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Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

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Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#251

Post by gregknicholson »

fao_ wrote: post #15
jeswin wrote: post #8

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.

This is precisely the point: only give data to people you trust.

If Alice wants to communicate with Bob, she shouldn't be obliged to trust Facebook too.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#252

Post by tasmg »

Vendan wrote: post #134
lgierth wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious to hear about the issues. SSB's network transport is supposed to be pretty okay: https://github.com/auditdrivencrypto/secret-handshake

example message: { "previous": "%26AC+gU0t74jRGVeDY01...MnutGGHM=.sha256", "author": "@hxGxqPrplLjRG2vtjQL87...0nNwE=.ed25519", "sequence": 216, "timestamp": 1442590513298, "hash": "sha256", "content": { "type": "vote", "vote": { "link": "%WbQ4dq0m/zu5jxll9zUb...KjZ80JvI=.sha256", "value": 1 } } } Signed example message: { "previous": "%26AC+gU0t74jRGVeDY01...MnutGGHM=.sha256", "author": "@hxGxqPrplLjRG2vtjQL87...0nN…

This is the same reason I lost interest. I may have stuck with it if the Rust crates weren't AGPL/GPL. (And thus can't be used in Apple's app-store which is an interesting target to me).

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#253

Post by newfoundglory »

nightski wrote: post #58
lukeschlather wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ess…

Do apps really bring that much value to the social network experience? I know for myself I have not found a single Facebook app that brings any positive value to my life.

Have any of your friends installed a Facebook app? Because it doesn’t matter if you decide they're not worth using, you have to make sure nobody in your network uses them either.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#254

Post by newfoundglory »

kabacha wrote: post #211
rock_hard wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if people get tricked into approving malicious accounts? Who is gonna police that? How are you gonna prevent anarchy?

> What if people get tricked into approving malicious accounts? Do you really need to idiot proof everything? I'd say just let natural selection happen at this point.

Natural selection in this case means another Cambridge Analytica. Most people want to avoid that.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#255

Post by newfoundglory »

wmf wrote: post #179
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…

I think the idea is no ads -> nothing to target -> no need/value for personal data. Sure, maybe Cambridge Analytica can scrape Scuttlebutt or Mastodon but then what can they do with that data?

Aside from the likely ability to connect it to other sources of data so they can show better ads on those platforms, there's regular market analysis - it's worth knowing that teenagers are increasingly interested in X even if you can't tie that back to individual teenagers.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#256

Post by buoyantair »

twtw wrote: post #127
ibdf wrote: post #120

2018 will be the year of "alternative to facebook" apps that are in no way an alternative to facebook. To be an alternative to facebook, it should at least do 50% of what facebook does, and it should be accessible to all. Anything that takes more than 3 steps to get it running it's going to keep people out. And if you keep people out, you don't have a social network, at least not anything like facebook where your gra…

"You need ... a business plan." I don't agree. What is the business plan of email (by which I mean SMTP, not some webmail provider)?

True! A protocol doesn't need a business plan!

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#257

Post by [deleted] »

kabacha wrote: post #213
scrollaway wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> by which I mean SMTP, not some webmail provider Cheap cop-out. "some webmail provider" is what runs 99.999% of email. The people who run their own email, or run off hobby email servers, are insignificant. You can't turn a blind eye to where the majority of users are going to be if you're implementing anything that actually needs traction in order to be successful.

No, there will always be a provider to webmail because there's demand for it. "Some webmail provider" is irrelevant, nobody is tlaking about people who run their own server here. Federated social networks are like email: each instance is like the "webmail provider" you can pick and chose and some of them even come with their own clients and bells and whisltes. Protocol doesn't need a business plan.

[deleted]

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#258

Post by buoyantair »

hoodoof wrote: post #188
dlwiest wrote: post #65

I still think that's an awful name.

100% agree - names matter.

I don't think you say you contact over some HTTP or HTTPS protocol, you just say that you contact over twitter or fb or some other product that is built on top of this :3 In the same way scuttlebutt is just the name of the protocol not the product.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#259

Post by meesterdude »

sandov wrote: post #180
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…

In my case, I don't care about the "privacy protection" of a given social network: I assume that everything I post is public (except private messages), so I filter what I upload based on that assumption. Things I do care about: -No censorship -Chronological feed -Open source & non-abusive client. (i.e. no tracking what users see or read) -Good usability I don't care about abusive content or fake news. If I see fake n…

> -Chronological feed

Isn't this asking for a bit much? /s

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#260

Post by deltron3030 »

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…

It's a philosophical issue, negative liberty vs. positive liberty.

Positive liberty is the distribution of responsibility to the collective (and managing/controlling the collective through central bureaucracy), negative liberty is distributing the responsibility to the individual, self organization, or stateful components in dev lingo.

Your error is that you're set on only one perspective, positive liberty, like many people in europe. GDPR is like that, instead of giving people the tools to protect themselves, and not leak data in first place, and educate them about voting with their wallets, they just take it from the individual and apply it to the collective.

That's the mindset of centralization. It's clear that decentralization efforts fail if you insist on distributing the responsibility collectively.

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