11–20 of 356 posts
The idea was interesting, the UI was pleasant, and I could see this working at some tech conference where people connect with each-other and there's a common pub server so people can keep in touch afterward, but I don't see uncle Joe or grandma using this thing over FB.
I thought this was being done by Diaspora? https://diasporafoundation.org/ What's new/different here over this and other efforts?
ScuttleButt is peer to peer, somewhat like torrents but for data feeds.
I think it's fascinating to see distributed social networks from a tech perspective. From what I've seen so far they exacerbate the problems that Facebook has been seeing so much backlash against. 1. The whole Cambridge Analytica issue was caused by APIs that are too open. For distributed systems there are more ways to exploit the APIs and gather data on users. 2. There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability…
Your concern about APIs in distributed systems seems to neglect the fact that cryptography can be used to ensure that only the right people have access to the data. Although I do agree on the fake news point you make. Edit: It seems that scuttlebutt does support optional end-to-end encryption: https://github.com/ssbc/secure-scuttlebutt#security-properti...
That was my assumption too, but I have no technical knowledge on the subject.
If encryption was used, would that keep a rogue server admin from accessing sensitive user data?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your concern about APIs in distributed systems seems to neglect the fact that cryptography can be used to ensure that only the right people have access to the data. Although I do agree on the fake news point you make. Edit: It seems that scuttlebutt does support optional end-to-end encryption: https://github.com/ssbc/secure-scuttlebutt#security-properti...
> cryptography can be used to ensure that only the right people have access to the data That was my assumption too, but I have no technical knowledge on the subject. If encryption was used, would that keep a rogue server admin from accessing sensitive user data?
So if you want your friends to be able to use it then you'll need a shared key with your friends.
But only the clients have the key, so the servers pushing the data around can't access it.
Edit: Check out how Keybase handles this.
It isn't an alternative to Facebook unless my grandma can use it, and she couldn't set this up for herself. The idea that centralized storage is the problem masks the actual concern. There is nothing inherently wrong with centrally stored data. There is a problem is when it is locked down by a 3rd party, and/or you don't control how it is used.
> There is nothing inherently wrong with centrally stored data. I'd argue that a 3rd party having the personal details and communication logs of 2 billion people is a massive problem. Privacy, governmental data requests, accidental information leakages, profiling, job applicant scrutiny, fake news, spam, data misuse by employees etc. Or even worse, in times of war.
If the store is decentralized, then any party could be equivalent to a third party, and therefore anyone has access to your data.
I think it's fascinating to see distributed social networks from a tech perspective. From what I've seen so far they exacerbate the problems that Facebook has been seeing so much backlash against. 1. The whole Cambridge Analytica issue was caused by APIs that are too open. For distributed systems there are more ways to exploit the APIs and gather data on users. 2. There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability…
I don’t want to see posts in my timeline about ISIS propaganda or child pornography, for example.
Are there any solutions around which allows users to block (most of) this kind of content?
I really love the concept of this. I travel a ton and am without internet for days/ weeks at a time. Scuttlebutt allows me to keep up to date with friends and communities while offline and when I do eventually get online, just grab the newest updates and download them locally. This is such a cool thing in my eyes for parts of the world with little / no internet access. The creator of the project (AFAIK) sails around…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is nothing inherently wrong with centrally stored data. I'd argue that a 3rd party having the personal details and communication logs of 2 billion people is a massive problem. Privacy, governmental data requests, accidental information leakages, profiling, job applicant scrutiny, fake news, spam, data misuse by employees etc. Or even worse, in times of war.
What does this have to do with centrally stored data. Having data in a central store doesn't imply third parties. If the store is decentralized, then any party could be equivalent to a third party, and therefore anyone has access to your data.
How is that going to work then? Every single company holding your data in a central place is mining it today and selling the information to advertisers.
On a distributed network you replicate data only with people you choose. Since you're not going to add a government (or an ad company) to your friend list, they won't have your data. Private communications are encrypted and flowing directly to the recipient, so there's no port that agencies can tap into to listen. There won't be any big data to analyze, since data is spread across the network. Backup is easy, it's just a folder. Fake news never gets promoted, since there are no paid promotions.
Spam is a non-issue since there are no advertisers. There's no way to get into your feed than through your friends. There's no server or central storage, so employee misuse is not an issue. And you can have as many identities as you choose, there won't be a mandatory real name policy.
I could go on.