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Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

latimes.com

21–30 of 327 posts

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#21
If you consider the internet as a reflection of mankind, then maybe seen it as wrong and broken is only a measure of your belief system against what is society in its crudest form?

Also I disagree on the "create a new crypto system" to solve our issues trope. When talking about stolen databases I would argue it is a problem of not using state of the art to protect privacy as there is realistically no incentive to do so.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#22
post #2

Four popups and overlays in 15 seconds. What a trash website.

At least you could see the popups. I default open things in an incognito window, and it won't even load if you're in incognito, just shows you a big banner shaming you for using incognito mode and asking you to log in. It'd be kinda cool if HN had reddit-like flairs for stories so you could tag them as "no-incognito" or "soft-paywall" so you knew what not to bother clicking on.

Just disable javascript. Media sites are too broken these days to take a risk on their code any way. The LA Times devs have done a good job keeping the fallback readable.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#23
post #12

I'm reminded of the Douglas Adams' quote from Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

Formatted for mobile:

> Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#25
post #7

It didn't go wrong. It went very well. It didn't turn into the idealized vision that the author apparently had for it, but that's not unusual.

something definitely went wrong, imo.

when that pizzahut website link was posted a few days ago, i felt nostalgic about old web pages. most of them were about favorite topics, shows, hobbies and links! friends (the show) had thousands of fan made websites. websites linked to other websites with similar interest.

now it's all about "us" and "me". we don't even link to other websites anymore. blog rolls and guestbooks have gone extinct.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#26
post #9
post #8

It feels like author is depressed. It's a bit sad to read. He manages to pull so much negativity out of the things that are generally have a net-positive impact, things that drive the progress, that are progress. Disappointing article. I don't need this negativity in my life.

Almost every big positive change in society is a result of people feeling negative about the status quo. This reminds me of Steven Pinker who goes around saying, please stop whining; some/many/most/all things are better than they used to be! while somehow neglecting the fact that to the degree things are better, they usually are because people didn't stop whining.

I think Pinker's point is that many of the people whining are trying to "fix" things by changing the very things that got us here in the first place -- much of which was luck, or success after many failures, not just people whining.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#27

How did it go so wrong - the same way it did go wrong with many other tools - people used them to better themselves at the cost of others. > We could try to push the internet back toward its ethical roots. However, it would be a complex challenge requiring a joint effort by interested parties — which means pretty much everyone. That "everyone" also includes bad actors.

The problem is that ‘everyone’ also includes the general public which mostly consists of consumers that don’t care.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#28
> websites should provide a privacy policy customized to you, something they should be able to do since they already customize the ads you see. Websites should also be required to take responsibility for any violations and abuses of privacy that result from their services

These sorts of policies will completely annihilate small sites. Only large corporations and institutions with their own legal teams will have websites.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#29
I don’t agree the internet had “ethical roots.” Drugs were sold on the internet since the 80s. And the whole thing was funded in the name of warfare. Also the idealized notion that the internet allows for more extremism, as if the thoughts people express online would not be possible in the brains of these people had they stayed offline, make no sense.

I think the article is correct to assume the internet will become more balkanized and countries once they gain the ability to will control their internet very tightly

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#30

How did it go so wrong - the same way it did go wrong with many other tools - people used them to better themselves at the cost of others. > We could try to push the internet back toward its ethical roots. However, it would be a complex challenge requiring a joint effort by interested parties — which means pretty much everyone. That "everyone" also includes bad actors.

> ethical roots

weren't they all working for the .mil?

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