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Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

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Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#91

Post by phkahler »

Verifiable identity. We need to be able to verify the source of all data on the network, even if that's just proving the source IP address, or better yet the physical location it came from. People often argue that anonymity by default is a good thing, but I argue that trust of origin by default is better.

You can still strip identification for things like posting in public forums, but for everything else knowing where shit came from is critical. From spam email to well everything. It baffles me that spoofing callerID is not only possible but that some people think its important.

Along these lines I have a pet idea that a subset of IPv6 be geo-located, meaning your latitude, longitude, and possibly altitude are encoded in the IP address. This allows routing without the huge tables in the routers. Combined with the ability to verify that a packet came from its advertised location this is very powerful for security.

One way to verify the origin of data (email for example) is not to send it, but to send something akin to a URL (preferably better than that) so we have to at least be able to request the data from somewhere rather than have it sent to us anonymously.

Unfortunately being able to verify the source of data also enables end-to-end encryption fairly easily and nobody in power wants the public to anything like that...

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#92

Post by muxxa »

Decentralisation in that you'd preferentially download 'web' content via your friends. Every house has an always-on server and networking hardware to enable selected local connections (long range WiFi?) across town with no reliance on an ISP. Think Wikipedia content living in tens of millions of locations around the world, with updates being pushed out with versioning and flagging if your extended network lacks consensus on a change.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#93

Post by tpmx »

onion2k wrote: post #90

I'd make payments a prominent, application-native, easy to use feature from Day 1, right down in the network protocol level. 100% of the transaction would be transferred from the user to the service owner without a middle-man service taking a cut (payment gateway fees not withstanding). That way there wouldn't be any need to rely on advertising, app stores, or external subscriptions to run something on the internet.

Observation: That's how https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel flourished and then stagnated and ultimately died when facing competition from the more "free" Internet. (Still upvoted you.)

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#94

Post by bob1029 »

swiley wrote: post #73

We already have IPv6. The only things broken on the internet are smartphones and closed IoT firmware.

>We already have IPv6

I feel like starting with IPv6 would make a dramatic difference in adoption rates today... I.e. IPv4 never gets created. Imagine a world without a single NAT device or port translation algorithm.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#95

Post by fragmede »

phkahler wrote: post #91

Verifiable identity. We need to be able to verify the source of all data on the network, even if that's just proving the source IP address, or better yet the physical location it came from. People often argue that anonymity by default is a good thing, but I argue that trust of origin by default is better. You can still strip identification for things like posting in public forums, but for everything else knowing wher…

Facebook verifies identities, yet it's still a cesspool of hate in some corners, so it might help, but it's no panacea.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#96

Post by onion2k »

tpmx wrote: post #93
onion2k wrote: post #90

I'd make payments a prominent, application-native, easy to use feature from Day 1, right down in the network protocol level. 100% of the transaction would be transferred from the user to the service owner without a middle-man service taking a cut (payment gateway fees not withstanding). That way there wouldn't be any need to rely on advertising, app stores, or external subscriptions to run something on the internet.

Observation: That's how https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel flourished and then stagnated and ultimately died when facing competition from the more "free" Internet. (Still upvoted you.)

Today I learned. That sounds like a good system. It's a shame it didn't lead to a more payments-oriented internet.

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#99

Post by rpmisms »

phkahler wrote: post #91

Verifiable identity. We need to be able to verify the source of all data on the network, even if that's just proving the source IP address, or better yet the physical location it came from. People often argue that anonymity by default is a good thing, but I argue that trust of origin by default is better. You can still strip identification for things like posting in public forums, but for everything else knowing wher…

Not necessarily as an enforced standard, but normalizing sharing your identity online earlier on might have changed some of the formational culture of the Internet. The Internet was also a dangerous place, and still is, so perhaps this is not the best idea

Re: Ask HN: You have one shot to redesign the Internet – what do you change?

#100

Post by nonameiguess »

abecedarius wrote: post #4

The most basic problems seem to be: 1. Everything being 'free' by default drives us to ad-supported centralized services. Economics aren't a separable concern. 2. Too few IP addresses. (At least one of the pioneers, I forget which, said he pushed for longer addresses but was overruled. So the technical constraints probably did not force this.) I'm not sure how to fix #1, but here's an approach from the 90s: https://c…

I think this is a problem with the World Wide Web, not the Internet. At the network level, per-user cost accounting and quality of service is implemented quite well, to the point of being able to pay per byte if you really want to. And access to any network beyond your own LAN is not free.

The problem of how to fund actual web application development is not much different from the problem of how to fund media development in general. Newspapers, television, and magazines alike long ago settled on some mix of premium-tier subscription services augmenting a more open, ad-funded free tier.

This is so much more of an issue today than 30 years ago not because of anything specifically about ads to fund media, but because ad profitably has been driven sky-high by individual consumer profiling that relies upon privacy invasion and surveillance of your customers. Ads back in the day would improve via voluntary focus groups and that was fine. Today, they improve by tracking every digital action a person ever takes in order to more accurately correlate interacting with an ad with making a future purchase. Volunteers for focus groups are pretty much okay with giving their opinions in return for cash. Every person on the planet is not nearly as okay with having every digital action they ever take recorded and analyzed.

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