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Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

solid.inrupt.com

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Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#201

Post by rst »

afpx wrote: post #107
nulbyte wrote: post #87

After reading what little documentation is available and installing a single-user solid server myself, I wonder if this is how people felt when the World Wide Web was first invented. I find myself asking: Okay, now what? Except I think even the World Wide Web, when it was first invented, at least had a demo that worked. Solid doesn't even seem to work. Following instructions for "learn[ing] how to install and run you…

I hope there’s a lot more than that. I mean, they claim that they’ve been working on it for 15 years. “Solid has taken 15 years of development work to finally deliver this.” I probably missed something, but I didn’t see mention of Solid being taken through a standards body, either (even his own one). Web protocols were standardized early and were royalty free, with working prototypes. That helped lead to quick adopti…

The initial W3 code releases from CERN likewise preceded any formal standardization effort. They came with documentation defining the protocols and data formats (albeit loosely), but those were project documents generated internally, and not elaborated or ratified by any formal standards body.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#202

Post by kjetilk »

azeirah wrote: post #182
dgudkov wrote: post #14

I like the idea. It's basically an encapsulated portable personal "wiki" for a user (persona) with an open data model that can be accessed by external apps based on permissions. What it doesn't solve is the problem how this data is going to be used by those who access it. I wish there was some kind of digital contracts that only allow using personal data in a way permitted by the user.

Have you heard of the concept of "homomorphic encryption"? It allows someone to perform computations on encrypted pieces of data, without actually ever having access to the raw data itself. I have no idea how realistic or how "possible" this technology is for in the near future, but this seems to be a great match for technologies like these.

Yup, it is. Though, I'm not sure about homomorphic encryption, but there has been some work on encryption in the academic community that has very clear application to Solid. Here's a paper written by some friends of mine: http://epub.wu.ac.at/5818/1/10.1007_978-3-319-58068-5_37.pdf

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#203

Post by kjetilk »

detritus wrote: post #188

Well I feel like an idiot, I populated my 'pod' with a couple of personal details, and now have no idea how to undo what I've done* and haven't received a confirmatory email to my address so now have some 'thing' on public space I have no control over, no understanding of and no ability to delete. Not a great start. * Ostensibly I've over-written with nonsense details, but a cursory check in another browser, not sign…

Mmmmm, sorry. So, we have an #UXFAIL here. I've relayed it on to the rest of the inrupters. Obviously, we're happy if you have more detailed experiences to share, there's a bunch of frontend stuff to fix (I'm working mostly on the server side and developer experience stuff).

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#204

Post by eigenloss »

reaperducer wrote: post #74
adventured wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone else feel nostalgia for the pre-"web app" days of the internet? I'm talking about personal sites on Geocities and web rings built on communities of shared interest. I don't understand the premise. Tumblr is / was over ten times larger than Geocities. It did what you're describing. It was still wildly popular with young people just as recently as a few years ago.

Tumblr wasn't personal in the way that Geocities was. With Geocities you could see millions of high school art students demonstrating for the entire world that they don't know the first thing about design or color. Tumblr is the epitome of a walled garden. The flowers look pretty, but you still have to plant them in neat, orderly rows. Even Facebook's Pieces of Flair offered more of a creative outlet. You can still m…

You're both talking about Tumblr like it's dead. Tumblr will never die.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#205

Post by buboard »

tfha wrote: post #150
_red wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look forward to the day where getting on the internet is like opening a bank account, complete with KYC verification. I will love standing in line at my local DMV and waiting for my WebID profile to be approved.

It'll be nice when browsing without a license is punishable the same way driving without a license is. People will finally be held accountable for the things they say and do online.

Why would people be punished for things they say (people can't do things online, unless you re talking about remotely controlling a robotic arm).

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#206

Post by buboard »

danShumway wrote: post #154
tfha wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be nice when browsing without a license is punishable the same way driving without a license is. People will finally be held accountable for the things they say and do online.

