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Can Mesh Networks Save a Dying Web? (thenextweb.com)
From an anonymous reader:
"The web is dying, but mesh networks could save it," writes open source hacker Andre Staltz. He warns that Facebook, Google, and Amazon plan to "grow beyond browsers, creating new virtual contexts where data is created and shared," and predicts the next wave of walled gardens will be a "social internet" bypassing the web altogether. "The Web may die like most other technologies do, simply by becoming less attractive than newer technologies."
He wants to build a mobile mesh web that works with or without internet access to reach the four billion people currently offline, adding that all the tools we need are already in our hands: smartphones, peer-to-peer protocols, and mesh networks. His vision? "Novel peer-to-peer protocols such as IPFS and Dat help replace HTTP and make the web a content-centered cyberspace... Browsers can be made to work like that, and although it's a small tweak to how the web works, it has massive effects on social structures in cyberspace... Now that we have experience with some of the intricacies of the social web, we can reinvent it to put people first without intermediate companies... We can actually beat the tech giants at this game by simply giving local and regional connectivity to people in developing countries. With mobile apps that are built mesh-first, the smartphones would make up self-organizing self-healing mobile ad-hoc networks... In internet-less regions, there is potential for scaling quickly, and through that, we can spawn a new industry around peer-to-peer wireless mesh networks."
He cites mega-projects "to rescue the web from the internet", which include progress on peer-to-peer and mesh networking protocols, followed by adoption on smartphones (and then a new wave of apps) -- plus a migration of existing web content to the new protocols, "to fix the overutilization of the wirenet and the underutilization of airnets, bringing balance to the wire-versus-air dichotomy, providing choice in how data should travel in each case...But it can only happen if the web takes a courageous step towards its next level."
He wants to build a mobile mesh web that works with or without internet access to reach the four billion people currently offline, adding that all the tools we need are already in our hands: smartphones, peer-to-peer protocols, and mesh networks. His vision? "Novel peer-to-peer protocols such as IPFS and Dat help replace HTTP and make the web a content-centered cyberspace... Browsers can be made to work like that, and although it's a small tweak to how the web works, it has massive effects on social structures in cyberspace... Now that we have experience with some of the intricacies of the social web, we can reinvent it to put people first without intermediate companies... We can actually beat the tech giants at this game by simply giving local and regional connectivity to people in developing countries. With mobile apps that are built mesh-first, the smartphones would make up self-organizing self-healing mobile ad-hoc networks... In internet-less regions, there is potential for scaling quickly, and through that, we can spawn a new industry around peer-to-peer wireless mesh networks."
He cites mega-projects "to rescue the web from the internet", which include progress on peer-to-peer and mesh networking protocols, followed by adoption on smartphones (and then a new wave of apps) -- plus a migration of existing web content to the new protocols, "to fix the overutilization of the wirenet and the underutilization of airnets, bringing balance to the wire-versus-air dichotomy, providing choice in how data should travel in each case...But it can only happen if the web takes a courageous step towards its next level."
Best that you just accept it and move on.
Wait. WTF? The web is dying???
his dumbass is mixing up layer 2 and layer 7
news for nerds my ass, more like stories from idiot millienials
The promise of the internet: decentralized information.
The reality: 90% of the traffic goes to FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) monopolists.
The only solution: get away from a single source of access, and to one where we can route around the herd and its chosen megacorps.
Alternative Right.
He warns that Facebook, Google, and Amazon plan to "grow beyond browsers ..." ... and predicts the next wave of walled gardens will be a "social internet" bypassing the web altogether.
You know that the Web is more than just social media and online shopping sites - right?
He wants to build a mobile mesh web that works with or without internet access ... He cites mega-projects "to rescue the web from the internet", which include progress on peer-to-peer and mesh networking protocols,
So... using other networks, but not "the internet"? You know that "the internet" is a network of networks, perhaps even different kinds of networks - right?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
For fucks sake, who thinks this is viable? The internet ONLY worked because by the time it reached end users, it cost little time to set up and offered a lot of utility. Meshnets are, from an end-user perspective, far worse.
"How do we save the web from the internet?" The article asks. Well, if you want to save the web from the internet, you have to start with physical infrastructure at near-parity to the current multibillion dollar one. And jerking off to the ideology of decentralisation won't get you there. More, end users won't get you there either, and that's the real problem. In some countries, population is distributed so sparsely that even with massive end user adoption - unlikely, because, again, in the early days of developing infrastructure, meshnets give them fuck and all - that there would be utterly incredible bottlenecking issues.
