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The key (IMO) to a distributed and decentralised Internet is a net-equality for upload:download speeds. There used to be an argument that we download more than

The key (IMO) to a distributed and decentralised Internet is a net-equality for upload:download speeds. There used to be an argument that we download more than we upload. To phrase it another way: we used to consume more content than we published. The fact is, we individually produce more content now than we consume, much more than the traditional media companies of the previous generation, as evidenced by the content on Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter, WordPress, et cetera. But the Internet in 2015 is an AOL-2.0-like one and we need to nudge it in the direction of a distributed one again. The solutions are within our grasp because they exist already. The software and the communication protocols exist, and are open and tested. A small change at the root, like Net-Equality, would result in an avalanche effect change in how we communicate and store information. The Internet of 5 years from now could be vastly different (and better in my opinion) than the one we have today. It could fulfil the 1990's predictions of people like Bill Gates and Mark Andreesen, who now sing a different tune, but used to preach the power of a distributed Internet.

tbrownaw 11y ago
But what happens when my home internet connection goes out, or I don't have an always-on desktop machine? That's also an inequality in upload/download, and it's far more important than just a bit of imbalance in total bandwidth. Especially when most of that download bandwidth is watching popular (and probably commercial) videos. I'm not sure which side I'd put the typical "no servers" TOS, since if enough people ignored that it would probably go away.
- icebraining 11y ago
  But what happens when my home internet connection goes out, or I don't have an always-on desktop machine? The content can get distributed and hosted right after you publish it, ensuring access even if your machine goes offline. See Freenet, Bittorrent, etc.
Jweb_Guru 11y ago
There are extremely good reasons to cap consumer upload bandwidth. For example, the majority of DDOSes start from consumer machines, not servers: enormous DDOSes become trivial even without a botnet without capping (and part of the reason enormous DDOSes are becoming more common is relaxation of upload bandwidth restrictions--let's not beat around the bush).
- jacquesm 11y ago
  What an incredibly crappy reason. That's the 'net' analogy of 'but what about the terrorists'. If such DDOSes are that much of a problem the correct response is to have better mitigation and/or detection processes in place not to limit the normal use of the net. By that reasoning we should disallow broadband entirely.
  - Jweb_Guru 11y ago
    Are you familiar with DDOS attacks? Current mitigation strategies are literally "have more bandwidth than they do" and null routing. Given that null routing effectively means people have accomplished their goal of bringing down a site, the only way to mitigate that is to not allow DDOSers to acquire enormous amounts of bandwidth. It's true that a lot of the biggest issues would be mitigated if ISPs would consistently perform packet ingress filtering, fix open DNS resolvers, etc. But to act like this is an easy infrastructure problem is to ignore the technical challenges inherent in the problem.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      > Are you familiar with DDOS attacks? No, I'm a clueless newbie who can't tell a twinax cable from a RAM chip. > Current mitigation strategies are literally "have more bandwidth than they do" and null routing. I think you may be behind the times a bit. It is definitely not an 'easy problem' but it is also not so simple as to get rid of symmetrical net access at the consumer level. Anyway, you're the guru I guess.
      - Jweb_Guru 11y ago
        > I think you may be behind the times a bit. Elaborate. I may well be behind the times. > It is definitely not an 'easy problem' but it is also not so simple as to get rid of symmetrical net access at the consumer level. No, it isn't. But it's also true that you need 10x more machines with a 10x disparity for a volumetric attack.
  - norea-armozel 11y ago

tbrownaw 11y ago

But what happens when my home internet connection goes out, or I don't have an always-on desktop machine? That's also an inequality in upload/download, and it's far more important than just a bit of imbalance in total bandwidth. Especially when most of that download bandwidth is watching popular (and probably commercial) videos. I'm not sure which side I'd put the typical "no servers" TOS, since if enough people ignored that it would probably go away.

icebraining 11y ago
But what happens when my home internet connection goes out, or I don't have an always-on desktop machine? The content can get distributed and hosted right after you publish it, ensuring access even if your machine goes offline. See Freenet, Bittorrent, etc.

Jweb_Guru 11y ago

There are extremely good reasons to cap consumer upload bandwidth. For example, the majority of DDOSes start from consumer machines, not servers: enormous DDOSes become trivial even without a botnet without capping (and part of the reason enormous DDOSes are becoming more common is relaxation of upload bandwidth restrictions--let's not beat around the bush).

jacquesm 11y ago
What an incredibly crappy reason. That's the 'net' analogy of 'but what about the terrorists'. If such DDOSes are that much of a problem the correct response is to have better mitigation and/or detection processes in place not to limit the normal use of the net. By that reasoning we should disallow broadband entirely.
- Jweb_Guru 11y ago
  Are you familiar with DDOS attacks? Current mitigation strategies are literally "have more bandwidth than they do" and null routing. Given that null routing effectively means people have accomplished their goal of bringing down a site, the only way to mitigate that is to not allow DDOSers to acquire enormous amounts of bandwidth. It's true that a lot of the biggest issues would be mitigated if ISPs would consistently perform packet ingress filtering, fix open DNS resolvers, etc. But to act like this is an easy infrastructure problem is to ignore the technical challenges inherent in the problem.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > Are you familiar with DDOS attacks? No, I'm a clueless newbie who can't tell a twinax cable from a RAM chip. > Current mitigation strategies are literally "have more bandwidth than they do" and null routing. I think you may be behind the times a bit. It is definitely not an 'easy problem' but it is also not so simple as to get rid of symmetrical net access at the consumer level. Anyway, you're the guru I guess.
    - Jweb_Guru 11y ago
      > I think you may be behind the times a bit. Elaborate. I may well be behind the times. > It is definitely not an 'easy problem' but it is also not so simple as to get rid of symmetrical net access at the consumer level. No, it isn't. But it's also true that you need 10x more machines with a 10x disparity for a volumetric attack.
- norea-armozel 11y ago