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The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

nytimes.com

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Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#21

Post by elcapitan »

splatcollision wrote: post #18
elcapitan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a flattr user from both sides (site owner and site visitor), I can't say I was entirely happy with it. Although it's well implemented. I find it difficult that they constrained the concept to payoff = $monthly_amount/$number_of_clicks. From both sides I would prefer to be able to set and see prices, not arbitrary equal results for all the sites I click. That had kept me from clicking in most cases, because I would…

Potential to integrate the amount of micropayment as a star rating - think a combined "donate & rate" action after reading / watching. Let people contribute from 0.01 to 5.00 units of currency, in easy increments, that also indicate how much they liked it. Automatically bill and aggregate monthly.

I guess the charm of their solution is that they don't have to put these complex semantics into place. It sounds like a good idea, but rating and paying are two very different things - in my example, I would merely want to reward more effort (1h podcast) with more money. That doesn't mean I didn't like the short blogpost.

Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#22

Post by erez »

goldenkey wrote: post #6

The end of the article said it best. It isn't an infrastructure problem. It's a society problem; people want to use centralized services, ie. Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, etc etc. Muggles don't give two fucks about privacy - idiots aren't usually political dissidents until their food supply gets low or their Snapchat gets filtered by the Great Firewall.

People don't want to use these services. People have to use them, as there is no other method. Had the web's been decentralized from the get-go, and someone would come with a centralized service, you'd find the goldenkeys of the world arguing "people want to use decentralized services".

Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#23

Post by infodroid »

jacquesm wrote: post #13

It's simple: make computers secure enough that connecting one to the net won't imply being hacked within a few days (minutes in some cases). Re-enable mail servers to be run from home connections, make them dead simple to set up and bullet proof. And so on. You can only wind this clock back step-by-step, a reboot will break too much that we have come to depend on. It all went wrong at NAT, we were supposed to be peer…

Also in my experience ISP's to this day favour downloads over uploads by at least a 20:1 margin. Not to mention their restrictions on open ports and running internet-facing servers.

Though I'm not sure if this was just a market response to customer preferences or if it was a contributing factor to digital consumerism.

Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#24

Post by curun1r »

jacquesm wrote: post #13

It's simple: make computers secure enough that connecting one to the net won't imply being hacked within a few days (minutes in some cases). Re-enable mail servers to be run from home connections, make them dead simple to set up and bullet proof. And so on. You can only wind this clock back step-by-step, a reboot will break too much that we have come to depend on. It all went wrong at NAT, we were supposed to be peer…

> Re-enable mail servers to be run from home connections

Mail servers, perhaps. SMTP servers, not a chance in hell. SMTP simply wasn't designed for a world with SPAMers, phishing and others who abuse email. If we're going to enable decentralized, we need to build in security and accountability from the start rather than relying on the naive protocols from the dawn of the internet. Note that you can have security and accountability while still maintaining anonymity. As an example, proof-of-work systems can mitigate the risk of bulk mail.

But if you're trying to replace SMTP, you're traveling a well-trodden path that no one has successful traversed as of yet. I wish whomever goes down that path the best of luck, since we need a good, modern, decentralized replacement for SMTP. But I wouldn't bet on anyone, even someone like TBL, being able to succeed at it.

Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#25

Post by porsupah »

elcapitan wrote: post #9
OscarCunningham wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that the problem isn't paying per se, but rather just the inconvenience. After all people already pay plenty for their web connection. Something like Flattr might be the solution.

As a flattr user from both sides (site owner and site visitor), I can't say I was entirely happy with it. Although it's well implemented. I find it difficult that they constrained the concept to payoff = $monthly_amount/$number_of_clicks. From both sides I would prefer to be able to set and see prices, not arbitrary equal results for all the sites I click. That had kept me from clicking in most cases, because I would…

Wouldn't one solution be to simply Flattr the podcast more than once? Click three times, and the podcaster will get three times the slice your blogposter will.

Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#26

Post by gaius »

curun1r wrote: post #24
jacquesm wrote: post #13

It's simple: make computers secure enough that connecting one to the net won't imply being hacked within a few days (minutes in some cases). Re-enable mail servers to be run from home connections, make them dead simple to set up and bullet proof. And so on. You can only wind this clock back step-by-step, a reboot will break too much that we have come to depend on. It all went wrong at NAT, we were supposed to be peer…

> Re-enable mail servers to be run from home connections Mail servers, perhaps. SMTP servers, not a chance in hell. SMTP simply wasn't designed for a world with SPAMers, phishing and others who abuse email. If we're going to enable decentralized, we need to build in security and accountability from the start rather than relying on the naive protocols from the dawn of the internet. Note that you can have security and…

We only have SMTP because people were too lazy to implement X.400 which lacks most of its shortcomings...

Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#27

Post by amelius »

snsr wrote: post #15
amelius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid this can only be done by introducing new laws. The network effect is just too strong, and most people don't care enough about privacy and openness to switch to different networks.

Or by providing a more attractive option.

How? In this new economy, big corporations have structured themselves such that they can compete with and protect against "disruptive" startups.

Also, coming up with something more attractive takes time (trial and error), and big corporations can easily incorporate (copy) those new features in their products in the meantime.

Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#28

Post by jasode »

jacquesm wrote: post #13

It's simple: make computers secure enough that connecting one to the net won't imply being hacked within a few days (minutes in some cases). Re-enable mail servers to be run from home connections, make them dead simple to set up and bullet proof. And so on. You can only wind this clock back step-by-step, a reboot will break too much that we have come to depend on. It all went wrong at NAT, we were supposed to be peer…

>It's simple: make computers secure enough that connecting one to the net won't imply being hacked within a few days

It's not really simple. It's actually complex and having a general purpose computer be hardened enough for non-geek homeowners not to screw up (social engineering, security warnings fatigue, etc) is possibly an unsolvable problem.

If RSA SecurID whose very business competency is security can be hacked[1], the homeowner running Dovecote/Sendmail/Qmail/etc on Linux or Linux container has no chance at all. If uber-techno-geek Mark Russinovich can get infected with a rootkit[2], the average homeowner has no chance.

One could supposedly burn an embedded chip with email software (a dedicated "email server appliance") that can't be hacked -- but that also means it can't be updated. Email technology evolves (cleartext email --> SSL email --> next tech is ???) Also, if a vulnerability is discovered, the homeowner has to buy a new email appliance. If you make an email server on FPGA than can be flashed with new firmware, you've now re-opened an attack vector from social engineering.

>Re-enable mail servers to be run from home connections,

If you're talking technical issues such as ISPs opening up SMTP traffic on port 25 for residential internet connections, that's not really the problem. The real issue is the social dynamic of trust which is affected by bad actors and spam. Analyzing it through the lens of "technology" disguises the true problem. The puzzle of "trust" happens in a layer above SMTP/25.

[1]http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/02/the-rsa-hack-how-th...

[2]https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/markrussinovich/2005/10/...

Re: The Web’s Creator Looks to Reinvent It

#29

Post by gaius »

infodroid wrote: post #23
jacquesm wrote: post #13

It's simple: make computers secure enough that connecting one to the net won't imply being hacked within a few days (minutes in some cases). Re-enable mail servers to be run from home connections, make them dead simple to set up and bullet proof. And so on. You can only wind this clock back step-by-step, a reboot will break too much that we have come to depend on. It all went wrong at NAT, we were supposed to be peer…

Also in my experience ISP's to this day favour downloads over uploads by at least a 20:1 margin. Not to mention their restrictions on open ports and running internet-facing servers. Though I'm not sure if this was just a market response to customer preferences or if it was a contributing factor to digital consumerism.

That's the A in ADSL for you...
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