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The GNUnet System

gnunet.org

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Re: The GNUnet System

#21

Post by Slackwise »

larrydag wrote: post #18

What is the biggest barrier or challenge for these network systems to succeed? Hardware? Infrastructure? Users?

Adoption. Users want convenience. They want to click a thing and go, not install a desktop app, configure it, learn about the networking model, etc.

Then when we've all sunk into all these convenient cloud services and "easy to use" disposable devices, we'll have lost all of our privacy and power. The corporations will get regulated, and then the government will have access and control of the systems.

And yet we'll have people argue that these open source and federated/distributed systems are "too confusing" and "not practical" and that we shouldn't even try to avoid this future.

Re: The GNUnet System

#22

Post by nine_k »

Slackwise wrote: post #21
larrydag wrote: post #18

What is the biggest barrier or challenge for these network systems to succeed? Hardware? Infrastructure? Users?

Adoption. Users want convenience. They want to click a thing and go, not install a desktop app, configure it, learn about the networking model, etc. Then when we've all sunk into all these convenient cloud services and "easy to use" disposable devices, we'll have lost all of our privacy and power. The corporations will get regulated, and then the government will have access and control of the systems. And yet we'll h…

«In technology, I believe it comes down to the power dynamics of convenience. To create convenience—particularly the automated convenience technology trades in—someone else must make our choices for us. In other words: the less you have to do, the less say you have.»

(From https://www.frankchimero.com/writing/the-webs-grain/)

Re: The GNUnet System

#23

Post by cameronhowe »

pksadiq wrote: post #7
jasonkostempski wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me. File sharers are willing to adopt anything.

> Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me. True. We still don't have a good way of doing this[0]. [0] https://xkcd.com/949/

one to one peer to peer file transfer: justbeamit.com peer to peer file transfer (link doesn't die after one person) file.pizza

Re: The GNUnet System

#24

Post by rtkwe »

oelmekki wrote: post #15
pksadiq wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me. True. We still don't have a good way of doing this[0]. [0] https://xkcd.com/949/

Actually, there is: if both users are on gmail, you can attach big files to your mail, and it's automatically uploaded on Drive (and retrieved seamlessly by recipient from mail). If recipient is not using gmail, you can still use Drive to upload your file and share it. And obviously, there are many Drive competitors, like dropbox and Box, to name the biggest ones.

Unless something has changed each of those still require an existing account on the senders side. With an account on an appropriate service or the right program sending files has been a pretty solved problem for ages. Not sure this really solves super well either since both people would have to download, install and configure GNUnet.

Re: The GNUnet System

#25

Post by gcb0 »

pksadiq wrote: post #7
jasonkostempski wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me. File sharers are willing to adopt anything.

> Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me. True. We still don't have a good way of doing this[0]. [0] https://xkcd.com/949/

but ironically every single OS today ships with a remote desktop functionality. some even on by default.

Re: The GNUnet System

#26

Post by ezdiy »

Slackwise wrote: post #21
larrydag wrote: post #18

What is the biggest barrier or challenge for these network systems to succeed? Hardware? Infrastructure? Users?

Adoption. Users want convenience. They want to click a thing and go, not install a desktop app, configure it, learn about the networking model, etc. Then when we've all sunk into all these convenient cloud services and "easy to use" disposable devices, we'll have lost all of our privacy and power. The corporations will get regulated, and then the government will have access and control of the systems. And yet we'll h…

>Then when we've all sunk into all these convenient cloud services and "easy to use" disposable devices, we'll have lost all of our privacy and power.

Convenience can be engineered into P2P, too.

With Bitcoin, people definitely get the convenience of unregulated speculative asset they wanted (presumably because real estate is even more obtuse than bitcoin).

With Bittorrent, people definitely get the convenience of having access to obscure content (though netflix is great counterexample to it).

> And yet we'll have people argue that these open source and federated/distributed systems are "too confusing" and "not practical" and that we shouldn't even try to avoid this future.

