Slashdot Mirror
How DIY Rebels Are Working To Replace Tech Giants (theguardian.com)
mspohr shares an excerpt from an "interesting article about groups working to make a safer internet": Balkan and Kalbag form one small part of a fragmented rebellion whose prime movers tend to be located a long way from Silicon Valley. These people often talk in withering terms about Big Tech titans such as Mark Zuckerberg, and pay glowing tribute to Edward Snowden. Their politics vary, but they all have a deep dislike of large concentrations of power and a belief in the kind of egalitarian, pluralistic ideas they say the internet initially embodied. What they are doing could be seen as the online world's equivalent of punk rock: a scattered revolt against an industry that many now think has grown greedy, intrusive and arrogant -- as well as governments whose surveillance programs have fueled the same anxieties. As concerns grow about an online realm dominated by a few huge corporations, everyone involved shares one common goal: a comprehensively decentralized internet. Balkan energetically travels the world, delivering TED-esque talks with such titles as "Free is a Lie" and "Avoiding Digital Feudalism."
[David Irvine, computer engineer and founder of MaidSafe, has devised an alternative to the "modern internet" he calls the Safe network]: the acronym stands for "Safe Access for Everyone." In this model, rather than being stored on distant servers, people's data -- files, documents, social-media interactions -- will be broken into fragments, encrypted and scattered around other people's computers and smartphones, meaning that hacking and data theft will become impossible. Thanks to a system of self-authentication in which a Safe user's encrypted information would only be put back together and unlocked on their own devices, there will be no centrally held passwords. No one will leave data trails, so there will be nothing for big online companies to harvest. The financial lubricant, Irvine says, will be a cryptocurrency called Safecoin: users will pay to store data on the network, and also be rewarded for storing other people's (encrypted) information on their devices. Software developers, meanwhile, will be rewarded with Safecoin according to the popularity of their apps. There is a community of around 7,000 interested people already working on services that will work on the Safe network, including alternatives to platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
[David Irvine, computer engineer and founder of MaidSafe, has devised an alternative to the "modern internet" he calls the Safe network]: the acronym stands for "Safe Access for Everyone." In this model, rather than being stored on distant servers, people's data -- files, documents, social-media interactions -- will be broken into fragments, encrypted and scattered around other people's computers and smartphones, meaning that hacking and data theft will become impossible. Thanks to a system of self-authentication in which a Safe user's encrypted information would only be put back together and unlocked on their own devices, there will be no centrally held passwords. No one will leave data trails, so there will be nothing for big online companies to harvest. The financial lubricant, Irvine says, will be a cryptocurrency called Safecoin: users will pay to store data on the network, and also be rewarded for storing other people's (encrypted) information on their devices. Software developers, meanwhile, will be rewarded with Safecoin according to the popularity of their apps. There is a community of around 7,000 interested people already working on services that will work on the Safe network, including alternatives to platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.
If they do succeed it just means they'll live long enough to become the bad guys themselves. Remember back when Jobs and Woz were starting Apple and acted much the same idealistic way or Google's early mantra of "don't be evil". Not every company or its founders start out as a complete dick bags, but most of those who become wildly successful turn into them.
They will bring exactly the same thing to the game as the current tech giants did, when the replaced the previous tech giants, as in the future when the new tech giants who replaced the current tech giants are replaced by future tech giants. Tech giants has much more to do with marketing and public relations than it has to do with reality. They way they crap on about corporations of what ever ilk, is just ludicrous. The only reason it is so loud, is because their customer service is so bad. Seriously I wonder if one day they will wake up an realise that good customer service is cheaper than advertising and far more profitable. I know that wont show up in some psychopath douche bags spreadsheet, as they try to pump up the bonus by saving money cutting service and support but it's a lie and advertising to hide shite service and support is far more expensive than providing service and support, which in reality provides free sales staff for life.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The trend since the early 2000s has been client server because VC backed companies couldn't monetize email. So instead of having an open protocol blogging system (RSS), or open protocol instant messenger (XMPP), we get Facebook and Twitter owning 90+% of the market.
Just promote protocols instead of websites and this will sort itself out.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."