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Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

theguardian.com

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Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#181

Post by eswat »

dboreham wrote: post #92
skybrian wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems implausible. Moore's law is over and phones are limited by size and power. There's no reason to believe progress will continue until a phone is the same speed as a typical desktop machine, let alone a server rack.

True but you don't need much of a server to run many of the "server side" things a single user needs.

Until we find ways to add more bloat to the user requirements that will require a server-of-the-future to be more than a server-of-the-present.

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#182

Post by Faark »

zzzcpan wrote: post #168
drasticmeasures wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away for the victims. The women whose boyfriends posted private sex pictures as revenge, or the minorities who will be the victims of hate groups organizing on social media, the children who were filmed while being raped and have their video circulating online, the victims of bullying whose bullies are empowered by other people seeing it and not doing anything to stop them... Y…

But you are advocating exactly that - ignoring the problem by blocking content instead of dealing with people engaging in those behaviors.

Yeah, its kind of ridiculous having e.g. the german government expect Facebook what posts are and then delete hate speech and co. If that stuff is illegal, then the persons doing so should be held accountable by our legal system. But politicians love using those companies as easy scape goat. Anyway, p2p solutions usually try to make finding a person to hold accountable harder than current centralized services.

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#183

Post by buboard »

wslh wrote: post #178
buboard wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The security and maintenance requirements thats why you need one of the sharing protocols, like IPFS that make security everyone's responsibility, not just yours. I don't get why you think cloud solution is so much better. Glorified CDNs are a clumsy intermediate solution until internet connections get fast enough for everyone, that running a sharing node will have negligible impact. E.g. no cloud provider can comp…

> thats why you need one of the sharing protocols, like IPFS that make security everyone's responsibility, not just yours. Everyone responsability = No one responsability. If your data is lost by IPFS you don't have anyone to sue.

You could always pay a host to host your files for you and distribute them to IPFS. nobody argues that (e.g.) IPFS is replacing all the functions of the cloud. but it certainly decentralizes things, gives less power to The Man, and allows competitors to emerge.

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#184

Post by eswat »

skybrian wrote: post #31
sheeshkebab wrote: post #27

With phones doubling performance every 1-2 years, and desktops/laptops largely stagnating, it looks like in a few years, a server rack will fit into your smartphone. And most enterprise software (and almost no individual user) barely needs more than a rack of current gen servers. So yeah, decentralization will be upon us soon enough.

This seems implausible. Moore's law is over and phones are limited by size and power. There's no reason to believe progress will continue until a phone is the same speed as a typical desktop machine, let alone a server rack.

True. Companies are hitting a lot of friction getting node sizes down to 7nm when compared to sizes from years or decades ago.

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#185

Post by erikb »

mrep wrote: post #118
dcposch wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what this is about. Current web tech is inherently centralizing. Say you want to create an experience like Instagram or Twitter, delivered via HTTP. You have to pay for bandwidth, CDNs, storage, app servers, DB servers, etc etc. At scale, it's millions a month. So only corporations can do it, and with a few exceptions (eg Craigslist, Stack Exchange) they end up monetizing and "growth hacking" in user hostile w…

> The big open question is: can we create an experience as compelling as Instagram or Twitter over the P2P web? > It's a hard technical challenge, and today the answer is no. This is why I completely dismiss almost every "distributed" solution. If you can show me a business model/design document for a distributed service that can scale to big tech levels, deliver a user experience that matches current solutions, whil…

Huh? Email >>>>> Twitter over like 40 years or more? You don't work as an engineer, right? If you would, you would know how low the quality of most centralized technology is that is created by big corps. Most of the good stuff is decentralized. But the problem is that decentralization also means that the edge has more responsibility. And that responsibility is what people don't want to have. So they rather use a centralized bad system, because it's "easier" and then every few years they can blame all their own laziness on the centralized service provider and even read about it in the news.

If you need another example google a tool called "git". It is used by almost all software developers nowadays and even by quite a few authors. You don't need to setup anything to use it. If you have ssh you can just share your text based data with others by giving them access to your repository's directory. I bet it transfers more MB/day than Twitter. But nobody counts it because it's so distributed that it's hard to put an owner label on it. (Although the originators can be named quite clearly.)

