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Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

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Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#251

Post by Melkman »

magicalhippo wrote: post #248
Melkman wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you care what address your PC is using ? If your ISP gives you an other IPv6 assignment your router should just advertise that and your PC will use it. You wouldn't even notice. If your router doesn't do that is has a bad IPv6 implementation. The protocol itself is perfectly fine for that. That is one of the big stumbling blocks for IPv6: bad implementations in networking equipment. Causing a conflict in yo…

> Why would you care what address your PC is using ? That's my point. I don't really care. Yet for IPv6 I suddenly need some way to automatically update the firewall rules etc, because the internal IP is also the public IP. > IPv6 does not have that problem and you'll have a service less to run. But how do you distribute DNS and NTP server addresses without something ala DHCP?

For DNS there is rfc6106. And for NTP and other services there is service discovery. Why would you set your own NTP server with DHCP ? Many clients like Android, iOS, Linux and Macos will connect to NITZ or predefined NTP server anyway and ignore the DHCP NTP settings.

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#252

Post by soheil »

snowycat wrote: post #75
soheil wrote: post #53

I'd make it less transactional and more realtime. No http request, tcp packets instead more like old tv broadcasts where there is a continuous signal always being sent. If it was possible to have infinite radio frequencies to use. Then you could load every possible webpage of every website continuously broadcast on a different frequency. To load a page all you have to do is tune in to that frequency. You will then ge…

This would mean that in order to send something back to that server you would need to send an equally powerful radio signal that could reach back to where the server is. Its not the most convenient thing for some people to have a high power radio transmitter in their backyard.

The signal could get boosted by an intermediary station.

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#253

Post by kazen44 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #248
Melkman wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you care what address your PC is using ? If your ISP gives you an other IPv6 assignment your router should just advertise that and your PC will use it. You wouldn't even notice. If your router doesn't do that is has a bad IPv6 implementation. The protocol itself is perfectly fine for that. That is one of the big stumbling blocks for IPv6: bad implementations in networking equipment. Causing a conflict in yo…

> Why would you care what address your PC is using ? That's my point. I don't really care. Yet for IPv6 I suddenly need some way to automatically update the firewall rules etc, because the internal IP is also the public IP. > IPv6 does not have that problem and you'll have a service less to run. But how do you distribute DNS and NTP server addresses without something ala DHCP?

in regards to updating your firewall rules..

Having an outbound allow any and incoming deny any should be sufficient for home use (as it is with IPv4).

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#254

Post by magicalhippo »

kazen44 wrote: post #253
magicalhippo wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you care what address your PC is using ? That's my point. I don't really care. Yet for IPv6 I suddenly need some way to automatically update the firewall rules etc, because the internal IP is also the public IP. > IPv6 does not have that problem and you'll have a service less to run. But how do you distribute DNS and NTP server addresses without something ala DHCP?

in regards to updating your firewall rules.. Having an outbound allow any and incoming deny any should be sufficient for home use (as it is with IPv4).

> Having an outbound allow any and incoming deny any should be sufficient for home use (as it is with IPv4).

The whole point of IPv6 is to allow peer-to-peer communication. For that I need to allow certain incoming connections.

If you seriously think that is a non-issue, then what does IPv6 bring over IPv4 (with or without CG-NAT)?

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#255

Post by magicalhippo »

Melkman wrote: post #251
magicalhippo wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you care what address your PC is using ? That's my point. I don't really care. Yet for IPv6 I suddenly need some way to automatically update the firewall rules etc, because the internal IP is also the public IP. > IPv6 does not have that problem and you'll have a service less to run. But how do you distribute DNS and NTP server addresses without something ala DHCP?

For DNS there is rfc6106. And for NTP and other services there is service discovery. Why would you set your own NTP server with DHCP ? Many clients like Android, iOS, Linux and Macos will connect to NITZ or predefined NTP server anyway and ignore the DHCP NTP settings.

> And for NTP and other services there is service discovery.

Do you have some links on how to configure this?

> Why would you set your own NTP server with DHCP ?

What kind of question is that? Because I have a local NTP server that I want them to use of course.

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#256

Post by JoshTriplett »

neilalexander wrote: post #214
JoshTriplett wrote: post #211

Asymmetric keys as the only addresses, and an authenticated version of Virtual Ring Routing as the routing protocol. That guarantees you're talking to the correct server for an address, that addresses never need to change, and that a server can have as many different addresses as it needs to. Build in a layer for onion routing as well, so that all the servers in the middle don't automatically know who you're trying t…

You have very closely described Yggdrasil, which is a proof-of-concept for these sorts of ideas: https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/

As far as I can tell, though, it sounds like Yggdrasil is still an overlay network, designed to bridge nodes running Yggdrasil across a network that isn't. I'd want to see that as part of the base network rather than as an overlay.

