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I think "they" in your story are more responsible for building the Internet than "we" are.

by mei0Iesh 11y ago

sillysaurus3 11y ago
Perhaps. On the other hand, consider the origins of the site this comment was posted on.
- toyg 11y ago
  One could argue that there is a distinction to be made between people who "built the web" (which rightly include the original YC founders) and people who "built the Internet", roughly defined as network hardware standards + TCP/IP + DNS. Significantly, high-level web technologies are arguably more privacy-aware than their underlying stack, supporting end-to-end encryption (although to be fair, centralisation is a significant problem at both levels, likely out of purely practical concerns). I don't think malice played any part in this development though -- it's just another accident of history: the network stack got "good enough" to ignite the ecosystem well before privacy implications became clear, such implications weren't so immediately dramatic to force a complete overhaul of the significant amount of deployed infrastructure, and here we are.
  - sillysaurus3 11y ago
    The hypothesis that the people who built the underlying stack (and the infrastructure outside our houses) are responsible for allowing the internet to blossom into what it is today is mistaken. http://www.cluetrain.com/book/apocalypso.html http://www.cluetrain.com/book/apocalypso.html I don't care to debate the topic. Just quietly pointing out an alternative view. Here's a brief proof. Assume that TCP was never conceived. Would most of what we have today still be around?
  - mindslight 11y ago
    It's not the job of IP/layer2 or TCP/layer3 to provide privacy, and in fact they simply can't with regards to "metadata" analysis. The End-to-End principle behind TCP/IP should be considered a must-study in anti-authoritarian thinking. It's the job of all layers to preserve decentralization to the extent they can, and in this regard HTTP(S) fails miserably.
    - aplorbust 11y ago
      "preserve decentralization". "HTTP(S) fails". Bravo. Won't find too many willing to say this; it's the truth. The decentralized architecture that was the original plan for the "internet" is a worthy goal, not simply for anti-authoritarian or privacy reasons. Or home shopping possibilities (Baran paper predicting this). How about something more general, like resiliency? A network that is opportunistic and always "up". Municipalities are building resilient local networks for disaster recovery purposes. We should be building them for all uses, and interconnecting them. A true "internet" does not depend on nor is subject to centralized control. It only requires cooperation.

I think "they" in your story are more responsible for building the Internet than "we" are.

sillysaurus3 11y ago

Perhaps. On the other hand, consider the origins of the site this comment was posted on.

toyg 11y ago
One could argue that there is a distinction to be made between people who "built the web" (which rightly include the original YC founders) and people who "built the Internet", roughly defined as network hardware standards + TCP/IP + DNS. Significantly, high-level web technologies are arguably more privacy-aware than their underlying stack, supporting end-to-end encryption (although to be fair, centralisation is a significant problem at both levels, likely out of purely practical concerns). I don't think malice played any part in this development though -- it's just another accident of history: the network stack got "good enough" to ignite the ecosystem well before privacy implications became clear, such implications weren't so immediately dramatic to force a complete overhaul of the significant amount of deployed infrastructure, and here we are.
- sillysaurus3 11y ago
  The hypothesis that the people who built the underlying stack (and the infrastructure outside our houses) are responsible for allowing the internet to blossom into what it is today is mistaken. http://www.cluetrain.com/book/apocalypso.html http://www.cluetrain.com/book/apocalypso.html I don't care to debate the topic. Just quietly pointing out an alternative view. Here's a brief proof. Assume that TCP was never conceived. Would most of what we have today still be around?
- mindslight 11y ago
  It's not the job of IP/layer2 or TCP/layer3 to provide privacy, and in fact they simply can't with regards to "metadata" analysis. The End-to-End principle behind TCP/IP should be considered a must-study in anti-authoritarian thinking. It's the job of all layers to preserve decentralization to the extent they can, and in this regard HTTP(S) fails miserably.
  - aplorbust 11y ago
    "preserve decentralization". "HTTP(S) fails". Bravo. Won't find too many willing to say this; it's the truth. The decentralized architecture that was the original plan for the "internet" is a worthy goal, not simply for anti-authoritarian or privacy reasons. Or home shopping possibilities (Baran paper predicting this). How about something more general, like resiliency? A network that is opportunistic and always "up". Municipalities are building resilient local networks for disaster recovery purposes. We should be building them for all uses, and interconnecting them. A true "internet" does not depend on nor is subject to centralized control. It only requires cooperation.