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Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

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Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#181

Post by rock_hard »

wmf wrote: post #179
tschellenbach wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating to see distributed social networks from a tech perspective. From what I've seen so far they exacerbate the problems that Facebook has been seeing so much backlash against. 1. The whole Cambridge Analytica issue was caused by APIs that are too open. For distributed systems there are more ways to exploit the APIs and gather data on users. 2. There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability…

I think the idea is no ads -> nothing to target -> no need/value for personal data. Sure, maybe Cambridge Analytica can scrape Scuttlebutt or Mastodon but then what can they do with that data?

Create a army of fake users to influence people that way maybe?

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#182

Post by rock_hard »

colordrops wrote: post #81
tschellenbach wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating to see distributed social networks from a tech perspective. From what I've seen so far they exacerbate the problems that Facebook has been seeing so much backlash against. 1. The whole Cambridge Analytica issue was caused by APIs that are too open. For distributed systems there are more ways to exploit the APIs and gather data on users. 2. There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability…

For a properly designed distributed social network, there's no reason your data should be visible to anyone other than those you have approved.

What if people get tricked into approving malicious accounts?

Who is gonna police that?

How are you gonna prevent anarchy?

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#183

Post by mdu96 »

"Of course, unscrupulous firms like Cambridge Analytica are also able to access some users’ personal data by finding exploits in Facebook’s policies."

The "unscrupulous firms" did not find an exploit in Facebook's policies. Facebook designed those policies so that 3rd-party developers had access to user's data, and they knew it since the very beginning.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#184

Post by rock_hard »

black_puppydog wrote: post #155
tschellenbach wrote: post #2

I think it's fascinating to see distributed social networks from a tech perspective. From what I've seen so far they exacerbate the problems that Facebook has been seeing so much backlash against. 1. The whole Cambridge Analytica issue was caused by APIs that are too open. For distributed systems there are more ways to exploit the APIs and gather data on users. 2. There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability…

Personally, I hope (and I think I'm not alone here) that on a network like scuttlebutt, there will be much less "noise" than on facebook. My timeline on facebook (whenever I check it, like weekly) is a mishmash of... * ads (if using a browser that doesn't get rid of them) * "you missed someone's birthday who you didn't even remember you were "friends" with * look at this really popular post in your social vicinity, E…

But if users don’t stay engaged then how would they retain?

And if they don’t retain...how would it be useful to anyone when none of their friends are on it?

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#185

Post by blurbleblurble »

Okay, but the immutable references sure make it hard to get rid of stuff once you've put it up there...

I much prefer the DAT protocol, which has mutability built into its assumptions about how people will use it.

I know you could do the same thing with an immutable protocol, but Scuttlebutt is a perfect example of why immutability shouldn't be the default. Try deleting something you put on there and maybe you'll see why. I couldn't figure out any obvious way to do this. I'd imagine that's because nobody has coded the "mutability feature" for deleting posts.

Mutability needs to be built in. You shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel (mutability) every time you need it.

Beaker Browser/DAT is a much more interesting decentralized experience in my opinion.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#186

Post by Vendan »

tathougies wrote: post #169
Vendan wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scuttlebutt is not at all "fully encrypted", it's fairly trivial to spider and download just about everything. The hardest part is the first foothold (which can be found posted various places, including the official docs on ssb), from there, downloading the entire "social web" it has can be done with the "main client" by basically changing a single config value.

Sure you can download everything, but you can't read it...

you can read 90+% of it (only specifically private messages are unreadable, and most of the systems are not built on those)

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#187

Post by canadaduane »

EGreg wrote: post #103
erkose wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We fail to consider policy when thinking about centralized/federated services. Centralized services provide strong, regular policy adherence across the network, whereas federated services provide weak, irregular policy adherence across the network. Centralized services can effectively silence a bad actor. They may also silence a good actor, but generally only under external pressure from government. Federated service…

Why should “a service” silence anyone? How about letting people make their own decision who they want to talk to, without a third party saying “I forbid it”.

Can I use an analogy from biology to shed light on the valid point you have?

Human beings exist as part of a society--a larger organism. Imagine if a cell were permitted to send any proteins or RNA it wanted to its neighboring cells. As long as the signals are benign or simply "nuisance" level, it's fine. But if the signals subvert the very organism of which they are a part--for example, by tricking neighboring cells into ignoring programmed cell death and encouraging enlarged blood vessel growth in the area--then there is a real danger that these cells are becoming a cancer to the host body that sustains their very existence.

I think the scare-quotes you put around "service" might be to show that a communication service that silences your communication is no service at all. But isn't that true of any complex, principle-based decision? If you have a friend who says he is going to blow up a federal building, and you report him, are you a "friend"? Some principles trump others--like saving lives over sustaining friendships, for instance. In the same manner, I think there are legitimate cases where a "service" should not serve.

How that should work in practice is still being worked out--in the halls of tech companies and legislatures all over the world.

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#189

Post by bwbw223 »

walterbell wrote: post #163
zeveb wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that I sound like a broken record, but this is exactly the issue which canonical S-expressions were designed for, and which SPKI wrestled with & solved twenty years ago. The SPKI version of a message would look something like (I've removed the hash property, because I don't think it makes sense for an object to specify the hash to be used to refer to it, but one could add it back in if one wished): (message (p…

Which large scale open-source or commercial software is using s-expr today?

WebAssembly text format? https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/Underst...

Re: Scuttlebutt, a Decentralized Alternative to Facebook

#190

Post by bigiain »

throwawayjava wrote: post #52
notheguyouthink wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The whole Cambridge Analytica issue was caused by APIs that are too open. For distributed systems there are more ways to exploit the APIs and gather data on users. Huh? Scuttlebutt is fully encrypted.. doesn't that make the API vastly more locked down than Facebook/etc? > There is a clear issue with Facebook's accountability in these areas. Distributed systems are typically open source, they run on multiple servers…

> Scuttlebutt is fully encrypted.. doesn't that make the API vastly more locked down than Facebook/etc? No, not at all! TOR is fully encrypted, but there are somewhat regular vulnerability reports about various parts of the stack. Including criticial vulnerabilities that can and have been exploited by nation states, for example. > This is no worse than Facebook though This is not at all clear to me. The attack surfac…

> I trust Facebook's security team to audit and patch much more than I trust any random friend.

Sure, but I wouldn't choose "a random friend" to run my FB replacement service, I'd choose a trusted friend. And more importantly, no matter how good Facebooks security team are at patching and auditing servers - THEY ARE THE ADVERSARY IN THIS CONTEXT!

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