4 ms·

Ideally everybody would have home servers. My server would be what my phone connects through for everything, and the server would deal with anonymization over P

Ideally everybody would have home servers. My server would be what my phone connects through for everything, and the server would deal with anonymization over P2P networks when necessary.

nickik 11y ago
Depends on what you mean by 'ideally'. That approch would not be ideal in terms of resources and time wasted. It would also not be ideal in terms of how well such a system would work. One could also go one step further and require everybody to host a tor hidden service. I think federation with advanced metadata hidding would be great and that should be the goal, but the idea that everybody runs a server would not be part of my goal.
- Natanael_L 11y ago
  What's the problems you see with it? Much of it could be entirely autoconfigured.
  - nickik 11y ago
    Well, it all sounds nice in theory, but nothing is that easy in practice. People don't have computer that are always one. Do you want to run it on peoples routers? That will be hard/impossible. Even if you imagen that everbody has their own server, they would not have very good uptime. What do you do with the messages? Updating potentially millions of server to new version of protocol is hard. Devloping a protocol that is both backwards compatible and secure is very hard. Just look at Bitcoin for all the problem peer-to-peer networks have. Something as simpel as chinas firewall causes a hole lot of problems. I would really like to see federation, but even then I don't think 99% of users should run their own servers.
    - Natanael_L 11y ago
      Multiserver federation? The user's own server is the primary one, with a 3rd party one used as a backup. Much of this can be solved with delegation of tasks.
      - nickik 11y ago
        I just dont see any reason why every user should run their own server. Is a waste of resources and time. It makes everything harder without all that much gain.
        pdkl95 11y ago
        Do you have your (physical) mail sent "general delivery"? Or do you have it sent to personal mailbox a specific address? It doesn't how much it costs[1] in resources. It is important that people have their own place that they control on the internet. You are insisting that everyone stay subservient to a central authority. This means they need an imprimatur[2] to communicate. This centralization has happened because NAT is a "party line". The lack of addresses has removed the most important feature of the internet: every host is equal in the protocol. If you have an internet address, you can publish without the permission of a third party. I'm not saying it is easy, but the power of the internet is that publishing just takes a bit of learning and effort, not the permission of a central authority or other gatekeeper. You seem to be focusing only on various technical features in your analysis, which don't actually matter. This isn't about efficiency or ease of development. This is a question of freedom: is a technology giving people more freedom, independence, and power? Or does it create another layer of middlemen with power over a fundamental feature of society? You need to decide which side you're on in that fight, because there is "no neutral ground in a burning world"[3]. [1] It isn't going to cost much; small serves are cheap and getting cheaper all the time. By definition we're talking about something that would have the benefits of mass-production. [2] https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ [3] https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5491_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312272300_-_no_neutral_ground_in_a_burning_world_-_quinn_norton_-_eleanor_saitta https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5491_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312272... http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burning-world/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burn...
        nickik 11y ago
        All mailbixes are actually grouped together. I have rented my apparment and i have very little control over the mail box. Its much more like federation then it is like peer-to-peer. In the modern world you have control of almost nothing. You always rely on a huge number of profiders. The importent thing is that their is competition and that if you are unhappy, you can do it yourself. Thats federation, a model that scales and has at least the potential to compete with centralised systems. Peer to peer is incredibly hard. I would love to live in your fantasyland, where NAT does not exists, everybody runs cheap linux servers that are always up to date and reachable, even of they are behind shitty ISP provided routers. If you want to spend your effort on solving these problems, more power to you. People like Gnunet are doing a fantasic job at proiding a basis for a truly peer to peer system that is secure. I prefer to deal with the reality and advocate solutions that have at least some chance of actually working. I am happy to host a number of services for my friends and familly, and I happly federate with others. I will hover defently not go out and tell my parents that they should go out and buy and run a freedom box.

Ideally everybody would have home servers. My server would be what my phone connects through for everything, and the server would deal with anonymization over P2P networks when necessary.

nickik 11y ago

Depends on what you mean by 'ideally'. That approch would not be ideal in terms of resources and time wasted. It would also not be ideal in terms of how well such a system would work. One could also go one step further and require everybody to host a tor hidden service. I think federation with advanced metadata hidding would be great and that should be the goal, but the idea that everybody runs a server would not be part of my goal.

Natanael_L 11y ago
What's the problems you see with it? Much of it could be entirely autoconfigured.
- nickik 11y ago
  Well, it all sounds nice in theory, but nothing is that easy in practice. People don't have computer that are always one. Do you want to run it on peoples routers? That will be hard/impossible. Even if you imagen that everbody has their own server, they would not have very good uptime. What do you do with the messages? Updating potentially millions of server to new version of protocol is hard. Devloping a protocol that is both backwards compatible and secure is very hard. Just look at Bitcoin for all the problem peer-to-peer networks have. Something as simpel as chinas firewall causes a hole lot of problems. I would really like to see federation, but even then I don't think 99% of users should run their own servers.
  - Natanael_L 11y ago
    Multiserver federation? The user's own server is the primary one, with a 3rd party one used as a backup. Much of this can be solved with delegation of tasks.
    - nickik 11y ago
      I just dont see any reason why every user should run their own server. Is a waste of resources and time. It makes everything harder without all that much gain.
      - pdkl95 11y ago
        Do you have your (physical) mail sent "general delivery"? Or do you have it sent to personal mailbox a specific address? It doesn't how much it costs[1] in resources. It is important that people have their own place that they control on the internet. You are insisting that everyone stay subservient to a central authority. This means they need an imprimatur[2] to communicate. This centralization has happened because NAT is a "party line". The lack of addresses has removed the most important feature of the internet: every host is equal in the protocol. If you have an internet address, you can publish without the permission of a third party. I'm not saying it is easy, but the power of the internet is that publishing just takes a bit of learning and effort, not the permission of a central authority or other gatekeeper. You seem to be focusing only on various technical features in your analysis, which don't actually matter. This isn't about efficiency or ease of development. This is a question of freedom: is a technology giving people more freedom, independence, and power? Or does it create another layer of middlemen with power over a fundamental feature of society? You need to decide which side you're on in that fight, because there is "no neutral ground in a burning world"[3]. [1] It isn't going to cost much; small serves are cheap and getting cheaper all the time. By definition we're talking about something that would have the benefits of mass-production. [2] https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ [3] https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5491_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312272300_-_no_neutral_ground_in_a_burning_world_-_quinn_norton_-_eleanor_saitta https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5491_-_en_-_saal_1_-_201312272... http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burning-world/ http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/no-neutral-ground-burn...
        nickik 11y ago
        All mailbixes are actually grouped together. I have rented my apparment and i have very little control over the mail box. Its much more like federation then it is like peer-to-peer. In the modern world you have control of almost nothing. You always rely on a huge number of profiders. The importent thing is that their is competition and that if you are unhappy, you can do it yourself. Thats federation, a model that scales and has at least the potential to compete with centralised systems. Peer to peer is incredibly hard. I would love to live in your fantasyland, where NAT does not exists, everybody runs cheap linux servers that are always up to date and reachable, even of they are behind shitty ISP provided routers. If you want to spend your effort on solving these problems, more power to you. People like Gnunet are doing a fantasic job at proiding a basis for a truly peer to peer system that is secure. I prefer to deal with the reality and advocate solutions that have at least some chance of actually working. I am happy to host a number of services for my friends and familly, and I happly federate with others. I will hover defently not go out and tell my parents that they should go out and buy and run a freedom box.