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You can't trust the internet anymore

nicole.express

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Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#181

Post by direwolf20 »

alainx277 wrote: post #180
mnau wrote: post #9

Signal to noise ratio is getting *lower (EDIT: was higher) than ever. I don't see a way out of this other than "human certified" digitally signed authorship (e.g. by using eIDAS in EU). There could be a proxy to at least retain pseudo-anonymity, but trackable to a human. Tragedy of commons strikes again.

It could be interesting to have a search engine that only shows results that have human attestation via digital passports. Of course I'd prefer that to work without necessarily revealing the identity of the poster, similarly to how anonymous "sign-up tokens" for accounts would work, to prevent sybil attacks.

Whitelisting non–slop is sufficient and gets you Marginalia Search. It's usually obvious, upon a quick glance, whether a website is slop.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#182

Post by WD-42 »

cortesoft wrote: post #176
Bender wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is technically correct but there is no harm in them setting up a mesh in the event that the internet goes down assuming they have their own backup power. The USA and EU are both extremely vulnerable to power grid overload, cyber-attack, physical attack choke-points leading to black-starts, EMP, GRB and much more. I think it's good on them for the learning exercise and hopefully they add to existing documentation…

If the power grid overloads, I am not sure that your mesh network will survive either?

It runs off solar.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#183

Post by forgetfreeman »

digiown wrote: post #177
marginalia_nu wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, as long as it's reasonably reliable, compound interest also adds up to turn even small ROIs into big wins across multiple investments.

I don't think it would be reliable enough. Small odds in favor of you and large variations (due to small market cap) require you to invest only small amounts based on the Kelly criterion, and I feel like the resources needed to carry out these influence campaigns are much more effectively used for other goals like political maneuvers.

This is literally how the advertising industry works. Same mechanism, same results.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#184

Post by Sophira »

hnarn wrote: post #155
noosphr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The issue isn’t the actual network connection between people, it is the content. Everyone serving a website is being ddos by AI agents right now. A local mesh network is one way to make sure that no one with a terabit network can index you.

>The issue isn’t the actual network connection between people, it is the content. >>Everyone serving a website is being ddos by AI agents right now. You’re missing the point, the point is that while mesh networks solve a problem, it’s not required to solve the problem ”I’m tired of the Internet” or ”I’m being indexed”. You can build your own network on top of the Internet with zero new hardware required, with somethi…

I don't think they ever claimed that it was the only way to solve the problem, just that they're doing it and it works for them.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#185

Post by Grumbledour »

archagon wrote: post #138
WD-42 wrote: post #16

This is why my friends and I are setting up a mesh network in our town. The open internet has been going downhill for a while, but LLMs are absolutely accelerating it's demise. I was in denial for the last few years but at this point I've accepted that the internet I grew up on as a kid in the late 90s to mid 2000s is dead. I am grateful for having experienced it but the time has come to move on. The future for peopl…

Reminds me of a project idea I had. You'd get a little Raspberry Pi style board with BTLE and battery power (ideally lasting for weeks at a time) and covertly stick it in some communal location, e.g. a cafe or library. Then you'd have it run some local-only forum software and disseminate instructions for connecting to it. The point would be to have a digital community accessible only by direct connection and bound to…

I had a similar idea a few years ago and tried to set it up, but failed at making it easy to connect to. I wanted the phone to prompt you like when connecting to wifi hotspots where you have to accept some T&Cs before you can connect to the internet, but to then just show you the local services instead of actually offering internet. Honestly, this can't be that difficult, but at the time, I could not get it to work reliably.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#186

Post by marginalia_nu »

direwolf20 wrote: post #181
alainx277 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be interesting to have a search engine that only shows results that have human attestation via digital passports. Of course I'd prefer that to work without necessarily revealing the identity of the poster, similarly to how anonymous "sign-up tokens" for accounts would work, to prevent sybil attacks.

Whitelisting non–slop is sufficient and gets you Marginalia Search. It's usually obvious, upon a quick glance, whether a website is slop.

Marginalia doesn't actually use whitelists though, but it does give preference to results from known human websites, as well as sites that are linking to and being linked from that set.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#187

Post by ninjagoo »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #172
fragmede wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: I got called out by Cory for calling other people out on using the term wrong, and he pointed me at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toi... in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44776712

Thanks for that. > As I said in that Berlin speech: >> Enshittification names the problem and proposes a solution. It's not just a way to say 'things are getting worse' (though of course, it's fine with me if you want to use it that way. It's an English word. We don't have der Rat für englische Rechtschreibung. English is a free for all. Go nuts, meine Kerle). Unfortunately, I just think that Cory is wrong in the sen…

> while it's true the English is a free for all (most languages are, really) ... there's an actual cost to the sloppy usage which diminishes the utility of ever even coming up with the word.

Maybe the issue is that the word as coined induces a more general vision of 'degradation of services/products' in a layperson than the original narrow definition? People run into this in any specialization where a particular word has a much stricter technical definition than its general english meaning would suggest. Regardless, semantic drift is real, unavoidable, and inevitable.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#188

Post by nicbou »

Devasta wrote: post #64

The future of the internet is going to be invite-only enclaves. I sometimes wonder is anyone working on the next generation of discussion forums, or if it'll be a return to PHPBB.

This will create an interesting problem for newcomers to an area or hobby, since they will have few introduction points. It will work for some people, but exclude others.

I wonder if there is another way.

Re: You can't trust the internet anymore

#189

Post by nicbou »

alainx277 wrote: post #180
mnau wrote: post #9

Signal to noise ratio is getting *lower (EDIT: was higher) than ever. I don't see a way out of this other than "human certified" digitally signed authorship (e.g. by using eIDAS in EU). There could be a proxy to at least retain pseudo-anonymity, but trackable to a human. Tragedy of commons strikes again.

It could be interesting to have a search engine that only shows results that have human attestation via digital passports. Of course I'd prefer that to work without necessarily revealing the identity of the poster, similarly to how anonymous "sign-up tokens" for accounts would work, to prevent sybil attacks.

Couldn’t those attestations be sold?
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