The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#261

Post by marcus_holmes » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 10:41 AM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #246

marcus_holmes wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Ah, OK, that's useful. I was thinking that dropping the last byte of the IP address would still be able to give us the country via database lookup, but anonymise enough. But getting it via CF (or similar) would be a good alternative. 2. Chances of a hash collision on IP address is pretty small (i.e. statistically insignificant). But adding a daily salt would decrease the odds, for sure. 3. Sorry, my bad, I meant C…

> 2. Chances of a hash collision on IP address is pretty small (i.e. statistically insignificant) The problem, as I understand GP, is not so much the fear that two different IPs might collide. The problem is that seeing the same hash, you know that it refers to the same IP, and as such you can correlate users/sites over time (a privacy invasion).

That makes sense, kinda. Though I'm a little unsure why correlating http requests over an hour is not invading privacy, but doing the same over a week is?

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#262

Post by namibj » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 1:57 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #99

namibj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smaller cells do wonders. A LimeSDR with The reach can be increased for <50$ to at least a few hundred meters radius.

I don't understand, are you advocating for hobbyists to make their own 5G cells, or carriers? Why not use Wi-Fi at this point?

I'm advocating that cells are cheap, so the density can be increased by a lot. This might enable more local competition, but the main benefit of LTE is proper QoS support.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#263

Post by namibj » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 1:58 PM UTC

mch82 wrote: post #155

Nextgrid wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand, are you advocating for hobbyists to make their own 5G cells, or carriers? Why not use Wi-Fi at this point?

I assume Namibj is suggesting a switch from our current hub-and-spoke ISP model to a peer-to-peer mesh networking model. Radio technologies have strengths and weaknesses. While WiFi works great in a home, other radio types are better at transmitting data long distance. The best solutions combine a mix of radios to leverage their strengths.

Not really. I mean that cells are cheap, so the increased density offers higher speeds (less sharing) and possibly new organizational structures due to a lower entry barrier.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#264

Post by officeplant » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #207

nathcd wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And why is it OK to analyse server logs, but not OK to use javascript, to do this? The data in your server logs is data that people sent to you on purpose (by visiting a page on your site, or filling out a form on your site). If you collect data about people by sending them code to execute and send data back to you, they're not meaning to send you that data; you're doing it behind their back. I'm glad you try to us…

We have a Privacy Policy linked right from the landing page that states we will collect user behaviour information to improve our product. If you walk into a shop, you have an expectation to be observed (both to check you're not shoplifting, and also to see how customers behave). They don't tell you that you'll be observed, it's just one of those things you expect when you walk into someone's shop. We effectively hav…

Like a complicated privacy policy people won't read. (not your fault) The average person also doesn't understand the depths of what going into a shop now means. Walking into a shop they might expect they are on CCTV sure, but not that they are being tracked via wifi, customer counters, and whatever else retail establishments have come up now to datamine their customers without consent.

Maybe its time for shops to have EULA's covering the entire door before I open it.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#265

Post by nathcd » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 4:37 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #230

nathcd wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you walk into a shop, you have an expectation to be observed (both to check you're not shoplifting, and also to see how customers behave). They don't tell you that you'll be observed, it's just one of those things you expect when you walk into someone's shop. The problem is that this is a poor analogy to computer networking. I send you an HTTP request; you send me an HTTP response. I'm not visiting your shop; we…

Sorry, but we'll have to agree to disagree on this. Visiting amazon.com is exactly like walking into a shop, and nothing like "sending messages to a server". I totally understand that that's what's happening behind the scenes, but that's like saying "I vibrated the air in specific harmonics" rather than "I said yes".

The extent to which visiting amazon.com is like walking into a shop is the extent to which Amazon puts up a facade to make it feel like that. That we're exchanging messages is not just what's happening behind the scenes, it's the essential truth of how communication happens on the net.

If I were visiting your shop, it's totally reasonable for you to check to make sure I'm not stealing anything. But I can't steal anything of yours by sending you messages! (Setting aside the possibility of me hacking your server, but that's not what you're sending me javascript to check on.) Hopefully this expresses more clearly why I don't think the shop analogy holds water.

If "sending messages" is too primitive of an abstraction, we can imagine exchanging letters in the mail, or buying a newspaper, or something like that.

(BTW, I'm sorry for the unconstructive sister comment here - I definitely don't condone it.)

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#266

Post by ttldude » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 11:31 PM UTC

WaltPurvis wrote: post #208

ttldude wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh help, you can't be serious that he uses those on purpose.

It's a quite common practice to refer to companies by their ticker symbols. I see it all the time and it has never struck me as odd or noteworthy.

I've never seen it before.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#267

Post by ttldude » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 11:32 PM UTC

hnuser77 wrote: post #186

ttldude wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh help, you can't be serious that he uses those on purpose.

It's a neat trick: it emphasizes that they are amoral companies required to do nothing but make money, and simultaneously that they're only companies like the thousands of other gyrating tickers on the stock market. This same author frequently uses the term "Microsoft Github".

Thank you, it's framing. Now that makes sense.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#268

Post by marc_io » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #214

marc_io wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Google is not neutral, it definitely have a clear, intentional agenda. But it's non-moral (not imoral, or evil) as are all corporations. It just uses it's power as a way to complete it's objectives. This is way different from being neutral.

Objectives can be evil

Certainly, what I mean is that it's actions can be also be seen as good under certain moral code.

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#269

Post by BlueTemplar » Tue, Nov 26, 2019, 6:57 PM UTC

z3t4 wrote: post #252

BlueTemplar wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is NOT self-publishing.

When making home made food, do I also need go grow the wheat myself? eg. do I need to run the server at my house, or can I use a service? Where do you draw the line?

How easy is it to move your profile from Twitter/Instagram to another host ?

Re: The Web Began Dying in 2014 (2017)

#270

Post by VvR-Ox » Wed, Nov 27, 2019, 1:47 PM UTC

superkuh wrote: post #66

VvR-Ox wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Finding interesting stuff" maybe. But finding a lot of the things I used to find some years ago is just not possible anymore. Somehow searching changed as well as the ecosystem of the web itself. The big global players dominate nearly every inch of the web and many sites look like clones of each other. There is a lot more effort being put into censorship and also more threats to ordinary users in my opinion. When I…

All you have to do is be the change you want to see in the world. There's plenty of us out there still living the dream of the 90s. Your descriptions sound like you're still stuck on the big platforms where money rules everything. Just stop. Start hosting your website from home. Code it by hand. Don't care if anyone but you likes or sees it. It's the best you can do.

I've been there & have done that, thank you ;)

For my own services it's okay to host them from home but "the web" just doesn't work like this anymore.

Do something big and you'll want to get things like DDoS protection - talk to customers about projects and just realize that they won't scale on your mini server at home while the internet connection is much too slow and unreliable.

I have started like you describe it and I learned some things on the way but the industry and the web have changed. Of course there is tiny companies who can still get their static website from a freelancer guy but this guy has a lot more responsibility and tasks to fulfill nowadays.

In my opinion back in the 90ies you could play around in a naive way without getting hurt or hurting anyone seriously. Today it's about a lot of cash, there is more laws, censorship and other malicious entities (go back in time and tell the people about bitcoin-mining in their browser and DDoS attacks against centralized services like CDNs that bring down half of the WWW).

Put a server on the web that isn't hardened properly and have a look at the logs - this is some new level in comparison.