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The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

adriankrebs.ch

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Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#91

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

dehsge wrote: post #79
bsaul wrote: post #5

I only see two outcomes for this problem : an internet of verified identities (start by uploading your ID card). Or a paid internet, where it doesn't matter who you are, but since you're going to pay for that email or that reddit account, the probability that it's AI spam is greatly reduced. And i'm looking forward to none of them.

Members only comment blogs. Where you need an invite to comment also solves the problem. You need to know a real human to get access.

>Where you need an invite to comment also solves the problem. You need to know a real human to get access.

Bittorrent trackers, as absolute retarded as they are, have performed this experiment for us and the lesson we're supposed to learn is that this does not work. Someone, somewhere, has an incentive to invite the wrong sort eventually, which because of the social network graph math stuff, eventually means "soon". Once that happens, that bot will invite 10 trillion other bots.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#92

Post by moritz »

ticulatedspline wrote: post #13

Kinda been dead a while, also not dead there's still good stuff out there. Lots of it, but it's in the corners and under the carpets. Things created in the original spirit of the "let me show you my interests" that the older web was built on. While back was toying with the idea of building out a new web on a new protocol (not http based). Thus no existing browser would understand it. Deliberately obscure to force a "…

https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi

[no, not that gemini]

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#93

Post by ambicapter »

amiantos wrote: post #51

Why is it being called dead internet theory when, as far as I can tell, what's really happening is that big centralized systems are being overrun with bots? The internet existed and was pretty great before these large centralized systems came into being. Anyone can still run a blog/website, and/or their own discourse server. There's no need to mourn for these centralized systems that largely existed only to exploit u…

Anyone can run a blog/website and be subject to AI bot crawlers using terabytes of your bandwidth for no reason, yeah.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#94

Post by selfsimilar »

geek_at wrote: post #19
yakattak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly the $10 barrier to SomethingAwful back in the day (and I guess now since it’s still around) definitely made a huge difference. I hate the idea of subscribing to a site like HN or Reddit… but one time $10 to post? I’d accept that if it meant less bots.

reminds me of Bill Gates in the 90s when asked about email spam. He said it would make sense to make an email cost like 1 cent so the spammers can't spam as much but this didn't sit right with the mindset of the people at the time.

Hashcash was a proof-of-work system that would have put a computational tax on email. I don't know what kept it from getting more traction other than simple chicken-and-egg network effects, but it's a good idea, and worth resurrecting.

http://www.hashcash.org

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#95

Post by jsheard »

nathancahill wrote: post #46
kubb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want cool cryptography where I can, e.g. verify where I'm writing from and what my age is without giving away any other information. Or if I want, I can verify that I'm myself, and eschew anonymity, and certain platforms should only accept contributions from people who don't hide their identity. Everyone knows who you are in the town square.

I think this was the premise of Keybase?

It's kind of bizarre that Zoom is still bothering to keep the lights on at Keybase when it's been completely fossilized for six years now. The writing is so obviously on the wall that nobody should be relying on it for anything, and yet they just won't let it die.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#96

Post by aerhardt »

robotswantdata wrote: post #90
aerhardt wrote: post #67

I have to use LinkedIn to sell. I only occasionally look at the feed but I am ruthlessly muting or blocking anyone who is blatantly foisting their AI drivel on other humans. I’ve had enough of this shit.

unfollow works too

I’ve been unfollowing people for a while and the issue is rarely from within my network anymore… the feed shows a lot of posts from AI foisters who I don’t even follow.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#97

Post by Bombthecat »

MeetingsBrowser wrote: post #85
dehsge wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Members only comment blogs. Where you need an invite to comment also solves the problem. You need to know a real human to get access.

That might raise the initial barrier, but it assumes every user behaves appropriately. All it takes is one invited user to open the door to bots.

Then we go back to torrent sites.

Invite only. You get a number of invites per year etc. And once a year an open door or so

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#98

Post by hackingonempty »

bsaul wrote: post #5

I only see two outcomes for this problem : an internet of verified identities (start by uploading your ID card). Or a paid internet, where it doesn't matter who you are, but since you're going to pay for that email or that reddit account, the probability that it's AI spam is greatly reduced. And i'm looking forward to none of them.

> an internet of verified identities (start by uploading your ID card)

That is Facebook. I hear it is full of bots posting under verified identities.

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#99

Post by basch »

bsaul wrote: post #5

I only see two outcomes for this problem : an internet of verified identities (start by uploading your ID card). Or a paid internet, where it doesn't matter who you are, but since you're going to pay for that email or that reddit account, the probability that it's AI spam is greatly reduced. And i'm looking forward to none of them.

How would you overcome a local llm embedded into a keyboard?

Re: The dead Internet is not a theory anymore

#100

Post by amiantos »

robotswantdata wrote: post #86
amiantos wrote: post #51

Why is it being called dead internet theory when, as far as I can tell, what's really happening is that big centralized systems are being overrun with bots? The internet existed and was pretty great before these large centralized systems came into being. Anyone can still run a blog/website, and/or their own discourse server. There's no need to mourn for these centralized systems that largely existed only to exploit u…

How would the small internet fight the bots? Aggressive moderation? Disable UGC?

In an ideal/fantasy world under "small internet theory", every online friend group would have their own Discourse server set up (similar to how friend groups use Discord now), and traffic/usage of that Discourse server is so small that it would be a waste of resources to try to swamp it with bot traffic, and on top of that, everyone on the Discourse server are friends who can vouch for new members who join, so no bot could join the Discourse server because no one would know who they are.

I understand that some may feel we are losing something, by not being able to go onto a website and anonymously talk to 1000s of other anonymous people we do not know, but I do not think that has actually been a net positive and this bot issue demonstrates the issue quite well: if you do not know who you are talking to, you do not know if they are telling the truth, or if they are someone you should even listen to at all, and now they might not even be human. So why do it? I would rather talk to my friends, people I've met in meatspace or over voice chat in a game, people who I can vouch for and that I know I can respect and trust.

Let's build small communities of real friends who recognize each other and spend time with them on the internet, in that way the internet will never die.

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