If You Can Decentralize the Internet, Mozilla Has $2 Million For You (cnet.com)

Mozilla and the National Science Foundation want a new internet. And they want it to be free and accessible for everybody. From a report: They'll pay $2 million for it. On Wednesday, the two organizations issued a call to action for "big ideas that decentralize the web" as part of the "Wireless Innovation for a Networked Society" challenges. The challenges include getting the internet to communities off the grid, with proposals like a backpack with a computer and Wi-Fi router inside.

Comments

THIS IS THE WAY THE INTERNET WAS DESIGNED!

[FrankHaynes]

The Internet was designed to be distributed so that it had no central point of attack/vulnerability. Was NOBODY paying attention for the last 20 years while money-grubbing businesses jockeyed for control, thus creating the very problem that it was designed to circumvent??!!

HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE??!!

Re:THIS IS THE WAY THE INTERNET WAS DESIGNED!

[SuricouRaven]

Different operators, different requirements. For the military, decentralisation and redundancy was a core goal - they needed a network that would continue to function even if large parts of it were being bombed. But a commercial operator just doesn't have that requirement, and is more concerned about cost.

Its the DNS system and the SSL racket

[sg_oneill]

If they want to decentralize the web, DNS and the SSL racket has to change. Domains have been completely compromised by both business interests, particularly the .com domains which have been squatted to hell and back, and government interests that can take away those names just because your politically inconvenient (See: Torrent sites).. And the SSL racket has to go, why the hell should we have to pay huge sums of cash to companys that *clearly* can not guarantee the integrity of the trust chain for certificates and have let us down again and again.

To my thinking, whatever must come next must be decentralized and let *US* choose who we trust and who we don't, both for domains, and for encryption.

Re:Yea.... Nope.

[Powys]

The problem with this mentality is it defeats the entire purpose of decentralization and non-censorship. If you want a fully free and uncensored internet, you will always have to put up with sites/opinions/ideas you don't like. That is part of FULLY free speech. The left and the right both cry foul about censorship when their ideas are being squashed, but are very will to squash others ideas they don't agree with. If you want an open internet, you get 4chan (and worse) in the mix.

Re:RTFA: the title is misleading

[Kjella]

Mozilla isn't trying to decentralize the internet. The challenge with the money involved is either to deploy access to places that have none OR deploy BETTER access to places that have lousy access.

I never understood these types of projects that are trying to create a super-low cost alternative in an established market they have no clue about and have no intention of becoming a commercial player in. Whether it's to build a $100 laptop (hello OLPC), $10 tablet (hello Aakash), $3 smartphone (hello Freedom 251), deliver Internet with donkeys or some other flop/scam. Usually they start with some hilariously optimistic plan that a billion people need their product, do cost estimates based on the sum of the BoM and burn ridiculous amounts of investor/charity/government money re-discovering that industrial design, mass production, QA, distribution and support is not free. Meanwhile the traditional players operate on fairly razor-thin margins knowing that if you get them hooked on your brand there's a good chance you'll buy another, more profitable model if you get more money so if the project was feasible they steal your market and if it wasn't you're never able to deliver.

My guess is that whoever wins this will create a boondoggle of a solution for a thousand people that in a few years will be replaced by another 100 million people getting electricity, cellphones and mobile internet. Or at the very least a satellite uplink for the village/island driven by generator/battery. Maybe Mozilla should get back to producing some software people want to use, once they get online? Just saying that despite the goals seeming noble, this is pretty much pissing away money in the wind.