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Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

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Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#91

Post by anoncake »

kmlx wrote: post #51
atoav wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

≥ 2) the majority of internet users are oblivious to the data collection tactics employed by half the internet and I can't picture folks raising pitchforks for "pods" to become a standard. Usually purely technical solutions to societal problems won't bring you far. It is still not bad to have them, because they essentially show what would be possible, if we just wanted. Helps in discussion as well if of all people Ti…

> What ad networks do is the digital equivalent of filming and spying on people who walk by your storefront. What they do, how they do it and the effects it has on society are wrong. wait a minute. i know there are currently startups that offer this exact type of analytics. and from what i know these types of analytics are extremely beneficial to both consumers and store owners. what exactly is the problem here?

If analytics are beneficial to customers, why aren't they opt-in but instead businesses try hard not to let them even opt out?

Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#92

Post by ianopolous »

thinkloop wrote: post #55
ianopolous wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you like the idea of an encrypted personal data store on ipfs, then check out Peergos. That's exactly what we're doing. https://book.peergos.org https://github.com/peergos/peergos

I really like this. Is there any way to monetize it eventually?

Glad to hear you like it! The plan is to charge for a hosted version. (You could still have your own mirror if you want). We want to keep our incentives aligned with those of our users.

Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#93

Post by Igelau »

koevet wrote: post #21
cinquemb wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't necessarily equate "distributed data ownership" with privatization of data, but more to the ability for more people to leverage said data more in their favor as apposed to what the digital overlords like FB et al. just allow people to do on their platforms (and their platforms only). I think as long a some internet users at the margins get exposed to the downsides of the asymmetrical relationship they have…

One way Inrupt approach could work is through Trans-national regulations (e.g. EU). I still believe that a major change in the way data collection tactics are carried out should come from "below" (the people) rather than some incompetent digitally-challenged politician. Practically, if all the technical challenges of Inrupt are sorted out - and I see many - this could become a standard enforced by "enlightened" gover…

> This would probably take a lot of lobbying and can only work if

Assassinated mid-comment by rival lobby. RIP koevet, we hardly knew ye.

Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#94

Post by tomxor »

koevet wrote: post #6

As much as I like the idea (and the people behind it), I have an hard time seeing how this can succeed. The idea of pod reminds me of the self-hosting movement: people -including myself - host a bunch of services to avoid sharing fundamental data, like email, GPS-history or contacts. Still, "self-hosters" interact with all the big personal data hoarder out there (FB, Google, the many ad and tracking companies) which…

> 1) the privatization of data would be a existential threat to their business model

> 2) the majority of internet users are oblivious to the data collection tactics employed by half the internet and I can't picture folks raising pitchforks for "pods" to become a standard.

Both of your points are spot on.

Since #1 would only change if forced, I believe it would need to start with #2 ... which I think requires a _permanent_ social change in the perception of companies that behave like FB... Something even more potent than their recent political meddlings, something so incompatible with western political ideologies and human rights that such companies become pliable and change their business model merely to survive.

I'm not sure what the instigator for such a change is yet, but it will need to make everyone very upset...

Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#95

Post by austincheney »

I am not quite sure of the problem they are trying to solve as it isn’t directly stated. I suspect they are concerned about non-public data hoarding and the resulting centralization on an otherwise public and distributed platform.

If my assumption is correct here are some potential alternative approaches:

* Private platform reliant upon anonymity and public data. The value is the application delivering the best decision(s) returned from a consideration of available data, what some people might think of as AI. The better AI is more valuable than holding data.

* Private platform fully divorced from both data and anonymity. The data is what a person or organization already holds and what they are willing to expose in a private relationship to somebody they know and trust. The relationship is more valuable than the data or the application. This is something like WhatsApp mixed with a tiny operating system that works more like Bit Torrent than using a central service. I am working on something like this.

* Public platform reliant upon mixins of various public data. This is the semantic web of the prior decade. It never took off because nobody wanted to expose their data. Data is king, especially when the corresponding automation isn’t a valued portable commercial product.

* Tiny portable data driven application architecture. Applications need only enough data to perform their functional task at any given moment. The value is purely driven by the application’s output regardless of where data on the fly comes from. This is something like Siri, but more specific to a given task.

In order for ideas like these to be commercially viable data must become a commodity or at least less valued than almost everything else. This is hard because there are very real fears (such as lost privacy) around treating data as a traded commodity and because in many cases software, as a business practice, is still in the dark ages.

Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#97

Post by max_ »

>If you want your insurance company to have access to your fitness data, you grant it through your pod.

What if the insurance companies (or any other company) retain a copy of your fitness data after granting them access.

Won't we end up in the same world we are running away from?

Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#98

Post by virtualritz »

koevet wrote: post #6

As much as I like the idea (and the people behind it), I have an hard time seeing how this can succeed. The idea of pod reminds me of the self-hosting movement: people -including myself - host a bunch of services to avoid sharing fundamental data, like email, GPS-history or contacts. Still, "self-hosters" interact with all the big personal data hoarder out there (FB, Google, the many ad and tracking companies) which…

Regarding 1):

What I was told by the Polypoly.eu guys is that they were pushing for and helping with the policy making that led to the GDPR. They said that once it gets weaponized, using e.g. ML, it becomes /very/ effective at protecting an individual's privacy.

Think seeing some picture of yourself drunk at a stag night in a strip club on FB and marking it for being moved to your private pod (for memory's sake) or deleted (because you hold a leadership position and the picture doesn't resonate 'enough' with your carefully crafted social archetype).

Now the pod software will ask FB to remove the picture with a timeframe X in compliance with GDPR. Including each and every copy of the content they hold. All this happens automatically.

This also triggers a process that checks if the data has disappeared from the public after timeframe X has passed.

If not, the whole thing gets added to a class action lawsuit bundle by an AI. This also happens automatically.

When the lawsuit reaches critical mass, it gets filed in Brussels. Automatically.

Regarding 2): This is indeed a big problem still. But even more so is why people use e.g. FB in the first place.

I think it will require some sort of services running atop the the pod infrastructure to make up for the loss of convenience the disappearance of certain data from platforms like FB has on end users.

And I see a missing piece here, at the end, in the approaches of Inrupt/Polypoly.

Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#99

Post by matz1 »

anoncake wrote: post #91
kmlx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What ad networks do is the digital equivalent of filming and spying on people who walk by your storefront. What they do, how they do it and the effects it has on society are wrong. wait a minute. i know there are currently startups that offer this exact type of analytics. and from what i know these types of analytics are extremely beneficial to both consumers and store owners. what exactly is the problem here?

If analytics are beneficial to customers, why aren't they opt-in but instead businesses try hard not to let them even opt out?

The value for the customer comes when they not opt in.

Re: Inrupt, Tim Berners-Lee's Solid, and Me

#100

Post by [deleted] »

virtualritz wrote: post #98
koevet wrote: post #6

As much as I like the idea (and the people behind it), I have an hard time seeing how this can succeed. The idea of pod reminds me of the self-hosting movement: people -including myself - host a bunch of services to avoid sharing fundamental data, like email, GPS-history or contacts. Still, "self-hosters" interact with all the big personal data hoarder out there (FB, Google, the many ad and tracking companies) which…

Regarding 1): What I was told by the Polypoly.eu guys is that they were pushing for and helping with the policy making that led to the GDPR. They said that once it gets weaponized, using e.g. ML, it becomes /very/ effective at protecting an individual's privacy. Think seeing some picture of yourself drunk at a stag night in a strip club on FB and marking it for being moved to your private pod (for memory's sake) or d…

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