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It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

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Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#21

Post by netcraft »

plg wrote: post #10

It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control). The current situation is akin to having to travel to some centralized letter-reading facility in order to read letter mail. Your grandma sends you a letter in the mail and you have to go to a cent…

This is an interesting idea, although as an alternative analogy: in an apartment complex, you would go down to your mailbox and insert a key to authenticate you to retrieve your mail. I think the biggest challenge to having on-premises software for all of this stuff is the maintenance of it - but a decentralized social media platform certainly sounds interesting.

Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#22

Post by userbinator »

plg wrote: post #10

It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control). The current situation is akin to having to travel to some centralized letter-reading facility in order to read letter mail. Your grandma sends you a letter in the mail and you have to go to a cent…

Two main reasons I can see:

* ISPs discouraging or even prohibiting servers, due to bandwidth or other concerns.

* Laziness/generally complacent attitude. I think this is a deeper issue than the first one, since a change here may make ISPs reconsider. A lot of people just don't want to learn about how to setup their own server for email/webpages/etc. and would willingly give control to someone else despite the privacy/freedom implications of doing so. In other words, they value "easy" over control, privacy, and freedom. The same reason walled-garden DRM ecosystems have been so successful.

I'm strongly in support of a decentralised and more "user-centric" Internet, where almost everyone has their own servers and websites, and knows more about how things work, but I think there has to be a huge shift in social attitudes first.

Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#23

Post by fidotron »

plg wrote: post #10

It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control). The current situation is akin to having to travel to some centralized letter-reading facility in order to read letter mail. Your grandma sends you a letter in the mail and you have to go to a cent…

Decentralization is absolutely necessary, it's just completely counter to the way the economy on the Internet currently works. SAAS falls apart if everyone is hosting their own stuff, let alone the do it for free and sell ads in it model.

Unless people are willing to start paying software developers directly en masse for decentralized locally run versions of products we currently get for free it isn't going to happen. We're even getting to the point where platforms where you could conceivably do that are being killed off.

What would be a game changer is the equivalent of Android for servers. A proper standard environment with app interoperability, and potential to create app stores, just for server code instead.

Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#24

Post by userbinator »

y0ghur7_xxx wrote: post #8

The only problem I see with https everywhere is the current CA system. I don't trust CAs, and I don't want to pay them. If we can get rid of them somehow there is nothing in the way of https everywhere anymore. I really like the http://convergence.io/ approach, but anything else that gets rid of a central authority I have to trust will do for me.

I don't trust CAs either but I use self-signed certificates when I want to collaborate securely online with people I know offline --- just give them a hardcopy of the certificate for them to verify and then add to their browser. It's unfortunate that newer browsers are making it harder to do this; I can see the justifications for this being in the name of "security", but can't help thinking that it's another way to keep the CAs happy in their monopoly over trust.

Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#25

Post by k2enemy »

plg wrote: post #10

It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control). The current situation is akin to having to travel to some centralized letter-reading facility in order to read letter mail. Your grandma sends you a letter in the mail and you have to go to a cent…

> It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control).

I think there is a good reason. Who wants to spend the time setting up and running a server? I happen to run my own, but it is definitely not something I would recommend to my friends and family.

Maybe someone will come along and create a super easy to install and low maintenance server platform, but if everyone uses that then it is still "centralized" in the sense that everyone is running homogenous setups. I think the key is that everything should be based on open protocols and formats. Email and the web are already there. Tent.io might be a good place to start for the social media stuff. That seems far more important than geographical dispersion of physical servers.

Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#26

Post by pwg »

plg wrote: post #10

It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control). The current situation is akin to having to travel to some centralized letter-reading facility in order to read letter mail. Your grandma sends you a letter in the mail and you have to go to a cent…

> It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control).

This is how the internet is designed, and you can already do this today. In my case, I host my own dns, email, and my own webpages, locally on my home connection. You just have to be willing to learn, and willing to do. Once you've learned, the actual "do" is rather trivial.

[edit: forgot to list dns in the first version]

Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#27

Post by Houshalter »

userbinator wrote: post #22
plg wrote: post #10

It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control). The current situation is akin to having to travel to some centralized letter-reading facility in order to read letter mail. Your grandma sends you a letter in the mail and you have to go to a cent…

Two main reasons I can see: * ISPs discouraging or even prohibiting servers, due to bandwidth or other concerns. * Laziness/generally complacent attitude. I think this is a deeper issue than the first one, since a change here may make ISPs reconsider. A lot of people just don't want to learn about how to setup their own server for email/webpages/etc. and would willingly give control to someone else despite the privac…

Don't some ISPs already block port 80? I looked into setting up my own server and almost everything I read recommended not doing it.

Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#28

Post by ordinary »

Infinitesimus wrote: post #4

Encrypting the internet is not enough if a few companies have unlimited resources and the freedom to figure out how to break the encryption (legally). *Edited for clarity

No company has unlimited resources, but what company, in your opinion, has enough resources at their disposal as well as an incentive to crack a fully encrypted Internet?

Re: It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet

#30

Post by plg »

k2enemy wrote: post #25
plg wrote: post #10

It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control). The current situation is akin to having to travel to some centralized letter-reading facility in order to read letter mail. Your grandma sends you a letter in the mail and you have to go to a cent…

> It's time to decentralize the internet. There is no good reason why we can't have email, webpages, photos, even facebook-like social stuff housed on our own machines in our own homes (or some other place under our control). I think there is a good reason. Who wants to spend the time setting up and running a server? I happen to run my own, but it is definitely not something I would recommend to my friends and family…

"Maybe someone will come along and create a super easy to install and low maintenance server platform"

that's the idea

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