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Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

latimes.com

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Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#181

Post by smolder »

winternett wrote: post #127
ThomPete wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Created jobs, increased global trade, allowed for people to teach themselves, new types of products available, higher awareness about what is going on around you, technology share, open source, free products etc.

These jobs are shrinking as low level apps get dumbed down... The process of creating a simple web site has gotten much much more complex as scripting languages have changed. I still can't believe we're compiling code for simple phone and web sites and apps. Corporations have lobbied to take away Net Neutrality, and to institute throttling and make running a personal web site much more expensive. Social media sites d…

It's actually very easy to make websites and apps now IMO, never worrying about hosting and network intrusion and things like that, but you sell out to the centralized, pervasively monitored model of the web in doing so.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#182

Post by UI_at_80x24 »

wadkar wrote: post #154
adim86 wrote: post #103

I find this post quite disappointing. I don't mean to come off harsh but it is quite naive and utopian and I cannot take the call to arms seriously. Saying the internet went wrong is like saying the invention of cars went wrong cause we still have car accidents. For every powerful force in the world, it will be a source of good and bad things. The internet has changed the world, increased communication, allowed peopl…

Small nitpick : Hindi not Hindu. The former is language which one can learn. The latter is, depending on how you ask, is a (group of) religion(s)/way of life. On the other hand, let’s compare internet to nuclear fission. Clearly lot benefits can be drawn from the technology (assuming safety practices etc) but in our current world order it is primarily used as a deterrent. So I don’t think OP is complaining unnecessar…

I have been a science and technology enthusiast all of my life. I started running my own BBS over 30 years ago on a Commodore64. To say that I am passionate would be an understatement.

Alas, lately I am becoming a Luddite. Feature creep is the enemy. I don't want or need an 'info-tainment' screen in my vehicle. I refuse to join the Apple or Google walled gardens. The warnings from Science Fiction have been ignored, and we are wage-slaves to corporation-governments.

There is a better way to live. We must take back our power.

When does a tool become a weapon?

When it inflicts harm.

The internet has been weaponized.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#183

Post by yawz »

> ethical, open, trusted, free, shared

Yes, but these concepts were not nearly as overloaded as now. I wasn't around for the 60s or 70s, but I know the days where the only browser was Mosaic (early-to-mid 90s). Even at that time, nobody used the term "ethical" or "open" the way that we use it now. It would be a mistake (and hindsight bias) to look back and draw strong parallels.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#184

Post by andrepd »

smolder wrote: post #178
ThomPete wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Created jobs, increased global trade, allowed for people to teach themselves, new types of products available, higher awareness about what is going on around you, technology share, open source, free products etc.

Creating jobs isn't good by itself if the work being done is to a bad end. Despite how much promise the internet has for free information, lots of people have been paid to pollute it with garbage that is the opposite of helpful. Or to spy on people so that knowledge can be used against them. The internet is a great thing technology wise, but it has enabled bad actors as much as enabling humble and well intentioned pe…

>Creating jobs isn't good by itself if the work being done is to a bad end. Lots of people have been paid to pollute it with garbage that is the opposite of helpful. Or to spy on people so that knowledge can be used against them.

I wish more people internalised this fact.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#186

Post by jessaustin »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #32
bilbo0s wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly in my opinion. My understanding of the passage is that he wants to block the entire website outright. So not, "Look at reddit, but block ads." Rather it would be, "Block reddit." Curiously, blocking the entire website outright due to incompatible privacy policies is a solution I never really even considered? It certainly changes the dynamic game theoretically speaking. I wonder what the internet would be…

This is effectively what we should be doing: Either accept what the site is offering (content monetized by ads and data collection) or don't. But what happened instead is entitlement: People decided they had the right to view that content without paying it's cost, and went for ad blockers instead. As much as I loathe ads, I am still surprised ad blockers work: That vastly more websites haven't simply made it impossib…

Lots of people who use ad blockers aren't opposed to ads themselves. If a site shoves an "Eat at Joe's" div in beside the content, that's fine, we'll look at it, because after all ad blockers won't block such an ad. What we oppose are ad networks with all the tracking and privacy violations those entail, and those are blocked by ad blockers.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#187

Post by raxxorrax »

austincheney wrote: post #99

All the problems mentioned in that article can be distilled down to two words: * anonymous * broadcast If either of those words is eliminated from the technology all of the spoken problems immediately die, and thus new never imagined problems will take their place.

Why would you think that?

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#188

Post by reikonomusha »

adim86 wrote: post #103

I find this post quite disappointing. I don't mean to come off harsh but it is quite naive and utopian and I cannot take the call to arms seriously. Saying the internet went wrong is like saying the invention of cars went wrong cause we still have car accidents. For every powerful force in the world, it will be a source of good and bad things. The internet has changed the world, increased communication, allowed peopl…

How about the internet being used as a mass surveillance machine and the obliteration of producers in favor of consumers? That facet isn’t a drop in the bucket of internet usage. M

I think focusing what it could be used for and what it has been used for isn’t the right way to approach thinking about it. The internet is by and large used for consuming content from a handful of corporations (disclaimer: I have no source to back up this claim), and a lot of negative consequences follow from that.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#189

Post by BurningFrog »

JohnFen wrote: post #157
paulpauper wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agree. the inventor does not get to decide or choose how his invention is used I would also agree the internet has been a huge net positive.

> I would also agree the internet has been a huge net positive. I thought that not terribly long ago. I have to admit, though, that with every passing day I become less sure that it's really a net positive.

It's very natural for people to take good things for granted and focus on the negatives. Regardless of objective measurements.

Of course, sometime things areactually bad, so that's to to say you're wrong. Just a good bias to keep in mind.

Re: Leonard Kleinrock on what went wrong with the internet

#190

Post by vannevar »

JohnFen wrote: post #157
paulpauper wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agree. the inventor does not get to decide or choose how his invention is used I would also agree the internet has been a huge net positive.

> I would also agree the internet has been a huge net positive. I thought that not terribly long ago. I have to admit, though, that with every passing day I become less sure that it's really a net positive.

Agreed, I think there was a point, when we could still benefit from the pre-existing social trust network, that it was a net positive. Now that the pre-internet trust network has deteriorated, and with no trust mechanism built into the internet, it is rapidly devolving toward a net negative for social stability.
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