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HBO's 'Silicon Valley' Joins The Push For A Decentralized Web (ieee.org)
Tekla Perry writes:
HBO's fictional Silicon Valley character Richard Hendricks sets out to reinvent the Internet into something decentralized. ["What if we used all those phones to build a massive network...we could build a completely decentralized version of our current Internet with no firewalls, no tolls, no government regulation, no spying. Information would be totally free in every sense of the word."] That sound a lot like what Brewster Kahle, Tim Berners-Lee, and Vint Cerf have been calling the decentralized web. Kahle tells IEEE Spectrum about how closely HBO's vision matches his own, and why he's happy to have this light shined on the movement.
In 2015 Kahle pointed out the current web isn't private. "People, corporations, countries can spy on what you are reading. And they do." But in a decentralized web, "the bits will be distributed -- across the net -- so no one can track the readers of a site from a single point or connection."
He tells IEEE Spectrum that though the idea is hard to execute, a lot of people are already working on it. "I recently talked to a couple of engineers working for Mozilla, and brought up the idea of decentralizing the web. They said, 'Oh, we have a group working on that, are you thinking about that as well?'"
In 2015 Kahle pointed out the current web isn't private. "People, corporations, countries can spy on what you are reading. And they do." But in a decentralized web, "the bits will be distributed -- across the net -- so no one can track the readers of a site from a single point or connection."
He tells IEEE Spectrum that though the idea is hard to execute, a lot of people are already working on it. "I recently talked to a couple of engineers working for Mozilla, and brought up the idea of decentralizing the web. They said, 'Oh, we have a group working on that, are you thinking about that as well?'"
The internet (which is not the web, the web is built on top of the internet) *is* "decentralized". It was built that way.
Take a drink whenever Tim Berners-Lee is mentioned in the summary.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
...and ended up where we are here.
You, the person reading this right now, is on Slashdot. According to Alexa, it's one of the top 5,500 most visited websites on the internet, so even despite its downturn of late, there's still millions of people who visit this website every month.
Why are you all not on Usenet? You're all technical enough to download and configure Pan or Agent, and if your ISP doesn't provide Usenet access, a 5GB block on Blocknews costs $2.75 and will provide years of text-based discussion. There are plenty of technical categories, and plenty of them have actual users on them.
But you're on Slashdot.
You are here because millions of other people are here, and because not every NNTP server replicates every message, everywhere, ever. You are here because the value of information is determined by the person posting that information, and for some people, posting "you are all cows", "only luddites use nntp without apps", or "Fr33 V1@gra" is deemed valuable, while the vast majority of readers disagree. Spam filtering can only happen with someone deciding 'this is spam' and 'this is not spam', and boom, there is the beginning centralization.
Why are you not on Retroshare?
It has forum-like functions, email-like functions, IRC-like functions, and even Limewire-like functions and is 100% decentralized and relies on PGP keys for connectivity, so everything is encrypted.
You're not on it because getting messages to proliferate is a problem, especially if you only have a few friends who aren't themselves connected. You're not on it because firewall configuration is a pain, even if you know how to port forward. You're not on it because 2/3 of the discussion is key exchanges, and the way many people get started is in the new users room which is, essentially, centralized. Or, maybe you are there...and hopefully you're not one of the people who post things in the forums which are actually-racist or providing bomb-making tutorials or degradingly sexually explicit.
Even at that, what's to stop a TLA agency or RIAA lawyer from just being another user who's a part of the system? Decentralization combined with equal access invalidates the viability of the goal to minimize access by undesirable parties, as it's only a matter of time before "Joe Blough the dude who likes to discuss fishing and parasailing...who also happens to be in MI6" joins. Blocking government issues IP addresses is easy enough, but you're back to needing a central authority to provide that.
Without the commons, a project never gets any traction. With the commons, we end up with Facebook, but without the filtering tools that keep it generally free of dick pics (or a means to at least hide them).
No matter how you slice it, the network effect is inherently necessary to make an internet service work, and attaining critical mass of a decentralized (and presumably free/Free) communications platform is something that has yet to be done successfully. After all, you're not on Usenet or Retroshare. You're still on Slashdot.
Last year There was a conference on this subject. More at https://www.decentralizedweb.n...
no, i dont want to participate in a mesh network with my neighbors the pedophiles.
nor do i want to have a "no rules" internet because what happens, like in "flat" hierachies of companies where there are no managers, is that the biggest asshole bully tends to gain power by abusing people.
the modern world is built on rules. stop on red. dont go 100mph in a 30mph zone. dont shoot people in the face and steal all their shit.
someone has to enforce those rules against the small percentage of people who are psychopaths - otherwise the psychopaths will literally murder millions of people.