I think best route would be that of Linux vs Android. Which has already happened to a certain degree with Mastodon for instance - someone "privatizes" the underlying open fabric and puts a nice "convenience trap" on top of it to "attract adoption".

The issue here is mostly that investors in such an endeavor are seeking total control of the userbase, an engineered artificial "inconvenience of switching platform".

Internet behemoths should not be called out on "dangers of getting regulated and handing control to the government" (frankly, anything can happen, not just that), but on keeping their platforms un-interoperable on purpose in a bid to attain a monopoly through networking effects, burdening the entrapped users with "inconvenience of limited frontend choice". They should be called out the same way we called out Microsoft back then, or say, Comcast now.

Re: The GNUnet System

#27

Post by UncleEntity »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #3
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #2

> GNUnet is an alternative network stack for building secure, decentralized and privacy-preserving distributed applications. Our goal is to replace the old insecure Internet protocol stack. Sounds like a PhD thesis run amok. This just isn't going to happen. Who are they kidding? Even the transition to IPv6 is proving agonisingly slow. GNU really need to pick their battles more wisely.

Choosing file transfer as the first goal seems like a great decesion to me. File sharers are willing to adopt anything.

They might not like that too much based on:

> Bitcoin is unethical as it prevents the state from effectively extracting taxes from economic activity, or from enforcing basic rules on allowed economic activity.

Interesting how privacy in communication is ethical but privacy in economic activity isn't.

Re: The GNUnet System

#28

Post by api »

Slackwise wrote: post #21
larrydag wrote: post #18

What is the biggest barrier or challenge for these network systems to succeed? Hardware? Infrastructure? Users?

Adoption. Users want convenience. They want to click a thing and go, not install a desktop app, configure it, learn about the networking model, etc. Then when we've all sunk into all these convenient cloud services and "easy to use" disposable devices, we'll have lost all of our privacy and power. The corporations will get regulated, and then the government will have access and control of the systems. And yet we'll h…

I don't buy that it's impossible to deliver decentralization and usability. It just requires a lot of developer effort.

The real problem is that everything has to be free. That means there's no money to pay developers to do the stuff that is not fun. UI/UX is a painful slog through a long tail of tiny little issues, not to mention many iterations on design. Developers don't do that unless they're getting paid.

Re: The GNUnet System

#29

Post by ezdiy »

openfuture wrote: post #12
_3x96 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

super tldr... ipfs and zeronet (and dat project) are distributed file stores (think bittorrent), some have some special browsers n top that let you build applications freenet is a distributed, secure content network. i2p and tor are secure overlay neworks - run on top of the existing internet to provide secure connectivity - designed to obscure where traffic is going to and from. gnunet and cjdns are also secure over…

Thanks for mentioning 'Dat Project', hadn't heard of it before. Do you know if any of these distributed file stores are making use of this[1] result like Pijul? It'd be amazing if these projects converge on making version control, package management and any sort of information distribution (internet) into the same thing. Currently it feels like they are all working in separate corners on what they consider to be 'the…

GIT would come closest. Note that while it's not common now (aside from some first canaries, like scuttlebutt), GIT works perfectly fine as a P2P opennet. You are much less trapped on github, because you can just take your repo and the complete history in it anywhere you want - be it central server, or some sort of P2P overlay.

Re: The GNUnet System

#30

Post by ezdiy »

openfuture wrote: post #6

Is anyone knowledgeable that can tell me the difference between IPFS, GNUnet, Zeronet, freenet or even something like i2p, tor and urbit .. as well as probably others. Actually I know this question is asked all the time and I do know how these differ, to some extent at least, but I just don't understand why there are all these competing standards since it's all driven by the same-ish vision. Whenever someone accompli…

> IPFS feels closest to it as of now.

I'm rather skeptic. IMO, IPFS is just overengineered bittorrent. At the lowest layer, the semantics are the same, except with really bad ideas thrown into the mix - wantlist instead of bitmaps, forcing DAG in places where there's no use for it, all driving overall performance of the network into the ground.

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