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Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

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Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two pieces of (coming soon) good news: - very soon, you wont need to install anything to use IPFS. it will "just work" with js on today's browsers. - for best perf, yes, we need browser implementations. and... those have begun :)

OK, as apparently .js is the defacto thing to build cool sites, I for one will be left out here. On sites not known to me, I typically block most (read all) .js at first, just to make sure that these sites do not leak too much information about me to external tracking tools, advertisers or the like. So using .js seems to me a bit problematic in regards of people not enabling it by default (but this is an absolut mino…

Well, I think you can install something to use it without js, and they were just saying js would be for if someone wished to use it by simply using a webpage, with no install?

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#92

We've been thinking about this problem for quite some time. My friends and I are passionate about re-decentralizing the web. The biggest challenge we've come across is this: Many users want to do things with other users That means there has to be a way to persist state and history (of a group activity, an evolving resource, etc.) across machines. Mental poker is still very hard to do for groups. Since most clients wi…

Couldn't you do group editing through using lisp inspired link lists? See a comment thread? CONS your comment onto the end of the comment thread and push into the ether, and notify about the new list head.

Take other patterns from clojure immutable data structures for various other kinds of group edited time travelling sites

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#94

Reading this felt kind of like the first time I read a writeup on Bitcoin. There's the same sense of throwing out some old, formerly immutable rules here, the excitement of something that's going to test some boundaries and inevitably clash with some authority (how can you, for instance, comply with the EU's "right to be forgotten" when that information is scattered into a redundant mesh?). Interesting times ahead fo…

Right to be forgotten however applies only to search engines right now, doesn't it? The articles the results used to point to still exist. So a redundant mesh itself doesn't seem to apply here.

The "right to be forgotten" applies to any information service, not just search engines. However, search engines are often easier legal targets since they do business in the EU and thus can be made subject to EU law. If I have no business in the EU, and post my website on a non-EU hosting provider, EU law can demand I take down a page but has no jurisdiction to force me or force my provider. But e.g. Google, since they do business in many EU member states (primarily sell advertising), if they disobey EU law, EU governments/courts can take legal action against them (e.g. confiscate their EU advertising revenue).

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#95

Reading this felt kind of like the first time I read a writeup on Bitcoin. There's the same sense of throwing out some old, formerly immutable rules here, the excitement of something that's going to test some boundaries and inevitably clash with some authority (how can you, for instance, comply with the EU's "right to be forgotten" when that information is scattered into a redundant mesh?). Interesting times ahead fo…

Isn't the right to be forgotten something, that esp. relates to search engines? They (esp. Google) have to delete the links to this content, but the content can stay on the web forever. So this isn't per se a problem. But what happens, when I act as a "mirror" in this net and have mirrored some questionable content (who ever might define questionable is up to anybody to imagine). Will I get a shake down from the auth…

I don't believe that law should be shaped by technology in principle. It should be shaped by what the majority think is right for society.

But the right to be forgotten is a flawed concept to me, and I think any tech that makes its implementation more problematic will do us a favour.

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook's design is inherently centralized Not really. There's no reason you couldn't implement Facebook's core functionality with personal servers containing a profile at each node and a pub/sub (or even just pull) system connecting each node with its friends.

So, diaspora*? https://diasporafoundation.org/ Unfortunately it never really caught on.

Yes, I believe diaspora was a social network of this sort. But it's just one example, and not an indictment of decentralized social networking in general. Your address book + SMTP is a decentralized social network that caught on just fine. The only difference is that it was designed and built before corporate interests were the driving forces behind new standards (or lack thereof).

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#97
Just reading back though the specification of IPFS, be wary about the claims of 'permanent Web'.

Distributed content in IPFS is eventually purged from nodes unless one of the hosting nodes has pinned it to be retained. Therefore, if no-one at Time x views certain content and pins it, then unfortunately at Time x + n that content might disappear just as thoroughly as under HTTP.

Unfortunately I fear that means that 'popular' content persists whilst niche and unique data might still fade away.

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#98
This reminds me of a feature I sorely miss on my blog (and almost every other blog I visit!) which is for the blogging engine to automatically take a snap-shop of webpages you link to and let users read the cached version at will.

If I link to a page and it goes down, or the content changes, it in a way changes the content of my blog too - in an unwanted way that is!

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right to be forgotten however applies only to search engines right now, doesn't it? The articles the results used to point to still exist. So a redundant mesh itself doesn't seem to apply here.

The "right to be forgotten" applies to any information service, not just search engines. However, search engines are often easier legal targets since they do business in the EU and thus can be made subject to EU law. If I have no business in the EU, and post my website on a non-EU hosting provider, EU law can demand I take down a page but has no jurisdiction to force me or force my provider. But e.g. Google, since th…

As far as I'm aware that's simply not true. See http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/files/factsheets...

Furthermore the right to be forgotten only mandates hiding results when someone searches specifically for a name, for example. The results are still allowed to come up for unrelated search terms.

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#100

Just reading back though the specification of IPFS, be wary about the claims of 'permanent Web'. Distributed content in IPFS is eventually purged from nodes unless one of the hosting nodes has pinned it to be retained. Therefore, if no-one at Time x views certain content and pins it, then unfortunately at Time x + n that content might disappear just as thoroughly as under HTTP. Unfortunately I fear that means that 'p…

The idea is that people who care most about keeping it up will pin it, or pay to keep it pinned.
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