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Winning back the Internet by building our own

roarmag.org

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Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#11

Post by Funes- »

miketery wrote: post #5
fsflover wrote: post #3

I2P [0] does not require a special infrastructure and provides strong anonymity on top of existing networks. [0] https://geti2p.net

This is pretty awesome. What are the missing pieces to get people using this? Is there a need? I think it's being able to launch infrastructure like AWS but for consumers. Imagine one click to launch your "virtual home" / bastion. You can mange your virtual home from trusted devices (desktop, mobile, possibly web if you grant keys to 3rd party). In your virtual home you can setup I2P, a personal VPN (e.g. algo by tra…

>What are the missing pieces to get people using this?

It's generally slow and it needs port forwarding to work correctly. Its design (whether you look at the java router, I2P, or the C++ one, i2pd) isn't really noob-friendly, either. That's more than enough to deter almost everyone from using it, it seems.

>Is there a need?

I'd say there's an ever-increasing need for anonymous, uncensorable platforms on the Internet. I wager we will progressively notice an urgency to turn to this kind of applications in the coming years. I hope I'm wrong on this one, but I don't think my guess will be too far off.

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#15

Post by fsflover »

Funes- wrote: post #11
miketery wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pretty awesome. What are the missing pieces to get people using this? Is there a need? I think it's being able to launch infrastructure like AWS but for consumers. Imagine one click to launch your "virtual home" / bastion. You can mange your virtual home from trusted devices (desktop, mobile, possibly web if you grant keys to 3rd party). In your virtual home you can setup I2P, a personal VPN (e.g. algo by tra…

>What are the missing pieces to get people using this? It's generally slow and it needs port forwarding to work correctly. Its design (whether you look at the java router, I2P, or the C++ one, i2pd) isn't really noob-friendly, either. That's more than enough to deter almost everyone from using it, it seems. >Is there a need? I'd say there's an ever-increasing need for anonymous, uncensorable platforms on the Internet…

>it needs port forwarding to work correctly

What are you talking about? You need to put a proxy 127.0.0.1:4444 into your browser setup, but I wouldn't call it "port forwarding". Apart from that, you just install it and go to the eepsites. Upd: Indeed, you will also have to wait until the router finds enough peers.

>What are the missing pieces to get people using this?

I would say, it only needs more people to know about it.

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#16

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

Munksgaard wrote: post #14

I think gemini[0] is an interesting alternative to the regular internet. It's deliberately designed to avoid many of the things making the web terrible[1]. 0: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ 1: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html

In throwing out the complexity of HTML, Gemini is also disposing of some markup that really helped screenreaders properly handle content. It would be a real shame if this "return to the good internet" left out the visually impaired. I agree with the goals of returning to a more bare-bones, text-heavy internet, but please, include the disabled in your vision from day one!

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#18

Post by msla »

Munksgaard wrote: post #14

I think gemini[0] is an interesting alternative to the regular internet. It's deliberately designed to avoid many of the things making the web terrible[1]. 0: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ 1: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html

Thinking of Gemini as an "alternative to" the Internet means you think of the Web as "the Internet" and I thought that we'd be a bit more technically savvy than that here.

Also, there's no real technical reason Gemini-the-protocol can't serve HTML, but that discussion is probably dead, too.

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#19

Post by Munksgaard »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #16
Munksgaard wrote: post #14

I think gemini[0] is an interesting alternative to the regular internet. It's deliberately designed to avoid many of the things making the web terrible[1]. 0: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ 1: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/docs/faq.html

In throwing out the complexity of HTML, Gemini is also disposing of some markup that really helped screenreaders properly handle content. It would be a real shame if this "return to the good internet" left out the visually impaired. I agree with the goals of returning to a more bare-bones, text-heavy internet, but please, include the disabled in your vision from day one!

I must admit that I don't know anything about screenreading or accessibility in general, but I think you raise a valid concern: Certainly, the "next-generation good internet" should be accessible to all.

However, I would think that being much simpler (also, mind you, content-wise) would be a positive thing for gemini, in this context? Would you care to elaborate on what kinds of things are made harder by the choices gemini made? And what do you think could be done to alleviate those problems?

Re: Winning back the Internet by building our own

#20

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

Shorter: We could and should build local networks, but we can't build inter-networking infrastructure, so we'll just piggyback on the existing longer haul (0) infrastructure but not worry about it because it will be our protocols and data. So we won't actually build our own internet at all.

(0) longer haul seems to mean more or less above the maximum length of a segment of CatN cable and/or reach of medium powered wifi transmitter.

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