgroups without spam, and the occasional flame war.
3. No Private message forums, only Usenet (sorry Slashdot)
4. Email without spam.
5. Shell accounts used for ppp emulators (no thanks!)
6. More than one tcp/ip stack choice.
7. Any web browser could display a website.
8. FTP search engines that worked.
9. No paying to download files (ala like Fileplanet)
10. The age of unencrypted innocence.
11. No pop ups ads.
12. No mass free-email accounts.
13. Letting the Internet regulate itself, no Government interference.
-

Read at your own risk - Open Letter to America from a Canadian

Re:The Glory Days of USENET ...

[GuyMannDude]

IMHO, the spamming of USENET has been one of the great tragedies of the popularization of the Internet. There was once a time when a young 13 year old girl who had just been molested/raped by a trusted uncle or family friend could go to alt.sexual.abuse and find comfort that she was not alone. That others had suffered as she had. Find a place where she could talk with people who understood and could relate to her. She could have posted using the anonymous server in Norway (wasn't that where it was?) and felt secure that her real identity would never be uncovered. Nowdays, because of rampant spamming done on any newsgroup with the word 'sex' or 'sexual' in the title, a young rape/incest victim would go to this newsgroup and, instead of finding a supportive atmosphere, be bombarded by ads along the lines of "Cum see young teenage cum sluts who desparately crave cock!" or "Lolitas who can't get it often enough in the ass!".

I haven't perused USENET in years and I have no plans to return. The spamming is terrible.

GMD

One simple change...

[Anonymous Coward]

to the phone system would cause this to explode. Identify on caller ID whether the caller is fax, data, or voice.

Re:Shell Accounts?

[The Man]

What other kind would be needed? From a shell account you can do pretty much anything. With the appropriate permissions you could also run pppd and extend the network, for example. You can run servers, read mail, send mail, transfer files around, develop software, and so on.

Yes, you could do most of those things on your own system, but chances are pretty good that you have less bandwidth. This is especially true if you can only afford or only have access to dialup network access.

Why does it have to be so primitive?

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

The reason the internet was great back then, wasn't because it took 48 hours of hair pulling to get your DOS ip stack configured correctly.

It was because dumbass politicians and greedy politicians hadn't touched it. They've spent the better part of a decade proving to us, that it wasn't because they couldn't.

But what if we could build a network that was extremely difficult for them to mess with?

What if it offered the same services as the regular net, fully routed static IP, DNS, and no restrictions. No one coming after you for posting files, building a website, or registering a domain name that some corps find offensive.

And as a side bonus, it might be just as complicated to get connected to it, as the internet originally was...

Read my unfinished webpage about it.

Re:Why does it have to be so primitive?

[flonker]

And please, if you want to criticize do so, this is a bare outline of an idea, not a carefully crafted thing. Point out the flaws, and offer solutions, if they occur to you.
Of course. That said, here's my take on it.

Your system looks very strong, and very robust. It lacks deniability, and decentralization is difficult, but otherwise, it works. I'm a bit tired right now, so I'll probably think of things later, and add them to my system, and tell you of them, assuming this conversation is still going.

Routing is an incredibly delicate process. Routing without a central authority is damn near impossible. The Internet uses ARPA to distribute IP addresses, and thusly, they can track down each IP to its owner.

With the VPN system you propose, you still need a central authority to allocate IPs. A central authority is a single point of failure, if you haven't gotten that yet. It's a single point of accountability. If you can get away from that single point, then you open yourself up to spoofing, spamming, authority hijacking, and all sorts of bad things. (This is a point of weakness, fill it in, and you'll have a much stronger system.)

The current method of anonymous routing is P2P flooding. This, obviously, doesn't scale well. I haven't figured out anything better. Freenet has a significantly optimized flooding algo, but it still relies on flooding to some extent. O(log n) compared to O(n) or something along those lines. IP is much closer to O(1), although you could make an argument for it being O(n/c) with a very large c. (That would mean that the IP wouldn't scale well for values that are orders of magnitude higher than c.) No rigorous proofs here, so keep that grain of salt handy.

The thing that gets me, is what sort of social policy should there be?

This relates strongly to a project I'm thinking on right now. It (obviously) isn't anywhere near complete. But you may be able to cull some interesting ideas from it. I hope you find it helpful.

Assuming an anonymous network, create "virtual countries" with laws of their own. You create an anonymous virtual identity. That virtual identity can be a citizen of a virtual country. By being a citizen, you gain access to the resources of the county. (Bandwidth, access controls, distributed content, etc.) This makes virtual citizenship more of a choice matter, than a "That's where I happen to live" matter.

