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A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

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Re: A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

#351
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ISPs don't do that. That's your NAT/firewall. Has anyone ever actually seen an ISP network that filters local traffic to other ISP endpoints? I'm not even sure why they would do that. DDOS almost always targets big things in the cloud so it would not help there. Here (SoCal) traceroute to a host in the same local neighborhood is three hops.

A lot of ISPs have (probably unenforcable) clauses in their ToS saying your can't run services.

This. I am an ISP owner and we block popular ports used to run services by default. 99% doesn't care and their computer gets hacked or they get virus/malware and those malware starts running services and spamming the world and our IPs gets blacklisted (which is a huge headache) and now cloudflare's broken shit ip checker will automatically start blocking ips, and customers will start blaming us for it. Occasionally, 1 or 2 customers will ask to have email server port or web server port to be opened, we usually ask them to sign up for a business contract, which clearly states that you can run this kind of services and you are fully responsible for any negative consequences.

This is not about money. This is just good housekeeping. When I was in NY, I believe they TimeWarner and Verizon (or was it AT&T?) also used to do the same thing.

Re: A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There are perennial claims that consumers don't want privacy" There's perennial evidence that consumers won't act toward privacy except outside of very, narrow constraints. You're analysis of Instagram to Snapchat is correct. Yet, with the carrot of ephemeral messaging, they went to a centralized service who could keep all their stuff to sell to whoever with no security or assurances in the whole process. Similar wi…

No, it's not marketing. That's back to the condescending attitude again. The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc. It does not include governments or the provider of Snapchat itself. Given such a threat model it makes perfect sense to use something like Snapchat - it isn't the result of "marketing" (do services like Instag…

"The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc"

Who were downloading apps that could keep Snapchat pics at the time Snapchat users were telling me they went away and nobody could retrieve them. The Snapchat company could also sell them to the same people. That means, due to no attempts to learn about online privacy, they falsely believed that what the marketing told them was true. Or their friends who spread the same propaganda.

So, let's recap. They had a false belief due to a lack of knowledge of and apathy for the most basic information on digital privacy of the devices they ran their whole lives through. They believed these incorrect things about their own threat model because they listened to a marketing team or their friends' repetition of a marketing team without due diligence. Even mainstream media was posting articles citing security professionals saying its claims were false. Snapchat users were spreading knowledge on Facebook that someone could keep the Snapchats. They still stayed on the bandwagon.

Conclusion: it's entirely accurate, not condescending, to say these people didn't know crap about privacy of the apps they were using and/or were too apathetic to research better options. They continued to do so after lies were revealed since the app was fun and popular. They don't care about privacy in practice.

Meanwhile, easy-to-use, private solutions were available and making the media. Hardly any uptake. Speaks for itself.

Re: A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a side note, Riot is a site with really annoying animation. Whatever else it may be, the animation banner just killed it for me.

In the same vein as this discussion, you can actually set up your own client - and tweak it to suit your needs, such as removing any banners, adjusting style, etc. - and still interact with others via matrix.org protocol.

It was just the website, not their software. The website put me off going any further.

Re: A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

#354
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of ISPs have (probably unenforcable) clauses in their ToS saying your can't run services.

This. I am an ISP owner and we block popular ports used to run services by default. 99% doesn't care and their computer gets hacked or they get virus/malware and those malware starts running services and spamming the world and our IPs gets blacklisted (which is a huge headache) and now cloudflare's broken shit ip checker will automatically start blocking ips, and customers will start blaming us for it. Occasionally,…

Thanks for responding with the ISP's point of view. My frustration came from just wanting to run a small Ghost blog on an odroid with, at most, hundreds of visitors per month, and hearing that this required a business contract. Of course, whether I want to do this for business or pleasure doesn't really matter if you're dealing with malware and being blacklisted.

At one time ISP's gave you a bit of space on a shared host for free as a courtesy, it would be nice if these days you could get the equivalent of a t2.micro. I know a few people (teenagers I'm related to mostly) who would like to mess around with programming and building web sites but for whom even a tiny cost is a barrier. As it is I throw a few bucks at nearlyfreespeech for them and it's good for a year, but I imagine plenty don't have that option.

