Slashdot Mirror
Amazon's Silk: SaaS Is Closing the Net
jfruhlinger writes "Much of the initial reaction to Amazon's Silk browser was interest in how it uses the cloud to speed up browsing. But at what cost? There are privacy concerns, of course, as Amazon will have a record of your browsing; but in a larger philosophical sense, Silk is of a piece with Facebook and Apple's iOS walled garden, an intermediary between you and the Internet."
Yep, other browsers like Opera have had this feature for a long time. How does it even close internet? It just speeds up your browsing.
Before I get accused panicking, let me emphasize that I am fully aware that Silk will let you opt out of this feature, and use the browser without EC2 participation.
By the end of TFA, The Fine Author forgot it:
Rather than try to contain the Internet, SaaS providers are trying to get between us and the Internet. And they're doing it with slick and catchy ways that slowly ensnare us before we even know what's going on.
Privacy, security, and unlimited access to data are all at risk here. This is why efforts the Open Knowledge Foundation and Open Cloud Initiative are so important. These and other similar organizations represent different ways to keep access to our data limited to just who we want to have it, and no one else.
It comes down to this: will these SaaS vendors be our partners in using the Internet, or our captors?
Oddly, there wasn't so much fuss over Opera's compression service, which is opt-in for Opera Mobile and always on for Opera Mini.
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
I wonder how this automatic man in the middle handles SSL connections? Does it pass that traffic though? Does it open a new connection and handle the SSL handshake in the cloud?
Sniffing people's bank accounts is a great service, would bring 1 click buy to a new level.
0 click buy!
Call them what they are, attempts to completely control your access to content such as "they" had back when it was just TV, and the music/film/media companies controlled every aspect of the industry with an iron fist, that is what "they" want again, complete control.
The Internet took that away from them, so with tireless lobbying, copyright laws, and campaigns of terror (suing children and single mothers) they have sought this control again, and they are beginning to see how to turn the Internet into a Television set so people go back to drooling.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Opera Mini has destroyed the internet.
</sarcasm>
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Both get posted way too often to Slashdot?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Yes, they could. Similarly, a shopkeeper could look at you're clothes and tell you "that'll be an extra $5, Mr Fancy Pants". Do you think that would be smart business practice? Maybe somewhere in a backstreet in Hong Kong. Smart businesses learn to respect their customers if they ever hope to have them back. Repeat customers are the lifeblood of small-transaction online vendors. TFA prefers to invent malice to attract one-off readers, since every idiot visitor is an Ad impression.
Silk does MITM of HTTPS connections. My ISP doesn't.
We will establish a secure connection from the cloud to the site owner on your behalf for page requests of sites using SSL (e.g. https://siteaddress.com./
Emphasis mine.
Dilbert RSS feed