Assuming some kind of enforcement mechanism for the laws, and access treaties, you can develop a nice system. Virtual Country A has laws against spam. Virtual Country A agrees to exchange traffic with Virtual Country B, as long as Virtual Country B doesn't send any spam to Virtual Country A. You've got a nice trust system. A Virtual Country is responsible for the actions of its citizens, and thusly has a collective bargaining strength.

You also can create Virtual Countries with strong Intellectial Property laws, and enforce that with treaties. If a country wants to ignore IP, then they lose access to the websites of that country that enforces IP with treaties.

And you'd be able to enforce things like your "emergency broadcast system" service. inside a specific virtual country (and, again, by treaties, if necessary.)

I haven't gotten into the punishment for breaking laws yet. All I can think of is rescinding citizenship. This, obviously, doesn't provide enough granularity. And creating a new identity is also a rather difficult problem.

Re:This Idiot

[naughtypenguin]

What a shithead you are! beating up on the guy. Get a clue and at least login when you post so people can mod your ass down.

So he doesn't have a lot right now! That is the idea, start out one machine at a time. BTW If you're so smart and have all kinds of great hardware, sign up and contribute dick.

Did I mention I think your a dick?

It'll be a DDOS drone or a useless shell...

[sophits]

It doesn't have to be that way. Any sufficiently planned architecture could deter or eliminate this kind of activity, while still being completely usable as a learning tool. Yes, it would require an *involved* admin, who stays on top of things, but nothing a monkey with perl couldn't handle. Heck, spend the time to identify who your "trusted" users are, and teach them a thing or two about *running* a system, instead of just *using* it. Then not only do you have some people to share the work, but you've got another competitor in your job market. Oh wait, that's bad...

Re:This Idiot

[siskbc]

A sysadmin that works at a company that PAYS for the bandwidth with the PROFITS it makes, yeah.

This guy isn't trying to make money, so cut him a break. I don't see you offering a free shell account. Why don't you give him the "fucking resources" and I'm sure he'd be glad to up his connection bandwidth. And it's not like he ASKED to be put on /.

Troll.

Greetings from open-network.net

[Anonymous Coward]

Just want to thank /. My machine is actually still quite responsive, it's my DSL which is sucking wind. Apache is the highest process and it is only taking 4.5%, not bad. I really think this could be a good thing if people give it a chance and people don't take advantage of the good nature of others.

Yes, I do realize, it is impossible to have everyone be good and no I am not naive. I really do feel this can work if people help by pointing out faults on the network and also by watching your neighbors, not saying spy but bring up 'top' every 5 minutes or so or do a 'ps auxw' and see what your niehbors are doing. If you see something funny, notify the admins. It doesn't do anyone who wants a shell any good to have a machine so riddled with kiddies that it is un-usable.

In regards to DoS droneing, I personaly think, well trained users are the key. I'm not saying users will be trained on my system. I am merely saying, there are already trained users out there. Sys Admins, Net Admins, Sec. Admins, and every other admin or engineer out there. All we need to do is use that 6th sense we have at work to monitor an open-network.

Just my $.02
Scott

You are making a common mistake, I think...

[mwillems]

...in not recognising that the useful 1% of a godzillion megapieces of information is a hell of a lot more useful than 99% of 100 www pages.

I, too, grew up in the early days and I recall them well. No noise, you could use newsgroups, and receiving email was a real event. Archie, remember archie? And Gopher? Veronica?

BUT... in those days I could not do a tenth of what I can do now. Not one hundredth. Use google. Use google groups (nee dejanews). Look up song lyrics. Bank online. Download videos. Find any company I do business with. And P2P (ha ha... 1200 bps modems, remember those??)

So, the noise is despiccable but do realise it is a side phenomenon of the great cyberworld we are creating.

Give me today's 'net anytime!

Containing freedom to protect freedom

[philam3nt]

These comments (and responses) show just how ridiculous our legislation is becoming.

If unregulated read: FREE mediums are allowed...
...it is to protect...freedom

Sounds completely bass-ackwards to me.
Remember innocent before proven guilty?

Restricting our freedom to make backup copies (because of the abuse of minorities - remember, the majority don't have a clue about copy-protection) in order to protect the freedom of corporations. Restricting our freedom to create our own ISPs and share information freely - again, to protect the 'freedom' of corporations to make a profit.

