Net Neutrality Ruling, Internet Interprets Censorship as Damage, There are no Captains, Decentralize Everything, etc.
Hello, As you are probably aware, there has been a net neutrality ruling from US courts and it essentially kills net neutrality. Reference (this is just one of many news outlets announcing this) http://gigaom.com/2014/01/14/breaking-court-strikes-down-fccs-net-neutrality... This is surely no new concept to anyone on this list (the concept that we can't rely upon laws, need to use technical solutions to bypass what passes for government/corporation-state, etc.) but I have to say this net neutrality calls into stark contrast what we are doing with what we could be doing. And by we, I mean anyone using the internet. Many people use AT&T, or Verizon. Many people use Google and Facebook. Or Weibo. Or VK. Or... you get the picture. But rather than harp about any one company (or licensing approach, or ruling, etc) I want to emphasize decentralized systems beyond what many are accustomed to hearing about / using. When people hear "open source" or "p2p" they might think of Ubuntu, or Android (regarding open source OSs) or Bittorrent, or Piratebay (in terms of things that come to mind if an ordinary human is asked what do they thing of as an example of P2P or F2F tech). Given the news about Bitcoin it's a sure bet at least some people if asked on the street might also say 'Bitcoin' (or alternately, "what's P2P?" or "Software!") So you'll get a lot of responses and responses will vary substantially, but this is my sense based on talking to people I know around my (rather small) town. But how often do you hear people talking about what is needed to literally Decentralize Everything? Well, except for posts occasionally on lists like these, or meetings / discussions with like-minded people, or hackerspaces, or development discussions, the answer is Almost Never. Anyway, this recent ruling announcement re. net neutrality (or its death) here in the USA is just one more example of how we cannot rely upon laws, at least in my view. But it also made me think some more about this and realize that if we want decentralized protocols / solutions to spread at all, we have to do a way better job at being good advocates for them and talking about them incessantly to everyone in a way that is easy, simple, and makes sense to people. As this post already exhibits I can be very wordy and windbaggish. Further evidence of that fact is presented amply in my recent post here: https://odinn.cyberguerrilla.org/index.php/2014/01/02/opensourcebuildguide/ As I reflect on this I think about the following. 1) I need to make something shorter that easily introduces people to open source stuff. Something that's even simpler than prism-break (http://prism-break.org/) - an option which is so simple that anyone (at least in primary school levels) can understand it and act on things presented in it within less than a minute. Look. Software. Click (one click, two max!) to get it. Done. 2) What are some ways to Decentralize Everything? To the DNS and beyond? Stuff that comes to mind (remember, there is no one thing, there are no captains, there is no one solution, these are just examples of possible partial solutions being thrown out here): 2)a. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/ 2)b. https://github.com/namecoin 2)c. https://nameid.org/ 2)d. concepts like this http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-plans-to-beat-censorship-for-good... 2)e. Convergence for namecoin https://github.com/JeremyRand/Convergence/tree/namecoin 2)f. Convergence (a different one) https://github.com/moxie0/Convergence 2)g. Tack.io - for pinning (it's my understading that moxie0 prefers this direction, but I haven't been tracking it closely enough to say what is going on with it right now) --> http://tack.io/ 2)g.1. See also the Tack internet draft(!) at http://tack.io/draft.html 2)g.2. See also reference TACK implementations https://github.com/tack So... As I read through this, and similar stuff, I think to myself, something about this needs to be broadcast in a way that it is so easy to do, so simple to accept, that it meets the "everybody sees it (or it's in the news) and they click and download it" I know it's never really that simple. But I am throwing this out there because even more censorship is coming. And there are no captains, and we do need to decentralize everything. We must get A Lot more people on board with decentralization, open source, and as close to p2p as possible, we need to make it so easy to defeat censorship of anything that those who propose allowing it to happen will just throw up their hands in frustration. So the question (one of many!) is how to present this in a way that makes sense to a lot of people. A lot more than currently. OK I am done for now. your thoughts please
Hi there, Dnia wtorek, 14 stycznia 2014 11:28:08 Odinn Cyberguerrilla pisze:
(...) But how often do you hear people talking about what is needed to literally Decentralize Everything?
