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Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

wired.co.uk

81–90 of 205 posts

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#81

Perfect timing, I just released a tool that enabled a more decentralized web. It used BitTorrent Sync to distribute files and I plan on implementing namecoin or colored coins for name resolution. As soon as an open source, stable btsync clone is released I plan on swapping it in. The biggest drawback is that you can only serve static content, although I think many websites today would be fine with this restriction. Y…

You should team up with the Ethereum project: http://ethereum.org

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#82
post #71
post #68

I've been trying to think about "rethinking" government for quite a while. The idea of a web based governance system seems really appealing, in the sense that I think the greatest strength of the web is how quickly ideas can go from concept to execution. Its about the closest thing to a meritocracy as we've ever come, and that's simply because the gate keeper is thrown away. Think about how many great things have spr…

I fear that you are overestimating humanity: "The idea has overwhelming support, so someone creates a new policy component, and gives permissions to suction tax funds"... You are not afraid that this will lead to radical redistribution of wealth eventually resulting in loss of motivation to create wealth? (Yes, the Atlas Shrugged scenario.)

Anyone who fears the Atlas Shrugged scenario isn't living in reality anyway.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's crucify his for that :) I hear what you are saying, but there is also reason for drm. Or we will have flash forever. What I am saying, I at least can understand why he did it.

Yes let's. Standardizing DRM extensions is bullshit. No new browser can ever be standards compliant when being compliant requires having the appropriate binary blob as distributed by the approved parties.

If "standards compliant" means implementing every feature then no new (or existing) browser will ever be standards complaint anyways. This is not a lever that can be used to force everyone to implement DRM.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#84
post #71
post #68

I've been trying to think about "rethinking" government for quite a while. The idea of a web based governance system seems really appealing, in the sense that I think the greatest strength of the web is how quickly ideas can go from concept to execution. Its about the closest thing to a meritocracy as we've ever come, and that's simply because the gate keeper is thrown away. Think about how many great things have spr…

I fear that you are overestimating humanity: "The idea has overwhelming support, so someone creates a new policy component, and gives permissions to suction tax funds"... You are not afraid that this will lead to radical redistribution of wealth eventually resulting in loss of motivation to create wealth? (Yes, the Atlas Shrugged scenario.)

You are not afraid that this will lead to radical redistribution of wealth eventually resulting in loss of motivation to create wealth?

The motivation to create wealth justification for inequality is one of the most morally bankrupt ideas ever conceived. Billions of people around the world live in abject poverty; to blame them for their situation takes a profound case of the fundamental attribution error.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say HTTP doesn't support it? If a browser doubled as a server, and each person hosted its own pages, how would that not be decentralized and P2P? Hell, it's been done: Opera Unite had just that model, with web pages and applications hosted by the browser itself: http://www.operasoftware.com/press/releases/general/opera-un...

The big problem with browser-as-server is that users typically want to power off their browsing devices, while they typically want servers to be always-on. Tying it through a cloud-hosted VPS or some local dedicated device (those wall-wart computers, or something else lightweight and low power but sufficiently capable), but then having the browser talk to it smartly (potentially from several devices simultaneously),…

One possible solution is to distribute the hosted content to peers, so that when one person's browser is offline, hopefully someone else's is online to act as a server instead. That doesn't serve as a guarantee, but with a centralized fallback it could work. There are some very clever people already doing this with WebRTC.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#87
post #13

The internet is decentralized, the web has never been. HTTP protocol doesn't support it. But it's time to do that. What we need is the possibility of peer-to-peer connections between browsers.

While I agree that TCP/IP is decentralized, unfortunately due to NAT and corporate firewalls, vast swaths of users have been relegated to second class citizens who can only act as data consumers. Unfortunately this same misguided approach to security, or as I call it suckerity, has been carried forward into IPv6. There is some hope that WebRTC and other p2p technologies might alleviate the problem but then the task o…

As far as a decentralized content-addressable network goes, the swift protocol[0] seems pretty close to what you're talking about. I heard about it here a while back, and was quite interested in it, but it doesn't look like it's moved much lately (the page has a copyright date of 2010).

[0] http://libswift.org/

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#88
post #68

I've been trying to think about "rethinking" government for quite a while. The idea of a web based governance system seems really appealing, in the sense that I think the greatest strength of the web is how quickly ideas can go from concept to execution. Its about the closest thing to a meritocracy as we've ever come, and that's simply because the gate keeper is thrown away. Think about how many great things have spr…

You, like a whole bunch of the new technocratic futurists, have almost no ability to discern fantasy from reality.

What you're talking about is popularly known as science fiction. You should be writing books and not pretending like you know the first thing about politics.

The reason why things take so long in reality is because there is a multitude of voices. Reddit does not promote pluralism, rather a giant circle-jerk of like minded individuals. Compromise is the name of the game in politics, something that the goon squad on Reddit has almost no understanding of.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#89
post #2

Part of the difficulty of bringing this about is making p2p easy for users. I have high hopes that WebRTC data channels can start tearing these walls down by making it as simple as opening a web app.

> Part of the difficulty of bringing this about is making p2p easy for users. As a general concept, P2P is easy for users - using bittorrent clients, TPB, etc. is essentially mainstream. The one thing that would be nice is browser support - I would love it if Chrome had the option to download .torrent files using the Chrome download manager. Thanks to web seeds[0], this would allow providers to convert any download t…

> As a general concept, P2P is easy for users - using bittorrent clients, TPB, etc. is essentially mainstream.

I wish that were true, but I am forced to disagree; it's been my experience (and that of my tech-savvy friends with whom I have discussed this UX shortcoming) that most people don't know how to torrent (much less set up and use freenet). Showing my parents or most of my siblings how to use a torrent client in conjunction with a tracker site is not going to be a fruitful task. If it's not as easy as Youtube or Netflix (click and watch), they aren't going to put in the effort to learn or remember how to do it.

Re: Tim Berners-Lee: We need to re-decentralise the web

#90

It's great that Berners-Lee is saying this, but he'd have retained a lot more of his authority to pronounce on the future of the Web had he not thrown his weight behind the W3C's horrible plan to put DRM into HTML.

Let's crucify his for that :) I hear what you are saying, but there is also reason for drm. Or we will have flash forever. What I am saying, I at least can understand why he did it.

Yes, and the reason for DRM is exactly the same as for centralization: central control and exploitation.

You cannot credibly argue for "building new architectures for the web where it's decentralised" (especially not with the arguments he uses with regards to corporate and government power) and at the same time endorse leaving the endpoints open to centralized control.

I can understand why some people who do not like it would still support DRM in HTML. I cannot understand why he does.

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