I feel the exact same way about writing. How much human suffering has been caused by people's ability to just read and write down anything whenever they want? There is zero accountability! Heck, nowadays, I can even make graphics on a computer and then walk into Staples and print them out on official-looking, high quality paper. And they even have the gall let me pay anonymously in cash! In the good old days, only th…

Those were the days. People were good and true when they feared being burned at the stake.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#207

Post by danShumway »

nnq wrote: post #171
danShumway wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> than that's a scam, I don't really own it Legally speaking then, you don't own information about yourself like your address or past actions. The government won't let you erase that information. The only way to make your friends and family forget it is to kill them, which is obviously highly illegal. Even with efforts like Right to Be Forgotten, Europe isn't positing that you actually own information about yourself…

> How can you own something that is inside my head? If I put it there, I own it, and I should be able to destroy all proof that it's not purely a fabrication of your imagination. (Sure, you can still know it and use it to guide your decision, but it shouldn't be legally valid any more, and there should be no way for you to convince others it's true.) Yeah, obviously if it's in the heads of other people too, it would…

> and I should be able to destroy all proof that it's not purely a fabrication of your imagination.

But this is even more problematic. What if you don't own the thing being used as proof? Do you get to destroy it just because it could be used to incriminate you?

For example, if I take a photograph of a public non-performative event, I legally own the copyright on that photograph. The photograph itself is treated like a creative expression. So should you be able to destroy my photograph? Because the law says I own that, not you.

With Right to Be Forgotten, you might be able to have that photograph delisted from Google images, assuming you had gone through a lengthy court process based on multiple determinations of how public the information was and how harmful it was to you. But you can't come over to my house and make me delete it.

If I go onto a forum later and say, "yeah, I can prove this thing happened; here's a photograph", I haven't done anything illegal. Do you think that should be illegal? I feel like at the point where we're talking about destroying physical evidence of something, maybe this is going a little bit too far?

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#208

Post by krapp »

buboard wrote: post #206
danShumway wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the exact same way about writing. How much human suffering has been caused by people's ability to just read and write down anything whenever they want? There is zero accountability! Heck, nowadays, I can even make graphics on a computer and then walk into Staples and print them out on official-looking, high quality paper. And they even have the gall let me pay anonymously in cash! In the good old days, only th…

Those were the days. People were good and true when they feared being burned at the stake.

If God didn't want heathens to burn, He wouldn't have made them so flammable. It's just common sense.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#209

Post by danShumway »

nnq wrote: post #175
danShumway wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> than that's a scam, I don't really own it Legally speaking then, you don't own information about yourself like your address or past actions. The government won't let you erase that information. The only way to make your friends and family forget it is to kill them, which is obviously highly illegal. Even with efforts like Right to Be Forgotten, Europe isn't positing that you actually own information about yourself…

> Legally speaking then, you don't own information about yourself like your address or past actions ...and of this: clearly you want just some information to be impermanent or undo-able. I wouldn't want all information about myself to be delete-able. Just pick a class of infos, like "tweets" or "tv interviews" etc. And delete-able shouldn't mean modifiable. If I'd delete a year of my "certified resume" I'd still end…

Okay. Does immutability make this harder?

If the information is inadmissible in court, then who cares if there's an immutable copy someplace? We make information inadmissible in court all the time without requiring it to be deleted.

We even make it illegal to ask about age, race, and religion in job listings, and we aren't deleting any of that information. I'm not 100% sure what the problem is.

Re: Solid – Reshape the web as we know it

#210

Post by johnny22 »

CM30 wrote: post #120
krapp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like a lot of people on HN, you appear to be conflating "download a megabyte of minified JavaScript just to read a 500-word article" with the concept of a web application, and implying that embedded applications are somehow a violation of the web's intended purpose. But hypertext is an application, and the web was always about hyperlinked text as well as embedded content. The and tags and now defunct concepts like VR…

I don't know, the older days also had IRC, messaging apps, internet forums and BBS systems too, and my experience is that the people on the last two tended to be more... mature than the kinds on social media sites. Even today the slower and more thoughtful pace of a traditional forum is more conductive to decent discussions than the obsessively upvote/view focused world of social media sites.

irc still exists and I usei t every day. The same jerks that you see on "social media" exist all over IRC as well.
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