Well, except for posts occasionally on lists like these, or meetings / discussions with like-minded people, or hackerspaces, or development discussions, the answer is Almost Never.
Yes, because people do not understand why it is important. And it is not limited to the (let's call it) "digital domain", look what's happening in retail. Just try *not* buying Unilever, for example...
Anyway, this recent ruling announcement re. net neutrality (or its death) here in the USA is just one more example of how we cannot rely upon laws, at least in my view. But it also made me think some more about this and realize that if we want decentralized protocols / solutions to spread at all, we have to do a way better job at being good advocates for them and talking about them incessantly to everyone in a way that is easy, simple, and makes sense to people.
We need more than that. We need to understand -- yes, us, the tech community -- that for people to use decentralised services, these services must, absolutely must!, be compatible and interoperable. Case in point: you can talk till you're blue in the mouth about federated social web, but even once you get a person convinced to ditch Facebook for it, you get The Question -- "So, which one should I use? Diaspora? Friendica? StatusNet? Pump.io?" The proper answer, the answer we *have to* be able to give, is: "use any of these, they talk to each other". This is, sadly, not the case. The Not Invented Here syndrome is killing us. Look at what moving identi.ca from StatusNet to pump.io did to the federated microblogging community...
As this post already exhibits I can be very wordy and windbaggish. Further evidence of that fact is presented amply in my recent post here: https://odinn.cyberguerrilla.org/index.php/2014/01/02/opensourcebuildguide/
As I reflect on this I think about the following.
1) I need to make something shorter that easily introduces people to open source stuff. Something that's even simpler than prism-break (http://prism-break.org/) - an option which is so simple that anyone (at least in primary school levels) can understand it and act on things presented in it within less than a minute. Look. Software. Click (one click, two max!) to get it. Done.
2) What are some ways to Decentralize Everything? To the DNS and beyond? Stuff that comes to mind (remember, there is no one thing, there are no captains, there is no one solution, these are just examples of possible partial solutions being thrown out here): 2)a. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/ 2)b. https://github.com/namecoin 2)c. https://nameid.org/ 2)d. concepts like this http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-plans-to-beat-censorship-for-good -140105/ 2)e. Convergence for namecoin https://github.com/JeremyRand/Convergence/tree/namecoin 2)f. Convergence (a different one) https://github.com/moxie0/Convergence 2)g. Tack.io - for pinning (it's my understading that moxie0 prefers this direction, but I haven't been tracking it closely enough to say what is going on with it right now) --> http://tack.io/ 2)g.1. See also the Tack internet draft(!) at http://tack.io/draft.html 2)g.2. See also reference TACK implementations https://github.com/tack
So...
As I read through this, and similar stuff, I think to myself, something about this needs to be broadcast in a way that it is so easy to do, so simple to accept, that it meets the "everybody sees it (or it's in the news) and they click and download it"
I know it's never really that simple. But I am throwing this out there because even more censorship is coming. And there are no captains, and we do need to decentralize everything. We must get A Lot more people on board with decentralization, open source, and as close to p2p as possible, we need to make it so easy to defeat censorship of anything that those who propose allowing it to happen will just throw up their hands in frustration. So the question (one of many!) is how to present this in a way that makes sense to a lot of people.
A lot more than currently.
OK I am done for now.
your thoughts please
Consider one idea for getting people to use decentralised social networks instead of failbook: http://rys.io/en/88 -- Pozdr rysiek
decentralization is (imho) a very poor characterization - what is wanted is target diffusion. in California-speak, “It’s all about me!” I could care less if my access to AT&T, Twitter, etc. are broken, I DON’T use them - I do have some folks hanging off AT&T that I do care about so access to them is important. To borrow from the subject line - there are -millions- of Captains /bill Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet. On 14January2014Tuesday, at 11:48, rysiek <rysiek@hackerspace.pl> wrote:
Hi there,
Dnia wtorek, 14 stycznia 2014 11:28:08 Odinn Cyberguerrilla pisze:
(...) But how often do you hear people talking about what is needed to literally Decentralize Everything?
Well, except for posts occasionally on lists like these, or meetings / discussions with like-minded people, or hackerspaces, or development discussions, the answer is Almost Never.
