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The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

robertmao.com

41–50 of 205 posts

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#41

I still struggle to see what exact problems Decentralized Identifiers solve and how exactly they would make the Internet better. Ommiting additional complexity they bring - where to store them, how to control them etc. - what new use cases they would allow? How would they solve some of the incentives problems on the Internet we currently have? Having controlled by the user public-private key pair instead of multiple…

> how exactly they would make the Internet better.

One key benefit is removing middlemen who may misuse aid.

Never underestimate human corruption—$100 million in aid might result in only $1 million truly helped those in need. This pattern is seen worldwide.

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no incentives until you get screwed over yourself. As an entrepreneur and long term (almost 40 years) owner of running businesses, I have been screwed over by anything from banks to insurers to couriers to, let's just name names, Google, Paypal, Stripe etc. Without recourse. But PERSONALLY, I have also been screwed by the same services, without recourse. And for that reason, I (try to) use services that I c…

Completely agree about working with companies in the same country so you actually get support, I learnt the hard way and now try and avoid overseas companies for this reason. Calling out one company in-particular that we just got over an absolute nightmare of a messy divorce with, Freshworks. They are Indian-based, and their support in India treated us like we didn’t have any consumer rights at all after signing thei…

Ah yes, Freshworks... I could write a book about them :( Stay well away.

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#43

So far nobody explained one simple use case - self-hosted Instagram. How does that work? I want to see the pictures of my friends, and they want to see mine. And I also want to see the pictures of some influencers. What's the self-hosted Instagram setup that makes this work, while all the involved parties are self-hosted?

when you follow somebody, you put their public url in a list, then when you open the app it requests the photos from everybody on the list? I see no reason why everybody could not run a web server on their phone.

So if I follow 1000 people,

I make 1000 requests every time I open the app or refresh my feed?

Also not everyone can be on a stable connection with a public IP address with good upload speeds 7/24. In the ideal world: sure. In the real world: impossible (at least for any foreseeable near future).

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#44
'Decentralized Identifiers' centralise identity in the DID. That's tautological.

Thus that in itself fails an idea of sovereignty: that choosing to be identified uniquely is your choice.

Barking down this alley, while useful from the perspective of NFTs, does not add much to the concept of actual sovereignty.

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree about working with companies in the same country so you actually get support, I learnt the hard way and now try and avoid overseas companies for this reason. Calling out one company in-particular that we just got over an absolute nightmare of a messy divorce with, Freshworks. They are Indian-based, and their support in India treated us like we didn’t have any consumer rights at all after signing thei…

Ah yes, Freshworks... I could write a book about them :( Stay well away.

Is this same as freshdesk?

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#47

Forever free, forever sovereign. DID with ZK human proof on blockchain… Is this possible?

I have created nanotimestamps which basically allow you to embed a lot of data into blockchain itself with basically 0 gas fees. I don't really like crypto that much from a currency perspective given its history with scam but I like the technology just a little bit so I built it. If someone is interested on someway to monetize or I don't know just talk about it, I am more than happy to. Regarding zk human proves, the…

> I have created nanotimestamps which basically allow you to embed a lot of data into blockchain itself with basically 0 gas fees.

How is this possible? Is it something that EVM-based chains can support? Curious to hear more.

> Regarding zk human proves, there are some zkmail

Zkmail doesn’t prove that you’re a unique human. Worldcoin does, but it requires trusting a single company with everyone’s iris data, which is quite dangerous, and completely undermines the goal of building a decentralized, trustless system.

The future I hope for is one where our own devices handle this entirely. Imagine a VR headset or future phone using its iris scanner, combined with our social data, to generate a single, secure cryptographic proof. This proof would verify our uniqueness in the world without ever leaking iris data or any other sensitive information.

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#48

'Decentralized Identifiers' centralise identity in the DID. That's tautological. Thus that in itself fails an idea of sovereignty: that choosing to be identified uniquely is your choice. Barking down this alley, while useful from the perspective of NFTs, does not add much to the concept of actual sovereignty.

Nah, if you run your own identity service, you're supposed to be able to issue any number of unverified identities yourself.

The problem there is that others do not play at all with these, plus actual trust has to be somehow solved.

Typical solutions to trust in DID involve either a big central service, a government approved signature... Or theoretically a distributed web of trust but that bit is under development.

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#49
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was also unthinkable that everyone would have their own desktop computer at some point. If we were able to make self-hosting be as simple as having a desktop, it might be possible.

> unthinkable that everyone would have their own desktop computer at some point it was unthinkable not because people didn't want it, but that it costed too much back then. Half a mil for a microcomputer that took up a room?! Current self-hosting requirements are similarly expensive - time and money. If someone were to sell an appliance for which you could just plug into the outlet, and you get it all, then it would…

That hypothetical self hosting appliance would require constant system administration work, far worse than even the most complex "smart" washing machine.

Re: The future is not self-hosted, but self-sovereign

#50
post #32

> We don’t need more “alternatives” to the cloud. We need a shift in architecture—from platform-centric to protocol-centric systems. Nice idea, but that alone is not enough. The POP3/SMTP protocol is still a server-client based model, and such model naturally gravitates towards centralized systems which leads to the problem we're facing today. In my opinion, to encourage self-sovereignty, a protocol should decouple t…

These protocols exist, e.g. on top of I2P network.

Thing is, nobody has any incentive to back them.

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