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Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

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Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#31

Post by notheguyouthink »

jeswin wrote: post #12
hackbinary wrote: post #5

I thought this was being done by Diaspora? https://diasporafoundation.org/ What's new/different here over this and other efforts?

Diaspora is federated, which for non-technical users is worse than FaceBook itself. The individual nodes (to which thousands of users are connected) will have far fewer resources to secure themselves than a behemoth like FaceBook. Also, uptime, badwidth etc. ScuttleButt is peer to peer, somewhat like torrents but for data feeds.

Minor note to readers, it's partially p2p. It uses gossip, so at times your peer might be a semi-centralized server, and at other times it could be a peer.

I know that doesn't make it not p2p, but reading p2p makes me think I need direct connections with peers. Gossip is sort of nifty that way.. though I'm not a fan of semi-centralized redirect servers.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#34

Post by erkose »

tschellenbach wrote: post #2

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…

We fail to consider policy when thinking about centralized/federated services. Centralized services provide strong, regular policy adherence across the network, whereas federated services provide weak, irregular policy adherence across the network. Centralized services can effectively silence a bad actor. They may also silence a good actor, but generally only under external pressure from government. Federated services have little or not ability to silence bad actors across the network, though individual instances may effectively silence "bad" actors. However in this capacity "bad" is not well understood and can simply mean the instance administrator does not like the person the silence. Individual instances may also give voice to bad actors.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#35

Post by lukeschlather »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #25
tschellenbach wrote: post #2

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…

> 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. Huh? Scuttlebutt is fully encrypted.. doesn't that make the API vastly more locked down than Facebook/etc? > There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability in these areas. Distributed systems are typically open source, they run on multiple servers…

> This is no worse than Facebook though. With Facebook, your friend could steal all of the data you let them see. With Scuttlebutt, your friend could steal all of the data you let them see.

Your friend can, but Facebook can scrutinize third-party apps. In a decentralized world, there's no one who has access to holistically examine automated access and detect shady activity. In a decentralized world, everything is essentially a third-party app.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#36

Post by agmcleod »

notheguyouthink wrote: post #25
tschellenbach wrote: post #2

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…

> 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. Huh? Scuttlebutt is fully encrypted.. doesn't that make the API vastly more locked down than Facebook/etc? > There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability in these areas. Distributed systems are typically open source, they run on multiple servers…

It's worse than facebook because there's no one to have responsibility to be accountable. This ties in with your question about GDPR. While I'm not a lawyer, as far as I know it doesn't matter if you're a person or a company, if you're collecting data, it's something you can be liable for. So in a distributed system, all parties who maintain the data sources would be liable. I actually wonder how this works logistically in terms of storing account info on something like Ethereum.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#37

Post by lowkeyokay »

sergiotapia wrote: post #29

Anyone else not even use social networks anymore? Privacy or not, it's just garbage. Facebook, myspace, hello, whatever it's all the same crap with different CSS values. Do we even need social networks anymore?

You might have point...But can we keep HN?

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#38

Post by codingdave »

EGreg wrote: post #10

If I may, a decentralized alternative to facebook would be community-based, allow people to do group chats, discover and post events, see attendees, meet each other, add each other to contacts, maybe even drive each other to the events, date, book group reservations at local businesses etc. Like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI Yes that’s my project. Would love to get feedback. (The things I mentioned…

FWIW, I did a survey of people asking which features from Facebook that absolutely must have to consider switching to a replacement. As much as people say the events, chats, and local community features are important... exactly zero people checked those boxes in my survey results. Pretty much the only thing people checked was 'connect with friends'

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#39

Post by notheguyouthink »

agmcleod wrote: post #36
notheguyouthink wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Huh? Scuttlebutt is fully encrypted.. doesn't that make the API vastly more locked down than Facebook/etc? > There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability in these areas. Distributed systems are typically open source, they run on multiple servers…

It's worse than facebook because there's no one to have responsibility to be accountable. This ties in with your question about GDPR. While I'm not a lawyer, as far as I know it doesn't matter if you're a person or a company, if you're collecting data, it's something you can be liable for. So in a distributed system, all parties who maintain the data sources would be liable. I actually wonder how this works logistica…

> It's worse than facebook because there's no one to have responsibility to be accountable.

I guess I just don't understand what accountability there is to be even had? If I send an encrypted message to my friend, who is accountable? What are they accountable for?

If I'm sending illegal content to someone only I can be held accountable (and possibly the person I'm sending to). Is that any different in Scuttlebutts case?

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