Re: A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

#355
post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I am an ISP owner and we block popular ports used to run services by default. 99% doesn't care and their computer gets hacked or they get virus/malware and those malware starts running services and spamming the world and our IPs gets blacklisted (which is a huge headache) and now cloudflare's broken shit ip checker will automatically start blocking ips, and customers will start blaming us for it. Occasionally,…

Thanks for responding with the ISP's point of view. My frustration came from just wanting to run a small Ghost blog on an odroid with, at most, hundreds of visitors per month, and hearing that this required a business contract. Of course, whether I want to do this for business or pleasure doesn't really matter if you're dealing with malware and being blacklisted. At one time ISP's gave you a bit of space on a shared…

I think there is a miss communication between consumers and internet providers. I think if the consumers were aware of how things are run in an ISP they will be more understanding and reasonable when facing a problem like not being able to host services yourself. From my part, I try to write about my struggles in running our ISP business .

Another thing to consider why we can't easily allow our user to run services if we wanted to because most home users IPs are not static, and often your IP is shared by many users. IPv4 is running out, giving our user the ability to run service will also mean giving him a unique IP, which they will have to pay for it and because of the scarcity of unique IPv4s only business users are allowed to have them and business accounts cost money. We haven't moved to ipv6 yet, it will require some investment and overhauling some of our networks. Depending on your local law, you may actually have to have a business under your name, meaning you have to show business license papers, to get a business connectivity.

I know what you mean by having to run your own blog or services. I have done it myself and I have learned what I know today mostly due to me tinkering and optimizing apache and WordPress on the fly when it was on the homepage of Digg. It was such a rush and I have come a long way since those days, thanks to being able to host my blog on a time warner DSL line. This was in the early or mid-2000. But it was a different time, and things have changed a lot since then.

One of the reasons ISPs back then used to give you free email address and shared hosting, because they wanted to tie you down to their services. Specifically, if you used their email for a long time it would be difficult for you to leave it behind. But the landscape has changed since then, consumers are smarter and webmails are much better and free blog hosting are dime a dozen.

My advice to people who want to learn hosting services by doing it themselves on their own computer that, even though it can be a thrilling experience, hosting it remotely and configure/securing server from scratch can be an even better learning experience. And VPS hosting services like digital ocean can be very affordable.

There is a popular misconception that ISPs are a profitable business and they try to shaft the consumers at every opportunity they get. Maybe for the big players like Comcast, it is true, but the rest of us small and medium sized ISP its far from the truth. The complexity in running reliable services can be staggering, the equipment and licensing can be an astronomical investment (at least for us it's a large amount) and running the last mile and upkeep for it with 24/7 support are very expensive for us. BWs are not expensive, but equipment is. When we saturate our 10gbps port, moving to 40gbps or even 100gbps network (switches and routers) can be a mind-numbing expense. On top of it, we are taxed and need high license fees for all kinds of services. We really don't make a lot of money and you constantly have to spend on your infrastructure as you grow (fighting to get customers by lowering your cost, and hence your revenue and profit). You have to keep growing to stay relevant and reach that point you can connect more users with minimum costs without having to invest in growing your network. Reaching that point can take anywhere for 5 to 10 years, if not more.

Sorry for the rant, I just needed to get it out of my system. :)

http://www.slashgeek.net/starting-isp-really-hard-dont/

Re: A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not marketing. That's back to the condescending attitude again. The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc. It does not include governments or the provider of Snapchat itself. Given such a threat model it makes perfect sense to use something like Snapchat - it isn't the result of "marketing" (do services like Instag…

"The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc" Who were downloading apps that could keep Snapchat pics at the time Snapchat users were telling me they went away and nobody could retrieve them. The Snapchat company could also sell them to the same people. That means, due to no attempts to learn about online privacy, they falsel…

Making sure nobody can screenshot a snap or save it is an entirely client side programming problem, it's got nothing to do with cryptography, so all the other 'easy to use, private solutions' wouldn't be any different in that respect.

Re: A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

#359
What kinds of business models will decentralized applications have? Any good examples?

A decentralized web seems like a logical next-step. Although, it's hard for it to happen just by developer power alone. Once viable business models and success stories emerge around decentralized applications (like ads on P2P file sharing client?), IMO, this will really pick up steam.

Re: A decentralized web would give power back to the people online

#360
post #154

It seems to me that one significant barrier is that most people don't have a static IP. If we can move to IPv6, will ISPs start issuing static IPs for everyone by default?

Doesn't dynamic DNS solve this problem? I have used that for a service on a home server set up for friends. I haven't had any connectivity problems using the dynamic DNS address, although, to be fair my dynamic IP address has stayed remarkably static.

It does, but it's a hacky workaround and fails sooner or later unless you're using a paid service.
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