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Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

solidproject.org

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Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#101

Post by rapnie »

pbronez wrote: post #96
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solid seems like an idea that only makes sense if your key goal is allowing cloud providers to offer proprietary services that use your data, while still storing it elsewhere. But I'd say most people fall either into "I don't mind proprietary services holding my data" or "I want to self-host the preferably open source application and my data". I don't see the benefit of separating the two at all, and I think the only…

I really liked Sandstorm’s capability-based security model. Very cool concept for a team app server.

Spritely project is developing Goblins, implementing the capability-based CapTP transport protocol for distributed programming and the fediverse, which looks very interesting.

https://spritelyproject.org#goblins

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#102

Post by rapnie »

asdfk-12 wrote: post #84
fuzzybear3965 wrote: post #38

Is this related to Jaron Lanier's vision of union (in the labor sense) groups which sell to companies access to the group's anonymized data? In his model, one individual can belong to many groups and their information is like a share/stock they have in a pool of data with other people. They sell in a cooperative fashion to select companies, gaining power through anonymity and group bargaining power.

Parent seems to be referring to MIDs [1] "Mediators of Individual Data (MIDs) are a union-like organization championed by technologist Jaron Lanier as a framework for addressing the key issues around user-generated data like ownership, monetization, and reparations. An effective MID or data union could perform a number of critical functions on behalf of its members that are currently lacking in the digital economy."…

"Access from your Country was disabled by the administrator.", The Netherlands not allowed (the hashtag for the project is #DDPforAll ironically) :(

http://archive.today/swdlk

Edit: DataDividendProject.com (https://archive.is/iFhT0). Given that it is all blocked, it is not that interesting to me.

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#103

Post by infogulch »

khimaros wrote: post #56
alfonsodev wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Facebook is not that they are using user uploaded content, is that the user has no clue whatsoever the data is being collected by means of tracking actions (likes, time spend on a video...) and cross site tracking and what is going to be used for (Ads, make the site more addictive ?, recommendations?). It's an issue of collecting user generated data without awareness, and with lack of transparency, t…

another problem is that once data has been accessed, it can be stored and analyzed. maybe we need to play big tech's own game and apply ToS to any data we allow them to access?

This exactly. This problem can never get better until normal individuals have the capacity and leverage to demand reasonable contractual limits on the use of their data, and the confidence that these limits will be enforced.

That's a tall order when we don't even have the language to describe what data-usage limits even mean.

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#104

Post by matt_f »

I want to love this.

But, in trying to imagine any scenario in which tech corporations might conceivably start hosting their internal user data on these external "Solid Pods", I'm left drawing a blank.

Until we have a way that tech companies start storing users' data in user-controlled infrastructure, I think this idea is a noble fantasy.

I would love to hear an argument that will convince me I'm wrong on this.

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#105

Post by matt_f »

wernst wrote: post #95
TimTheTinker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the early stages of bootstrapping a SaaS app that prioritizes security and privacy. For my business, this would be great : users are far more likely to trust an app if the app won't be storing any of the application data itself -- if they can choose their own data hosting provider. Google Cloud Drive, Box, and others already allow this kind of model to an extent. Third-party apps can access and modify user dat…

This project might be worth a look: https://www.etebase.com/

Whoah!! That's frikkin awesome!

Has this made front page in HN yet at any point?

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#106

Post by walterbell »

cxr wrote: post #88
anderspitman wrote: post #76

Solid is awesome and I'm bullish on this model in the long-run, but it seems to be caught in a classic chicken/egg problem. Nobody is going to use it until there are good apps. and nobody is going to make good apps until there is a market of users. IMO this is the same problem that kept Sandstorm and remoteStorage from getting big. I see 2 solutions currently: 1. Make an awesome storage product, that just happens to…

> It might have to start out also implementing S3, which unfortunately doesn't support OAuth The expectation that Solid is backed by a smart server that's intimately aware that it's hosting a Solid pod and what exactly it takes to do so is a critical failure in Solid's design. If Solid's protocols instead better accommodated "dead" formats that can be served by static web hosts, so your $USERNAME.github.io could be t…

> "dead" formats that can be served by static web hosts, so your $USERNAME.github.io could be the front door to your data store—at least the parts of it that you already make available to the public

Could you share some examples of such data, other than "news" feeds? FOAF, for example? http://www.foaf-project.org/

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#107

Post by Vinnl »

matt_f wrote: post #104

I want to love this. But, in trying to imagine any scenario in which tech corporations might conceivably start hosting their internal user data on these external "Solid Pods", I'm left drawing a blank. Until we have a way that tech companies start storing users' data in user-controlled infrastructure, I think this idea is a noble fantasy. I would love to hear an argument that will convince me I'm wrong on this.

The only scenario that I think is likely for tech corporations are either legislative pressure, or a tech corporation for which user tracking is not their core competency (e.g. Apple) using it as their USP as a moat against Google and Facebook.

That said, there's a lot of user data at non-tech companies. Especially given that they're not particularly skilled at securing that data, a changing regulatory climate turns that data more and more into a liability. If, as a user, you can ensure that that data is stored at a trusted and competent party (potentially yourself), that alone would already be a major win, in my (personal) opinion.

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#108

Post by Vinnl »

dreamling wrote: post #71
dreamling wrote: post #65

I haven't looked into it for a couple years, I was initially very excited about the concept. TLDR: Unless the user experience/accessibility/hosting experience is improved, I just couldn't suggest anyone use it. Last time I really dug in the user interface and accessibility concerns were not great. I understand the idea was more about the data handling, and that anyone could produce something based off the framework b…

quick followup, after checking my old links and making a new sign up. it does seem like the inrupt.com pod has a bit better /more up to date design. Accessibility, while not perfect, does seem to be improved. (quick WAVE tool check) Things are still fairly confusing for new users though. And some how tos I wrote down from then no longer work. Which is not the worst thing, as some of the tutorials required you to hove…

Note: it was only the old solid.community domain that shut down; the same servers are now reachable through solid.community. But yes, the default UI used there is very lacking and slow to develop.

I also built a more developer-focused interface that allows you to view the data in your Pod, and that should be more accessible. If you're interested, you can try it at https://penny.vincenttunru.com

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#109

Post by walterbell »

wernst wrote: post #95
TimTheTinker wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the early stages of bootstrapping a SaaS app that prioritizes security and privacy. For my business, this would be great : users are far more likely to trust an app if the app won't be storing any of the application data itself -- if they can choose their own data hosting provider. Google Cloud Drive, Box, and others already allow this kind of model to an extent. Third-party apps can access and modify user dat…

This project might be worth a look: https://www.etebase.com/

E2E encrypted firebase equivalent, with CalDAV frontend for E2E encrypted calendar from mobile & Thunderbird clients, with OSS clients, server and multiple language bindings? Seems too good to be true! Thanks for the pointer.

Re: Solid Project: All of your data, under your control

#110

Post by tgragnato »

miguelrochefort wrote: post #97
tgragnato wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking devs to work with RDF is the main issue I have with the approach of Solid. I don't expect SPARQL and ontologies to go mainstream. So why "force your hand" and make solid depend on the standards of the semantic web? There are much simpler and productive approaches to solve the problem of data interoperability.

> There are much simpler and productive approaches to solve the problem of data interoperability. Really? Which ones?

Set a standard.

Working with RDF is computationally intensive. And writing UIs that fit to various ontologies is not solved. So everyone inevitably ends up writing applications to fit a particular ontology.

Excluding theoretical quibbles, what changes? In practice, the particular ontology that your application supports is the standard.

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