5 ms·

Big picture here is this: The oligarchy has taken over every form of media communication throughout history. The printing press, the telegraph, the radio, the

Big picture here is this: The oligarchy has taken over every form of media communication throughout history. The printing press, the telegraph, the radio, the television. The internet by design was resistent to centralization, the main method used on the other mediums, but the oligarchy fought a small fight in the form of the 90's cryptowars and then sorta let up. They recognize now though, that the last bastion of true, anarchistic freedom of thought is the internet, and globally will begin to attack it through many means, not just legislative. Decentralization avoiding targeting in an age of mass surveillance is difficult, and this move towards centralization undermines the entire original purpose of the internet as a form of communication that could survive targeting. If we remember this, and build open source, encrypted, decentralized systems, we still might have a chance to keep the internet us older geeks remember. I also have a theory that it is the technology of the internet that has artificially accelerated the oligarchy's attack time frame, because they are desperate to not let the cat out of the bag. Once the world gets a taste of intellectual freedom, they won't want to go back, and the cat is out of the bag so to speak. This is forcing their hand early and is a weakness.

M_Grey 10y ago
The best anyone can hope to do is roll things back to text-based systems... beyond that the cat is way too far out of the bag as you say.
- mirimir 10y ago
  Please say more. What sort of text-based systems? And why? Bandwidth? Riffing from Vinge's True Names, I've off-and-on wondered about mixnets as covert-channel overlays on high-definition video traffic. Given ~1% signal/carrier, you would pretty much be limited to text and small images.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    I wasn't thinking of anything in particular, sorry. I was just thinking in terms of what you're saying, if you break your messages down, hash them, send them in drips and drabs in the background noise, it would be almost impossible to track. Low-bandwidth MESH networks, and just plain people with microwave transmitters and receivers with direct line of sight, daisy-chaining around a neighborhood. The ideas are so prevalent in the public imagination now, that I can't imagine shutting things down would lead to anything other than innovation in the face of it.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      Yeah, that makes sense to me. I hope that we don't come to it, though. Edit: I'm reminded of Hyperboria and cjdns.[0,1] Arguably how IPv6 should work. 0) https://hyperboria.net https://hyperboria.net 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cjdns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cjdns
rhizome 10y ago
The decentralization of the Internet was killed by major NSPs closing their peering, the original Net Neutrality loss.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  Decentralization and centralization are processes happening every day everywhere throughout the internet. One big change in topography doesn't mean decentralization done for. It's a constant cat and mouse game and in net the decentralizers are winning.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    I was using "decentralized" in the "sees censorship as damage and routes around it" sense. Whatever you think of the nature of control over and flexibility of networks, the topology is simpler and less flexible with major providers having closed peering, and this does not ebb and flow. Also, it was not "one big change." It happened over frog-boiling years.
- mahyarm 10y ago
  Decentralization will keep on losing until it is more economically efficient. And performs better. Kind of like solar.
colordrops 10y ago
And the signal that they have succeeded is that comments like this one can either not exist or will be pushed out of visibility.
devoply 10y ago
As they say be careful what you wish for, you might get it. A lot of people these days have been raised with propaganda about freedom of speech and other goodness. Which were just rhetorical phrases that meant little. When they mean much I am not sure you're going to like the results. Intellectual freedom means the freedom to tell the truth, but also your own truth as well as the truth of your group. All of these various partial truths don't always agree and might not be good from a utilitarian perspective. Not to mention all the spectrum of lies.
- mirimir 10y ago
  You seem to be arguing against actual freedom of speech. And focusing on the utilitarian importance of agreement with "the truth of your group" vs "the spectrum of lies". The problem is that "truth" is nontrivial to determine, and arguably best approximated through dialog. And without freedom for everyone to make their arguments, there can be no useful dialog.
  - devoply 10y ago
    You can make your argument to only those people who share your frame of reference and a certain set of axioms. Everyone else can't even understand where you are coming from. The stupid people always have the intelligent at a disadvantage. And usually there are more or them and fewer of you (the intelligent man).
    - mirimir 10y ago
      It does seem that way, sometimes. But maybe consider this: As soon as you've decided that someone is stupid, you've lost the possibility of communicating effectively with them. Because they're not stupid ;)
      - RealityVoid 10y ago