It's not viable, and the question that it's predicated on isn't even really meaningful, since the web is in the same class as these hypothetical wholly-proprietary walled gardens: a service executed across the internet, and not the internet itself. Nothing that google and facebook do changes the fact that they operate on a layer above the one the author contends is the problem.
In places like Cuba, where you don't have internet all over the place, then it works to have the packets routed through people cell phones or other devices to go out to all.
But don't confuse the base internet pipes with those companies that sit on top of it. The Base Internet is fine.
Old, basic and obviously forgotten.
Can we go back to where it states that the web is dying, I was too busy laughing and lost track of the rest of the post.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
But don't confuse the base internet pipes with those companies that sit on top of it.
Ajit Pai and his FCC voted along party lines to allow ISPs to perform exactly such confusion in the United States.
From the piece of drivel written
In other words, the internet economy simply isn’t ready for a scenario where IPv6 is used everywhere and NAT is abandoned. We are stuck with what we have.
That is exactly the crap I hear that stops IPv6 migration. This person literally is the reason why they are lamenting IPv6's slow adoption. But that said, so we have this technical argument for why the "web" is dying, even though it's an Internet argument. But let's backtrack to this little gem.
The advent of NAT routers also allowed for that intermediate computer to become a guardian and protect other computers from some dangers of the open internet.
If that's what you are doing, you are doing it mostly wrong. That's not a function of NAT, that's a flipping function of *routing*. You can literally have all kinds of globally addressable IP addresses on systems, connect them, and then have 100% of them respond to 0% of the incoming requests. You literally do not need NAT for that and if that's the sole reason you are using NAT (to be more secure), you more than likely shouldn't have your job. That's not saying NAT doesn't have a place or anything, but that is me saying that if your rationale is solely for security, you will find lots of folks that will tell you otherwise. Again, NAT has a place, time, and use, but this person writing the piece is missing every single point of that. Now I know everyone is going to foam or spout with their opinion on NAT, but you have to snap out of it because, remember these are "Internet" issues not "web" issues and as you keep reading, if you aren't keeping that point in your head, you'll just get sucked into this argument of "NAT is awesome v. F*** NAT!" So I digress, let's actually continue.
It also meant that some computers were first-class citizens on the internet, while other computers were subordinates. In addition, the scarcity of IP addresses caused them to be considered valuable assets, and so it became a business opportunity. IP addresses are being sold so that some computers can become first-class citizens on the internet.
I had no actual problem with this point until that last part I highlighted. That's when my brain snapped out of it and was like, "Wait, this has absolutely nothing to do with why Facebook, Google, et al are these massive black holes." This person is literally making this overly complicated, but weak attempt to dumb down an argument about the web, on technical merits that have nothing to do with what reasonable people would call "the web". And that point became even more clear here.
As a consequence, the internet has allowed intermediate computers to rule. These are like parasites that have grown too large to remove without killing the host. The technical flaw that favored intermediate computers prefigured a world where middlemen business models thrive. Google and Facebook connect consumers with advertisement publishers and charge fees for each ad.
Oh Mother of Stars that's eight hundred times pi radians of all kinds of wrong!! IPv4's short comings have **NOTHING** to do with why the big boys on the Internet are who they are. It is at this point your brain should be saying, "This person has about as much clue as to what they are saying as a canine on the ISS has of managing the station." I assure you it does not get better as it goes.
Novel peer-to-peer protocols such as IPFS and Dat help replace HTTP and make the web a content-centered cyberspace. This way the link to an image can be something like QaPdNnDWRLF1b — a so-called hash of the image, summarizing it — instead of mywebsite.com/pic.jpeg so that even if mywebsite.com servers are removed,
Except there is this funny thing called hundreds of vacant square miles between all the Metropolitan Areas with high populations.
So I suppose each big city could have it's 'mesh' and there could be some 'bridges' between each mesh. I'd call that an ISP.
Already has. You can download it now. http://www.servalproject.org/
Set aside some of the ridiculous hyperbole and optimistic technological claims of the article, and look just at the technologies it mentions. Some of them are pretty cool and could have their valued uses. I've praised IPFS many times on this site because it has the potential to distribute static content in a manner that is more affordable, reliable, and bandwidth-efficient than just putting it up on web servers. Throw in a bit of decentralised wireless, and your cellphone data use could plumet - rather than download all those big updates over the cell network, it'll just ask the phone of the person sitting next to you to send them via wlan, and only need to go to the cell network if it can't find a copy in range.
Just don't view distribution as a way to 'replace the internet.' It's a supplement. It can do certain things better.
Has Netcraft confirmed? Or is this just clickbait... yeah, I think it's the latter.
