Does anyone remember websites? • Hacker News Board

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#61

Post by thaw13579 » Sat, Oct 11, 2025, 11:07 PM UTC

mojuba wrote: post #9

The early internet was like some settlers' shacks, built uncontrollably and unsystematically whereas the modern web is all skyscrapers, residential and business. Uniform apartments, uniform offices all looking very similar differeing in only subtle interior design details here and there. Should we go back to the shack era? Of course not. But maybe we should start a new era of land exploration and start over. It shoul…

I think a better analogy is large corp built & owned vs small artisan businesses & single family homes. Why not have both?

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#62

Post by xantronix » Sun, Oct 12, 2025, 3:10 PM UTC

simpaticoder wrote: post #26

mapontosevenths wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's silly to try and encrypt everything, and arguably it can be worse for the authors privacy. Sometimes a blog post on a plain http web site doesnt need to be encrypted.

I disagree. The primary threat model for unencrypted http connections is a MITM attack. A middle box (a proxy or router) modifies the response payload to inject malicious content or modify the content. For an ordinary blog or personal website an attacker can gain compute, violate privacy, acquire a (minor) DDOS source, on the blogs users by injecting a script. Another type of attack would modify the content of the si…

openssl s_client -connect host:port

Re: Does anyone remember websites?

#63

Post by cykros » Sun, Oct 19, 2025, 6:37 AM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #20

Llamamoe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing missing from your analogy is the fact that the shacks were filled with personal diaries and curios, while the skyscrapers are mostly chock-full of homogenous sewage slurry.

Also the shacks weren’t really particularly shabby or anything, they were just more like well-enough-constructed single family homes. Old websites before scripting became popular were pretty much solid in that boring-tech way. Hardware and networks were not as reliable, but the sites themselves could be fine via simplicity. Modern overdesigned sites are sort of like modern apartment buildings: shitty build quality un…

Well, they did literally often have "this page is under construction" banners on them. and tags lol.

I'd take it all back over the Squarespace hellscape the web has become.