Yes, because people do not understand why it is important. And it is not limited to the (let's call it) "digital domain", look what's happening in retail. Just try *not* buying Unilever, for example...
Anyway, this recent ruling announcement re. net neutrality (or its death) here in the USA is just one more example of how we cannot rely upon laws, at least in my view. But it also made me think some more about this and realize that if we want decentralized protocols / solutions to spread at all, we have to do a way better job at being good advocates for them and talking about them incessantly to everyone in a way that is easy, simple, and makes sense to people.
We need more than that. We need to understand -- yes, us, the tech community -- that for people to use decentralised services, these services must, absolutely must!, be compatible and interoperable.
Case in point: you can talk till you're blue in the mouth about federated social web, but even once you get a person convinced to ditch Facebook for it, you get The Question -- "So, which one should I use? Diaspora? Friendica? StatusNet? Pump.io?"
The proper answer, the answer we *have to* be able to give, is: "use any of these, they talk to each other".
This is, sadly, not the case. The Not Invented Here syndrome is killing us. Look at what moving identi.ca from StatusNet to pump.io did to the federated microblogging community...
As this post already exhibits I can be very wordy and windbaggish. Further evidence of that fact is presented amply in my recent post here: https://odinn.cyberguerrilla.org/index.php/2014/01/02/opensourcebuildguide/
As I reflect on this I think about the following.
1) I need to make something shorter that easily introduces people to open source stuff. Something that's even simpler than prism-break (http://prism-break.org/) - an option which is so simple that anyone (at least in primary school levels) can understand it and act on things presented in it within less than a minute. Look. Software. Click (one click, two max!) to get it. Done.
2) What are some ways to Decentralize Everything? To the DNS and beyond? Stuff that comes to mind (remember, there is no one thing, there are no captains, there is no one solution, these are just examples of possible partial solutions being thrown out here): 2)a. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/ 2)b. https://github.com/namecoin 2)c. https://nameid.org/ 2)d. concepts like this http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-plans-to-beat-censorship-for-good -140105/ 2)e. Convergence for namecoin https://github.com/JeremyRand/Convergence/tree/namecoin 2)f. Convergence (a different one) https://github.com/moxie0/Convergence 2)g. Tack.io - for pinning (it's my understading that moxie0 prefers this direction, but I haven't been tracking it closely enough to say what is going on with it right now) --> http://tack.io/ 2)g.1. See also the Tack internet draft(!) at http://tack.io/draft.html 2)g.2. See also reference TACK implementations https://github.com/tack
So...
As I read through this, and similar stuff, I think to myself, something about this needs to be broadcast in a way that it is so easy to do, so simple to accept, that it meets the "everybody sees it (or it's in the news) and they click and download it"
I know it's never really that simple. But I am throwing this out there because even more censorship is coming. And there are no captains, and we do need to decentralize everything. We must get A Lot more people on board with decentralization, open source, and as close to p2p as possible, we need to make it so easy to defeat censorship of anything that those who propose allowing it to happen will just throw up their hands in frustration. So the question (one of many!) is how to present this in a way that makes sense to a lot of people.
A lot more than currently.
OK I am done for now.
your thoughts please
Consider one idea for getting people to use decentralised social networks instead of failbook: http://rys.io/en/88
-- Pozdr rysiek
Also, Dnia wtorek, 14 stycznia 2014 11:28:08 Odinn Cyberguerrilla pisze:
But how often do you hear people talking about what is needed to literally Decentralize Everything?
(...)
2) What are some ways to Decentralize Everything?
(...)
2)a. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/ 2)b. https://github.com/namecoin (...) https://github.com/JeremyRand/Convergence/tree/namecoin 2)f. Convergence (a different one) https://github.com/moxie0/Convergence (...) 2)g.2. See also reference TACK implementations https://github.com/tack
We're trying to "decentralize everything" and yet we're using centralized GitHub for everything. inb4 "nah, it's fine, git lets me keep my repo at home, it's not that bad" - Let's ask ourselves if we can delete our GitHub accounts, right now, today. If not, QED. -- Pozdr rysiek
participants (3)
-
manning bill -
Odinn Cyberguerrilla -
rysiek