I was thinking freenet, does that exist still?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Signal is linked to your mobile phone number, your phone, your contacts, your meta data. You carry that surveillance device around with you everywhere you go, just like they want you to.
Even if you try and run your own mail-server with no objections from your ISP, all the other corporate and academic system admins will already have your IP address blocked due to a ban-list of IP addresses related to dynamic IP ranges, all to block spamming from botnet hosts. Even using the official ISP mailbox, simply involves being forwarded to a third party mailbox service based on Windows servers.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
We need an entity like Google to do this - they already have the infrastructure in place and the resources. However, a system based on privacy and providing everyone with anonymity would break their business model. I hope someone can get to Sergey Brin and Larry Page with the idea of how they could change the world in a good way by making a decentralized "Internet 2." Maybe they are rich enough to finally do the right thing instead of only talking about it.
Even if you try and run your own mail-server with no objections from your ISP
You are missing the point. In this alternative universe there would be no ISPs. You get your internet from the devices around you, in a wireless web. There would be no hierarchy, no center, no backbones. Just lots of peer devices communicating directly with each other.
Here is an analogy: The current Internet is like getting your information from the six o'clock news, with a central hub. This new Internet would be like getting your information by talking to your friends and neighbors, and then passing on the news and rumors to others.
I'm not a religious person, but the point of the story is to illustrate a point about human nature: Most people want a hierarchical, centralized structure, for good or for ill. It, apparently, is just how we're wired. If you create something that's free-form, decentralized, some people will call that 'anarchistic', and some other people will insist that 'order' be imposed upon it, and they will take steps to make it centralized, over the objections of everyone else. We've seen this happen with the Internet, and with Bitcoin, as a couple examples.
Furthermore: criminals are just as likely to want to impose some sort of 'order' on something that can benefit them as governments or any other group might. Stet?
Here's what I believe would happen with a 'Free and open Internet 2p0', made up of a mesh volunteer networked nodes:
Try IPFS.
It's not a decentralised web, but it's a good start. It has the potentially to completely decentralize all static content, and with pervasive caching that could greatly reduce network traffic and improve response times too.
Peer devices don't work (eventually), because there are websites that everyone wants to visit. If you are next to one of those websites, then all your bandwidth will get sucked up forwarding pages for them.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I was thinking freenet, does that exist still?
Freenet still exists, in some token way, but more importantly it works as a protocol. There might be some evolution of the concept that's better, no doubt. It's had a lot of security analysis over the years, and it's not terrible. But I'm not sure anything like it will ever have mass appeal.
Pros:
- Uploading is very anonymous, if you finish your upload before telling the world what it is. Great for something like wikileaks.
- No way to force the "take down" of any content.
Cons:
- Downloading is less anonymous: much like TOR, it's fine vs corporations, but fundamentally vulnerable to nation-states (more vulnerable than TOR, I guess).
- No concept of servers dedicated to particular content, so there's no way to ensure any given content stays up, and no way to ensure your machine won't have parts of something disgusting and vile.
- Fundamentally slow compared to the open web, or even TOR.
Of course, all these cons may be endemic to anything truly decentralized and encrypted.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The core of Richard's invention is his compression algorithm. Like warp drives and light sabers, it is tech which cannot work as described because of conflicts with well established theory. (Google "shannon information" for details). It doesn't hurt the story, stimulates the imagination, and once you get the joke improves the overall humor.
A "decentralized Internet" is another joke, because IP was inherently decentralized in concept. That plays well with Richard's algorithm which effectively offers warp speed transmission on every route, it will be fun to see what they do with it.
People seem to engage in very black and white thinking about decentralising the Internet.
On the one hand, you have a bunch of hopeless idealists who think it MUST work because it's THE RIGHT THING TO DO, without considering the potential negative aspects and pitfalls which will ultimately doom the endeavour.
On the other hand, you have a bunch of pessimists who think it is doomed to fail because look at all those other systems and think of all those flaws, but who don't try to think of compromises that could work.
I look at it this way: The world itself is physically decentralised. We have multiple self-governing nations. Indeed, nationalist and isolationist attitudes have been on the rise recently. Within nations, it is common to have multiple levels of government, with local decisions taken locally. Collaborations occur and dissolve in a fairly organic manner over the years.
