Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time • Hacker News Board

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#91

Post by TheRealPomax » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 11:50 PM UTC

xj9 wrote: post #85

bilbo0s wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside the fact that most people would look unfavorably on yet another box in their homes, how does any of this help you avoid the blocking and tracking of the ISP? Your ISP will still know what you are doing, and will have the ability to block you from doing it should the need arise. I also feel like people are proposing solutions based on technologies as they stand today. Chosen solutions to the decentraliza…

you've clearly not used any of the modern roaming-enabled encrypted overlay networks that people have been working on. one example is hyperboria. i connect to a handful of public relays (and one that i host myself) and no matter where i am my device is reachable at the same ip address. the address is an ipv6-encoded hash of the public key that is used for routing. its actually really neat, and you don't need to wait…

I haven't even heard of these things, and your description sounds like so much effort I'm not even going to be looking this tech up. If it's more than "install using an installer, not a terminal, and then it just works(tm)", it's not the kind of thing that's going to get people who weren't already on board, on board.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#92

Post by TheMagicHorsey » Fri, Jan 11, 2019, 11:58 PM UTC

Somebody should make an easy to install home server with a standard API to access data. People will start decentralizing on their own when you can just buy a box and do some basic configuration, and have a secure home web server. And then developers will build on the decentralized platform because it has users.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#93

Post by gerbilly » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 12:01 AM UTC

crucini wrote: post #71

I skimmed this and see two big problems. First, this idealistic idea that "we" are going to take back our data. Who is this we? Only the smart, high-agency people who have time to spare. The commercial web is increasingly tuned to the normal user, who is low-agency and easily led around. Who will win a battle of user acquisition and retention? Facebook or the rebels? Facebook of course. So any solutions proposed here…

Well, when I got on the internet in 1988, we were all 'smart, high-agency people who have time to spare'

Supposing we manage to solve this problem, what's to say average people can't participate in 10 years or so or so when the tech has been made easier to use?

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#94

Post by hypothete » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 12:04 AM UTC

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #89

tmcw wrote: post #79

It puzzles me that the linked data future is still discussed, as if we didn't already try it, and didn't already discover that developers dislike arcane RDF standards and the academic-rooted designers of the specifications have a terrible track record of solving real-world problems. And that now they're presenting linked data as some critical component of the decentralized web while skipping out on the debates that e…

There's been a lot of effort to improve RDF ergonomics with JSON-LD, and ActivityPub is a widely used standard based on JSON-LD (though my experience with implementing it has been quite challenging).

I feel you on implementation - every time I make an attempt to try out ActivityPub I get intimidated by the combo of JSON-LD and the verbosity of Activity Streams vocabulary: https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-vocabulary/

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#95

Post by pbalau » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 12:04 AM UTC

Tecuane wrote: post #76

pbalau wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides I can or cannot get foobar.tld?

That would probably be ICANN[1], and most authoritative name servers follow the policies set out there as the guiding committee is part of ICANN[2]. There are alternative DNS roots, though. I participated in running one myself for a time. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICANN 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_name_server#Root_server_s...

Thanks, I was thinking about ICANN, but i'm a bit tipsy and didn't want to discredit my point by misspelling an organization. Yet, this still proves my point, the internet, as we are experiencing it today, is based on different orgs simply playing nice by some rules established by a central authority. What if they stop doing that? What if the central auth is going to have something against you?

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#96

Post by shriphani » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 12:04 AM UTC

tmcw wrote: post #79

It puzzles me that the linked data future is still discussed, as if we didn't already try it, and didn't already discover that developers dislike arcane RDF standards and the academic-rooted designers of the specifications have a terrible track record of solving real-world problems. And that now they're presenting linked data as some critical component of the decentralized web while skipping out on the debates that e…

Agreed 100% schema.org and whatever fb's equivalent is only "succeeded" because of the incentive in their ranking models (thus centralization).

