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Principles of a Decentralized Web

nicola.io

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Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#11

Post by narrowrail »

seagreen wrote: post #8

Does the web here mean a network of hyperlinked documents, does it mean HTTP, or does it mean "browser stuff"? Personally, I think we should retire the idea of The Decentralized Web. It doesn't help clear thinking. BitTorrent is one of the most successful decentralization stories out there right now, but it's 0% part of "The Decentralized Web".

I think most people on HN think of the web as ports 80/443, and bittorrent doesn't operate on those ports. The internet is the superset, the web is the subset.

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#12

Post by bbcbasic »

draaglom wrote: post #7
jessaustin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the web is to be decentralized in the same way that the internet is decentralized, it will be much better if it's never "designed" at all. If your app wants to talk to my host, cool. If it doesn't, that's cool too.

But you still need a protocol for the app and the host to talk to each other - and that needs designing. And you need a way for the app to find the host; that needs to be designed too.

Namecoin & TOR?

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#13

Post by seagreen »

narrowrail wrote: post #11
seagreen wrote: post #8

Does the web here mean a network of hyperlinked documents, does it mean HTTP, or does it mean "browser stuff"? Personally, I think we should retire the idea of The Decentralized Web. It doesn't help clear thinking. BitTorrent is one of the most successful decentralization stories out there right now, but it's 0% part of "The Decentralized Web".

I think most people on HN think of the web as ports 80/443, and bittorrent doesn't operate on those ports. The internet is the superset, the web is the subset.

I totally agree -- and not just on HN -- everywhere. Now let's update that title:

" The Principles of a Decentralized Port 80/443 Ecosystem "

Personally, I don't think it survives the update well:(

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#14

Post by viraptor »

bbcbasic wrote: post #12
draaglom wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you still need a protocol for the app and the host to talk to each other - and that needs designing. And you need a way for the app to find the host; that needs to be designed too.

Namecoin & TOR?

So you agree in a thread which started from "one Harvard/MIT person doesn't get to design it" by listing two technologies:

- one coming from bitcoin which was supposedly mostly designed by one anonymous person

- one designed in US government sponsored project for use by intelligence agencies and later improved by DARPA

What's the point you're trying to make?

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#15

Post by treelovinhippie »

The TCP/IP equivalent layer: https://ethereum.org

The WWW/browser equivalent layer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgNjs_WaFSc

Done. *at least as an awesome starting point. The easier it is for developers to build on the platform and the more network benefits/incentives that arise, the more high utility Dapps will be deployed, the more likely Chrome/Firefox/IE will integrate seamless DNS/pointers to the Ethereum platform. The web will become decentralized by default and the average user won't even notice.

And I mean "platform" in the sense here of a distributed blockchain or lower-stack layer, not some corporate-owned data silo built on proprietary API endpoints and protocols.

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#16

Post by astazangasta »

bobajeff wrote: post #2

I don't think control of data, user or otherwise, is an inherent part of decentralisation. If fact it may be the opposite. So as a principle for a Decentralised Web its a contradiction. Maybe it works as a part of a more broad set of principles (eg. a Healthy Web).

Can you expound? Why is user control if data the opposite? To me this seems in keeping with the basic principles of decentralization of power, that I should have autonomy over my own domain.

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#17

Post by allemagne »

I think all three of these principles are important but miss an obvious one that should come first. A decentralized web should have decentralization as its central principle.

If we're talking about our ideal pie-in-the-sky protocol (where people have total control over their data) then let's dream big. Web hosting should be completely decentralized. DDOS attacks should become infeasible because there are no dedicated servers to target and web services should already scale directly in proportion to usage. Entities should receive incentives for participating in the protocol, but have no feasible way of negatively affecting others no matter how much relative computing power they control in the network.

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#18

Post by logn »

treelovinhippie wrote: post #15

The TCP/IP equivalent layer: https://ethereum.org The WWW/browser equivalent layer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgNjs_WaFSc Done. *at least as an awesome starting point. The easier it is for developers to build on the platform and the more network benefits/incentives that arise, the more high utility Dapps will be deployed, the more likely Chrome/Firefox/IE will integrate seamless DNS/pointers to the Ethereum pla…

I'm excited by Ethereum. It definitely is interesting to think about distributed computation like that. However, doing it on a blockchain, along with data storage might prove to be prohibitively expensive for various types of apps. UBS is looking at Ethereum to do a bond market. I imagine that's an appropriate use of the technology.

But with apps I personally want to make, I'm more interested in MaidSafe Network. It's basically a distributed data storage network, fast enough that it's good for communication/message passing in apps.

MaidSafe got me interested in making apps for it that are pure client-side JS, with the intention of them being served from the distributed storage. While I dislike running JS in the browser, I will support it when it means there's no server. For now, my intention is to write apps using the Elm language.

Other interesting work continues to be done in Tahoe-LAFS, I2P, and Freenet. There's also IPFS. I'm looking forward to the future of this tech!

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#19

Post by zkhalique »

allemagne wrote: post #17

I think all three of these principles are important but miss an obvious one that should come first. A decentralized web should have decentralization as its central principle. If we're talking about our ideal pie-in-the-sky protocol (where people have total control over their data) then let's dream big. Web hosting should be completely decentralized. DDOS attacks should become infeasible because there are no dedicated…

This. Decentralization needs to be the foremost feature of a decentralized system. No single points of failure. Scaling up and down with demand. Resilience and choice for everybody.

Money has been decentralized.

Social networking hasn't, yet.

Security hasn't, not really. Have you installed the latest SquirrelMail patches yet? You probably use GMail so you don't have to worry about it.

Re: Principles of a Decentralized Web

#20

Post by nicolagreco »

treelovinhippie wrote: post #15

The TCP/IP equivalent layer: https://ethereum.org The WWW/browser equivalent layer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgNjs_WaFSc Done. *at least as an awesome starting point. The easier it is for developers to build on the platform and the more network benefits/incentives that arise, the more high utility Dapps will be deployed, the more likely Chrome/Firefox/IE will integrate seamless DNS/pointers to the Ethereum pla…

Thanks a lot for sharing your point, I am a strong supporter of ethereum too.
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