I have just turned 18 and I am trying to educate myself such that when elections come around, I can change the world with my knowledge. Remember that YOUR VOTE COUNTS and EDUCATE your friends so that they know how important their freedoms are - that they take for granted - and how much power they have: voting, writing local politicians, etc.

The dance music scene in my area (central TX) was just the subject of abuse of freedom by some local politicians, and it really hit home how much I should be doing - not just being an armchair activist. I challenge you ALL to put your $ where your mouth is. If even half of us (Slashdot readers) were to fight openly and strongly for what we rant about daily, I think the difference would be monumental. I know how hard it is, but together we have a chance.

People always remember more fondly than they were.

[percey]

I don't remember the first days of the internet as it sprung up while I was on hiatus from computers enjoying my first few years of college. People have a lot of memories of their youths that seem to shine brighter as time goes on. Mine was of BBS's, I spent many years on line in a world that I like to think of as the proto-internet. Multilined BBS's that were in reality small fiefdoms. A network of relay mail systems called Fidonet, and single-lined systems that were run by hobbyists who were sincerely interested in their area. It was nice. The computers of the day were nice. Amigas, Ataris, and even some PC's had more character than they've had in years, or maybe they didn't and it was just how I remember it. I recently tracked down some telnet'able BBS's and I was in disbelief that I used to love that crap. My point is this, you can't go back. Just as the internet killed the Bulletin Board System, so will something, someday kill the internet. I remember being on a MajorBBS system chatting with the Sysop about this new thing called the Internet, and that we were all dynosaurs. I dismissed it at the time. "What could be better than this?" I thought. Well sometimes, or most of the time, progress isn't better. Yes, radio exercised the imagination more than TV, Yes, they don't make things like they used to, but that's progress. And yes free shell accounts are nice, but so what does that change? Freedom of speech? The internet didn't invent that, create a web page, you can say what you want, you can even say libelous things, but be prepared to face the consequences because the people you're libeling have rights too.

Where the internet went wrong

[MoneyT]

The internet went wrong as soon as someone started regulating it. And no this isn't a support anarchy post, give me a moment to explain.

The internet, as it was envisioned in it's earliest forms (by the government no less) was for open and free exchange of information across a series of service. Anyone who needed access had it. As it expanded out and fell into control of the early hacker/geek community it moved from free flow of information between those in he know to free flow to anyone who had the equipment and the skills to get to it. The internet of the time was a self regulating society. People who wer obnoxious were ignored and shunned, malicious people were fought against by the rigtous vigalantes of the net. Sort of a wild west.

Soon however, the greedy people of the world realized that if they had information that no one else had, and restricted acess, they could control people. If they could control them, they could make money off of them. So they began businesses. This shifted the balance of power away from individuals and toward businesses and corporations with money. Feeling their power threatened, individuals with skills fought back. They were labled hackers, and unfortunately as with any group, it's the fanatics that generate the stereo-type and hackers bacme known as vicious online criminals.

So the businesses did what any business in danger of colapse would do. They complained to the government, and the government steped in. They started regulateing the internet, laws, rules, they took control of the system, the names, the places and it fell inot corporate control, with the lone individuals shut out and shunned. The individual became a criminal, suspect to doing crimes with every move he made.

And so the internet fell into the state it's in now, a pathetic mix of advertisements (because the businesses found you really can't make money off freedom, corporate watchdogs (because everyone online is out to destroy Free America ), porn (because as a society in the real world we have severe issues with sexualitycreatingan extreme and perverted attraction to it), and pathetic wannabie skript kiddies because all the real Hackers:

a) Are in jail
b) Have a real job as a security consultant
c) Gave up
d) Have become greedy
e) Fight on, bu tare shunned as extermists and lumped with scriptkiddies, pirates and warez makers.
f) Have focused on open source in the hopes of creating a free society within the controled one.

Though I wish him luck and will support him as best I can, I feel that unless he does everything in his power to prevent restrictions, he will merely see the same thing that the internet, hotline and p2p has seen. Freedom threatens buiness models of old, freedom must be destroyed.

Idealistic? Skewed viewpoint? Glorifying overy optimistic ideals? Maybe, but without ideals you have no purpose.

Why note replace the existing Internet??!

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the "special interest" servers and
sites are run by people who have been at this
long before the advent of the Internet at large.

Why not take this technology, (software, protocols, etc.) and create a separate network
independant of the Internet? A real "grassroots"
approach to solving the problems of government
and commercial spoilage of the existing network.

Cut it loose... Make it private and establish
some basic rules, and most importantly eliminate
the possiblity of commerical takeover.

Anyone else feel this way?