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#186

Post by snaky »

drasticmeasures wrote: post #165

This kind of decentralisation -- taking existing platforms controlled by megacorps and making them P2P... ...feels, to me, like a huge mistake. How would one eliminate hate speech and toxic content from it? Or illegal content? Or anything you put there and need removed to keep living your life freely? The technologists developing this tech hand-wave these concerns away citing "freedom of speech" -- but one's freedom…

> toxic content

What is considered toxic for you might not be considered toxic by another person. That's personal choice. If you need to eliminate some sort of content, that inevitably will lead to this https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-internet/china-laun...

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#187

Post by hazz99 »

briatx wrote: post #177
hazz99 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Repeat after me: It's effectively centralised. It's effectively centralised. Almost all our traffic goes through Google, Amazon and Facebook. It's extremely centralised. Blockchain a don't claim to have a monpoloy - they're just the most recent thing that's repopularised decentralisation. If Amazon servers go down, so does a significant portion of the internet. That's centralisation at work! Blockchain tech doesn't c…

> Repeat after me: It's effectively centralised. It's effectively centralised. So is bitcoin. Only 3 or 4 companies own the majority of mining. Companies on the internet are centralized, but not the internet itself.

Yeah, Bitcoin-based consensus probably isn't the best choice for a project like this. I'd love to see a project that uses non-blockchain (but similarly publicly immutable) tech, like Nano or Iota.

Still some issues with centralisation (since consesus is achieved through vote delegates), but that's much easier to fix than redistributing hashpower.

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#188

Post by hazz99 »

LinuxBender wrote: post #176
hazz99 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important note: Tor does not encrypt your traffic Tor simply hides where your web requests originate from - it's up to you to to visit HTTPS sites and encrypt your communications. Also, Tor is quite decentralised but the existence of directory authorities undermines this, since presents a centralised component.

Sorry you are getting downvoted. This is very much correct and folks simply put a lot of faith in the proxy transport as the ends to a means. One vulnerability / bug (Tor has had many) can weaken that link. Tor is rarely installed correctly or in a secure manor. (forcing all packets through it and dropping anything that leaks from the browser, for starters)

Do you have any links on how to install it properly, and to test that? (Maybe through Wireshark or something similar) I admit I've haven't used it in-depth (although I've studied the protocol quite a bit)

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#189

Post by kickscondor »

kingnight wrote: post #120
kickscondor wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, cool - thank you for the questions, kingnight. 1. So this answer is a bit convoluted because I am still learning, wish I could keep it short. So my setup might be a bit 'naughty' because I'm currently saving the 'key' in my JS in a seperate dat. Right now I have one dat that acts as the 'admin' and one that is the actual blog - but I am going to move to hyperdb (the new solution for multi-writer support.) There…

Also your website is amazing. Is that the blog you were referring to? Is there a write up or overview of how it’s all put together. Love it

No, I've only written a piece on how I came to decide upon its design. https://www.kickscondor.com/ticker-tape-parade

I'm not sure how I would talk about the CSS and JavaScript - which was the most work. I will think about 'if'/'how' I can describe that. I really appreciate the encouragement. Please send me a link to your blog, if you have one. I am collecting links to personal blogs. See you around, kingnight.

Re: Decentralisation: the next big step for the world wide web

#190

Post by zoomablemind »

jotm wrote: post #4

How long until it reverts back to some nodes having way more influence/power/data than the others? This is not only a technology problem, it's (mostly, I'd say) a social one. Humans will always want more power and control, whether it's in real life or online. Every single type of governance has fallen victim to human greed and ambition, as will any kind of Internet, I believe. Fix the users - save the Internet! :)

The very notion of the present Internet is grounded on the network infrastructure that is formed through ISPs. Everyone needs a gateway and a 'bus' to reach the desired end-point. Most ISPs still limit the upstream bandwidth for consumers and charge a premium making it a friction point. In a way the centralization is just a logical outcome of such 'rationing'.

Distributed network will even more depend on the ISPs due to self-serving nature.

Perhaps the 'decentralized' web should also address the very foundation of the network - the network infrastructure and access to it.

Does Internet need to depend on the ISPs?

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