People's social interactions have, by and large, always been somewhat decentralised and based on making intelligent judgements about the people around us. We don't all rely on some central authority to determine trust, for instance. Though we are bound to some extent by the societies in which we find ourselves to determine the nature of our interactions, we are not directly controlled by them. Even if we live in a society where we'll disappear courtesy of the secret police if we do something that's not considered acceptable, that is being enforced by decentralised humans in a decentralised world.
Businesses operating in the physical world are part of a fairly decentralised system of commerce and industry. The relationship between customer and business is decentralised. Although there are central authorities which dictate laws and regulations, these are generally implemented in a decentralised manner, with the various disparate businesses putting them in place and inspections and audits being conducted within this decentralised reality by decentralised agents of the central authority.
I think it should be feasible to build a network which is inherently decentralised while also facilitating the organic creation and destruction of regulatory structures akin to those found in meatspace. I also think this will be necessary to enable broad adoption and social acceptance.
"no way to ensure your machine won't have parts of something disgusting and vile."
This is intentional. Plausible denyability. Even if something is found your node, it's impossible to prove you had any knowledge of it.
Doesn't work, every single page on Slashdot is personally generated just for me.
Also, anything encrypted can't be cached for more than one person otherwise the encryption is pointless.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
At least to the extent I understand what Yarvin actually wants Urbit to do, which I'm not entirely sure I do...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
That won't stop you being arrested, your computers and devices seized forever and your reputation dragged through the mud. Your life will be made a living hell, your family will have to distance from your in order to have at least a faint hope at carrying on with their lives, and even if you're acquitted you will never, ever recover. Once a suspect pedo, always a pedo.
Those websites would do well to have plenty of mirrors - something that could be provided by cloud services. That way, if I want to connect to a friend's computer, or for that matter, to his site, it would be easy, regardless of how busy the rest of internet traffic is. All this should be easier now w/ IPv6, where we can have back authentic peer to peer networking
Peer devices don't work (eventually), because there are websites that everyone wants to visit. If you are next to one of those websites, then all your bandwidth will get sucked up forwarding pages for them.
Says the geek who's never heard of a content distribution network.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
You'd have better served your reader by directing him or her to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States.
That's an in-joke for the information theory cognoscenti.
Khazza?
I'm not sure if it's good or bad that I still remember to spell it Kazaa.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
What's being developed in this show is being built and they are rather far along. Go to www.maidsafe.net to check the companies website and head over to the forum to ask any questions you have safenetforum.org.
...but I would prefer no trolls.
This is intentional. Plausible denyability. Even if something is found your node, it's impossible to prove you had any knowledge of it.
Yes, and you can explain that to your attorney while you sit in jail for a year awaiting trial for whatever it was they found. If you think that "plausible denyability" will keep your ass from going to prison, think again.
If someone planted a pound of cocaine in your car's trunk and you really, truly didn't know about it, do you think the cops would let you go when you explained that, gee whiz, you didn't even know it was there?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
CDNs don't work for dynamic content.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Learn about Maidsafe's SafeNetwork. They don't use IP protocol after the first bootstrap. Network routing is based on XOR distance, and it is completely distributed, not just "decentralized". The real Pied Piper is SafeNetwork. Check the videos. The SAFE Network from First Principles: https://www.youtube.com/playli... GoogleTech talks 2006: https://youtu.be/fLA77zxk-vA
Dear Friend,
Bittorrent won't work with dynamic content. Like this very slashdot page, which appears different to each (logged in) user.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The content would be the same. How the content is rendered, filtered, organized would be handled client side with something like javascript.
If you're making API calls with Javascript, those take bandwidth.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The way Freenet supposedly works is that no one can really prove what's on a given node, or decrypt it "locally". How true that is is a matter for the security researchers, but it's not a foolish approach as you imply. It's just chunks of encrypted distributed data with the keys elsewhere.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm not sure you understand the design of Freenet. If I upload a 2-minute video of hot Putin on Trump monkey love, that video won't be stored as a whole on anyone's machine (unless they've actually downloaded it as a client of the network). It will be broken into chucks, encrypted, and the chunks distributed across the network identified by their hashes. The keys are off in some metadata chunk somewhere else on the network. A Freenet node stores a bunch of fragments of encrypted files without the keys to any of them.
An attacker with the resources of a government could certainly figure out that some server had one of these chucks right now (they gradually move around, or just get deleted), but there's no legal precedent that that means anything. No one has ever been arrested just for running a Freenet node (unlike TOR exit nodes - more like normal TOR nodes). If the network were only used for illegal activity, there might be a legal angle there, but if we're talking about a replacement for the internet or the web as a whole, that doesn't work.