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#257

Post by neilalexander »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #256
neilalexander wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have very closely described Yggdrasil, which is a proof-of-concept for these sorts of ideas: https://yggdrasil-network.github.io/

As far as I can tell, though, it sounds like Yggdrasil is still an overlay network, designed to bridge nodes running Yggdrasil across a network that isn't. I'd want to see that as part of the base network rather than as an overlay.

Indeed, because it’s pretty much the only way to feasibly scale-test something like this without asking people to replace their hardware or breaking them in other ways. Maybe one day we will see protocols like this at lower layers.

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#258

Post by EvanAnderson »

manx wrote: post #137
tbabb wrote: post #128

The "browser" is a blank execution sandbox with a rendering context. The remote server sends programs (using something like WASM) with a standardized ABI. The program can use the rendering context to put stuff on the screen or receive user input. Indexing and page interoperability is done by exposing standard functions which yield the necessary metadata. For example, if you want your site to be indexable by a search…

Maybe this could be approached by compiling the servo browser engine to wasm...

I'm shocked there _still_ isn't a browser-within-a-browser that renders to a canvas element "product" available yet. I've been expecting it for years. A cross-platform browser environment that prevents user control (no ad blockers, complete control of the "UX", no copy / pasting, no printing to PDF, etc) would be a hot seller to a particular kind of web property. Your existing development pipeline works (since you're still rendering to an HTML5 "browser") but you don't have to worry about users exerting any control over the experience.

Throw some Widevine at it, some DNS-over-HTTPS-over-websockets with pinned certificates, and you've got a VM on most consumer-grade devices today that's completely outside user control. The users don't have to be tricked to install anything-- it'll run inside their existing browser on their PC, Mac, iOS device, Android device, ChromeOS device, etc. It's not "trusted computing" but it's close enough.

This sounds completely awful, BTW, but I totally see it happening. Accessibility (and other minimum-viable-product features) are out there in permissively-licensed open source software just waiting to be integrated. It's only a matter of time. Nobody should make this, but somebody will succumb to the easy money and do it.

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#259

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

mojuba wrote: post #174
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #129

Domain parking/squatting is disallowed. You’d have to make the rules in some imperfect way, but it’d be better than what we have today.

Domain squatting is like a disease, but how would you regulate it? Where is the line between just a parked domain that a lot of tech (and non-tech) people reserve for their future projects, and a domain acquired for re-sale? Given a good offer you would probably sell one of the domains you own just as well, wouldn't you?

Clearly the line would have to be imperfect, but it’s a perfect-is-the-enemy-of-good situation. I’d write the rules as follows: The cost of domains increases steeply as you acquire more, so nobody ends up with hundreds of domains. You have some grace period from the date you buy it to make something “real.” Use it or lose it. Renewals would be painful or even just disallowed if you haven’t built something “real” by the end of the grace period. Defining “real” would be tough, but I might look to the app stores for a model there. Even a conservative line would be an improvement. If it doesn’t point to a server, that’s bad. If it points to a web page that isn’t substantively different from your other pages (or just from other pages at all?), that’s bad. Questionable cases would be resolved by looking at all your domains (if you have two domains in clear use, a third that’s borderline will be judged differently than three hundred borderline domains).

Anyways, the point is that even imperfect rules (that surely have their own issues) would be an improvement. Hell you could even just cap the number of domains someone can own at twenty or something and still have an improvement.

Re: Ask HN: If the Internet were redesigned today, what changes would you make?

#260

Post by dredmorbius »

CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #236
dredmorbius wrote: post #33

DNS itself is certainly problematic. Incorporating a time dimension to domains, such that it's explicitly recognised, and greatly restricting transfers, would be one element. Ownership of domains should sit with the registrant, not the registrar. Characterspace should be explicitly restricted to 7-byte ASCII to avoid homoglyph attacks. It's not a shrine to cultural affirmation, it's a globally-utilised indexing syste…

On the domain name issues. Perhaps identity shouldn’t hinge on a mnemonic globally unique identifier at all. Instead something like local mnemonics linking to authenticated reputation based identities. I guess a web of trust kind of approach.

So ... I lean that way in theory, though the question of how a WoT gets structured to support search (and unambiguous search) is its own interesting question. That's something PGP never managed to do.

That said, an identity defined by a set of relationships, rather than a single pecuniary relationship with a registrar, seems more robust.

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