Highly unlikely someone will bother with this (in addition to all the other quirks) while making their website.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#97

Post by rubenverborgh » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 12:05 AM UTC

tmcw wrote: post #79

It puzzles me that the linked data future is still discussed, as if we didn't already try it, and didn't already discover that developers dislike arcane RDF standards and the academic-rooted designers of the specifications have a terrible track record of solving real-world problems. And that now they're presenting linked data as some critical component of the decentralized web while skipping out on the debates that e…

You'll be surprised to hear that developers like Linked Data. People starting with Linked Data development today are not burdened by the Semantic Web legacy and mistakes of the past. We've been working with front-end devs who have never seen RDF, and never will. They enjoy how Linked Data is able to cross borders and leads to more data than a centralized database could ever give you.

The confusion in your comment is that one would need RDF to do Linked Data. I've written about that misconception here: https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2018/12/28/designing-a-linke...

Don't get me wrong, the Semantic Web community has made mistakes and has not been developer-friendly. But we're not still stuck in the 90s. For instance, XML hasn't been a part of any of this for many years.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#98

Post by kjetilk » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #8

I think the part ignored by so many is the need to decentralize the computers into the home. I'm not talking meshes or shared resources. For the majority of use cases, we don't need distributed storage, compute, etc. Just start making these self-hosted "servers", "data pods", etc as easy to install as desktop software and make it clear that they are inaccessible when the computer is off. People that aren't already wi…

Actually, we've been chatting about this, and I think it would be great to start selling Solid servers on a OLinuXino board with a nice box around. Not because it would make us a lot of money, but to demonstrate that you, at least a bunch of nerds, can easily take complete control, from everything to the Open Hardware to the MIT-licensed server.

I'm running Solid on my own box, and I can't see myself doing it any other way, but it was pretty hard to set it up. We need to change that.

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#99

Post by flixic » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 12:07 AM UTC

gerbilly wrote: post #93

crucini wrote: post #71

I skimmed this and see two big problems. First, this idealistic idea that "we" are going to take back our data. Who is this we? Only the smart, high-agency people who have time to spare. The commercial web is increasingly tuned to the normal user, who is low-agency and easily led around. Who will win a battle of user acquisition and retention? Facebook or the rebels? Facebook of course. So any solutions proposed here…

Well, when I got on the internet in 1988, we were all 'smart, high-agency people who have time to spare' Supposing we manage to solve this problem, what's to say average people can't participate in 10 years or so or so when the tech has been made easier to use?

Early web was quite decentralized already. Many separate Bulletin Boards, later forums. Many people writing there had an idea how to create their own.

It didn't start centralized. Centralization happened. I might be more cynical than I should be but as a designer I struggle to see the future in which we have social dynamics that favor decentralization instead of convergence into a less self-managed system (i.e. all current centralized networks).

Re: Re-decentralizing the Web, for good this time

#100

Post by smarx007 » Sat, Jan 12, 2019, 12:08 AM UTC

tmcw wrote: post #79

It puzzles me that the linked data future is still discussed, as if we didn't already try it, and didn't already discover that developers dislike arcane RDF standards and the academic-rooted designers of the specifications have a terrible track record of solving real-world problems. And that now they're presenting linked data as some critical component of the decentralized web while skipping out on the debates that e…

In my opinion, the linked data future is still discussed, because when Tim Berners-Lee first presented the idea of Semantic Web in 1994, he used what I would call an IoT scenario to describe it ([1], scroll to the end; I really hope he is not reading this comment). Now that the IoT is here, maybe more people are ready to listen.

And just to make sure we are on the same page here: it's not academics' job to build usable products. We will continue working on things that are novel from the academic standpoint; if people like you dismiss LD/SemWeb, those novel things will have "a terrible track record of solving real-world problems". I hope this does not come across as too personal.

[1]: https://www.w3.org/Talks/WWW94Tim/