The Web has been dying ever since its inception, one link at a time. The problem with the Web is that the links in it don't point to content, but to locations. So whenever a server goes down, be it temporarily or permanently, the content disappears and the links go dead. Even a bit of renaming on the the server site makes links go dead. That's one of the problems IPFS addresses by making links based on a content hash, not the current storage location.
That issue cascades into a whole lot of other issues and is one of the reasons why Facebook and Co. are so popular, since they can provide a stable content host, something that wouldn't be possible with regular HTTP and everybody renting their own server. With IPFS you can have a stable and self hosted web, since the storage location no longer is the thing that holds the web together.
you don't need an ISP.
That is the problem somewhere you will need something be it your email address or IP there will be some service that you will need and that will need to be paid for.
And therein lies the problem payment if you want it for free then they will give you ads which just plain suck and make the internet suck as to sell ads they will give you the lowest common denominator and those that charge for service have yet to catch on that you need to supply quality
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Yes, yes. There's a reason Ted Nelson's Xanadu idea never panned out.
Whenever someone points out that the web suffers link-rot, they demonstrate that they're not thinking clearly about robustness in large distributed systems.
You don't have the choice between link-rot and utopia. Your choice is between a single centralised point of failure, or many points of 'partial failure'. Thankfully, the web gives us the second option. We even have archive.org to take the edge off. Unfortunately, of course, we now have silos, which take us back to the first option.
That's one of the problems IPFS addresses by making links based on a content hash, not the current storage location.
Eh? So if I make a correction, the address of the resource changes? On the web, you have the choice. e.g. on Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System gives you the latest page, and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=InterPlanetary_File_System&oldid=818883368 will always give you the snapshot from the 6th of January 2018. Similar schemes exist on GitHub and BitBucket.
(Disclaimer: I'm just being snarky and don't really know much about Xanadu, or distributed databases, or IPFS. I'd be glad to be corrected.)
Every time a new class graduates university, a few of them realize there's problems with the way things are and decide they're smart so they'll fix them. That's great, but of course they fail to do the basic work of coming up to speed on all the reasons why it is the way it is.
The internet was already designed as a decentralized network. It's already fundamentally peer-to-peer at its lowest level. It automatically routes around damage.
The fact that companies built centralized services like Facebook and Google on top of them doesn't mean you need to throw away the whole network. Email is federated (you can run your own email server if you want) and worked just fine until Facebook offered everyone the devil's bargain and they mostly all accepted it.
Building a mesh network can't solve this problem. Why can't you build a Facebook on top of a mesh network? Answer: you can.
Facebook and Google are huge because they offer stuff "for free" in exchange for your personal information, which is worth far more to them than they money it costs to run the service. You can go invent a distributed communication and/or social network where it's not supported by selling your data, but then the users will have to pay, and almost nobody will want to pay the few dollars a month it will cost. If most people won't pay, then there won't be enough people on it to be a viable network.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Except there is this funny thing called hundreds of vacant square miles between all the Metropolitan Areas with high populations.
This exactly. I was dealing with some people who were insisting that emergency communications could be solved via mesh networking with F.C.C. Part 15 low power Routers, or if you had an Amateur Radio license, some of the Channels are open to higher powers.
Either way, the things need many individual stations, and since the RF at these frequencies doesn't travel far by design, RF characteristics and power, Those rural and low population areas would have to be literally littered with nodes.
They didn't like it when at best I pointed out that they could at best put up a special mesh in a building or two. Or use the wireless already in the building if it had it. Or even better and faster, run temporary copper.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
"The web is dying, but mesh networks could save it," writes open source hacker Andre Staltz. He warns that Facebook, Google, and Amazon plan to "grow beyond browsers, creating new virtual contexts where data is created and shared," and predicts the next wave of walled gardens will be a "social internet" bypassing the web altogether. "The Web may die like most other technologies do, simply by becoming less attractive than newer technologies."
"The U.S. Postal Service is dying, but mesh postal delivery could save it," writes someone with a fantastic view of his own colon...
"Social postal delivery will bypass the USPS altogether. People will just deliver mail FOR each other, and even though letters may not get to anyone truly rural, or be able to go from one city to another if no one HAPPENS to be going that way, at that time, until someone does, that's a perfectly fine and acceptable replacement for the USPS. Sure, sometimes instead of delivering your mail, the neighbor you're forced to entrust it with might instead open and read it, then laugh about the contents with all his (and your) friends, or maybe just use it for kindling, but hey... we can ALL feel good about STICKING it to the postal service by using these new, amazing social postal delivery systems.
The idea of replacing the internet with "mesh networks" is as laughable as replacing the USPS with a hodgepodge of people carrying each other's mail. Note, not some company offering services IN-PLACE-OF the USPS's, but private individuals. It's a joke, and anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't really thought about it.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?