OTOH, someone downloading the Putin/Trump manlove video could be tracked given enough resources, and obviously the video would exist as a complete entity on the downloader's machine. That's very clear legal ground, easy to understand and prosecute.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm not sure you understand the design of Freenet.
I understand the design of Freenet, so put your doubts to rest.
Regardless of what you said, and assuming for the moment that Freenet is wholly safe and anonymous and that no other mechanism exists for tracking your activity, I still wouldn't bet my freedom on it, not for one second.
I can remember far too many instances where something that was touted as "totally anonymous and untrackable" turned out not to be. You could always test it by making serious, violent, non-stop threats against the president and then wait to see if there's a knock on your door eventually.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Well, if you trust nothing,. there's really no point in discussing anything, is there? So why are you here?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
It sounds like those are competing goals - if information is freely available then it cannot be private, if it's private then it cannot be free. Am I missing something?
I loved your alternative name for DISCUS. However, an algorithm that improves compression if you have multiple sources, doesn't equal Richard's. In the limiting case, any file can be compressed to a single bit if the only question is whether the only question open is whether it matches the file you have.
Well, if you trust nothing,. there's really no point in discussing anything, is there? So why are you here?
Because I don't trust you.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
No. Your parent had it right. You have it wrong.
A decentralized Internet is not for accessing facebook and gmail and etc. It is for direct person to person communication without a middle man. ie: no Google, no Microsoft, no Yahoo, no Twitter. Instead this is for talking privately and directly to the people you know and love... just the way god intended.
If you want to use some public server and broadcast to the world, then why would you expect privacy? This is for everything you do that isn't broadcasting. This is about private intercourse. And don't you think intercourse should be private? Or are you a pervert? Like the government and the communication companies who want to listen in to all your intercourse and share it with their friends for profit and to get their kicks.
This is a good idea and it's about time. Don't listen to the powers that are controlling and monitoring what you say right now. Stand up for what you know is right and stop pretending that we all have to be monitored because a small subset of society might say or do bad things when talking to their own circles. You deserve freedom.
Even if you try and run your own mail-server with no objections from your ISP
Well I set up an email server without permission. I used a Tor onion address, so as not to require a dedicated IP and my ISP does not know that the traffic is to a mail server.
all the other corporate and academic system admins will already have your IP address blocked due to a ban-list of IP addresses related to dynamic IP ranges
Well there is no dedicated IP for Tor hidden services, so there is nothing that can be blocked on my end. There is no such thing as a list of banned onion addresses. That is how Tor works.
all to block spamming from botnet hosts.
My personal mail server has no spam. Why would I send spam from my home? And botnets cannot find my server because it is an unpublished onion address. They would spend a long time guessing to find it, not to mention the mail server does not use standard mail server ports. It's private... so, why make it easy to find. Only people I talk to need to find it, and I tell them where it is.
Even using the official ISP mailbox, simply involves being forwarded to a third party mailbox service based on Windows servers.
ISP mail is just as public as gmail. That's not a real solution to anything.
Just do what I did. Buy a $100 raspberry pi. Setup debian + mail on a hidden service over Tor. Then create mail accounts for yourself and all the people you talk to. Give them login credentials and show them how to connect. Now when they send email, their ISP doesn't know, you ISP doesn't know, and no one sees the mail while in transit over the Internet. Now you have private email with the ones you care about.
And then also, setup PGP for yourself and them for added security in case their system or your server is physically compromised.
And also setup ejabberd as a hidden service over Tor and use OTR for encryption as an additional level of security. And then you can chat from your phone or computer without anyone knowing or seeing anything.
This solution provides undetectable communication very cheaply. It's all stored on an SD card. It can be moved from one home to another and it just works when you plug it in... since hidden services are not attached to a specific IP.
And finally, encrypt the whole system using LUKS so if someone steals your computer, the entire drive is encrypted and no data can be retrieved without the (long and random) password. And while your at is, add SSH and use strong keys so that you can administer it from afar, add new users and accounts and also shut it down from a distance at any time you suspect it is in danger of being physically accessed.
If everything I said sounds difficult, I assure you that it can all be done from a script in about 1 hour. And an encrypted backup can be made in about 15 mins.
The reality is that you are insecure because you are scared it will be too difficult and you are encourage to feel this way by those who profit from your insecurities.
Yes yes. You got it right. Anyone who contradicts you doesn't not understand the article.
If that's the goal then decentralized messaging is possible (theoretically). But then you're looking at a sparsesness of nodes problem because most people won't care about that internet enough to join.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."