        > But maybe consider this: As soon as you've decided that someone is stupid, you've lost the possibility of communicating effectively with them. Because they're not stupid ;) I'm sorry, what? This makes no sense, sounds like a platitude. So many questions: 1) Why would you loose posibility to communicate effectively with them? You can still choose to communicate, just at a different level of discourcs or applealing to different talking points than before. Actually, as soon you realise someone is stupid, if you're intelligent enough, you should be able to communicate MORE eaffectively, vecause you know your conversation partner more. 2) They could actually be stupid. There are stupid people on this earth, you know. Not that they're wrthless as a person, or anything, it's just that they don't have the processing power to keep up with certain concepts. And that's fine and normal, such people exist.
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mirimir 10y ago
That does seem to be the dynamic. The popularization of the Internet beyond military and academia did catch oligarchies off guard. Also the associated popularization of PCs, and public-interest cryptography. So yes, the cat got out of the bag. But not out of the prison. There is no real freedom using smartphones, and now PCs are becoming more and more like smartphones. The Internet is a morass of nested panopticons. Anyway, hand wringing about FCC etc policy seems silly. Even if it does materially affect privacy for US citizens, it's irrelevant to everyone else. What we need are better approaches for individuals and groups to guarantee their own privacy.
vacri 10y ago
> The internet by design was resistent to centralization, the main method used on the other mediums Books are centralised... how? People self-publish left, right, and centre to this day. And you don't need "other people's pipes" to self-publish either, whereas the internet, by definition, is other people's pipes (the 'inter' bit). > the entire original purpose of the internet as a form of communication that could survive targeting The original purpose of the internet was maintaining military comms, not civilian. The network itself was meant to be decentralised, but the controlling entity couldn't have been more centralised. The end of net neutrality is a serious issue, but we shouldn't be rewriting history to make our points.
- wu-ikkyu 10y ago
  >Books are centralised... how? When a book is published, it is one source producing static information for many readers. One to many. Producer -> Consumer(s). To create a book before the internet you had to be in the central location of the working copy. For more detailed historical analysis of how the printing press created highly centralized societies, check out The Gutenberg Galaxy by Marshall McLuhan[1]. On the contrary, with the internet, many people are producing and consuming dynamic content simultaneously with many people who are doing the same. Many to many. Prosumer <-> Prosumer[2]. Think of a Google Doc where anyone located anywhere across the globe can simultaneously collaborate on a Google Doc. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Gutenberg-Galaxy-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/144261269X https://www.amazon.com/Gutenberg-Galaxy-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer#Producer_and_consumer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer#Producer_and_consumer
  - vacri 10y ago
    That's quite spin-doctory. You may as well say that food is centralised because you have to be in the central location of whatever food it is you're consuming, regardless of the fact that literally billions of different people prepare food every day, in every inhabited place on earth.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
TeMPOraL 10y ago
I want to propose a strictly simpler theory: there isn't any organized Oligarchy assaulting the Internet. There's just lots and lots of people with various interests trying to exploit the Internet for their own gains. Tons of companies, big and small, that don't think twice about fucking up the Internet in pursuit of profit. Politicians who want more power. Law enforcement people that want to make their jobs easier. None of them wanting to destroy the Internet, because the very thought doesn't cross their minds. They don't think in that large of a scale. I.e. the usual tragedy of the commons. Things were all fun when they were irrelevant. Then the Internet started to matter, and the exploiters came, fucking everything up.
- pottersbasilisk 10y ago
  I would agree with you but then I found out about the bilderberg meetings. It seems like the Oligarchy is very very real, maybe not unified in thought but real enough to set and discuss agendas. http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/ http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/
- gr3yh47 10y ago
  there is absolutely an oligarchy. See 1, 2, and 3. if you think they arent organizing to protect their interests and expand their political influence, that honestly comes across as naive with the information available today. [1] http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Tb_z5Fcz--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/lckoza8wfctpe7k9k1de.jpg http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Tb_z5Fcz... [2] http://cds.y5f6s2q6.hwcdn.net/25541/sx2xsdjns30fwy0557v4.jpeg http://cds.y5f6s2q6.hwcdn.net/25541/sx2xsdjns30fwy0557v4.jpe... [3] http://www.yellowstonepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bank_chart.jpg http://www.yellowstonepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/0...
  - newswriter99 10y ago
    You uploaded a few random pictures (also Gawker? Seriously?) of the different divisions of companies, and you think this in irrefutable proof of an organized conspiracy to go all "1984" on the internet? Real life isn't a movie. Move on.
jnordwick 10y ago
I think I might be drifting further from the tech community when conspiratorial rants are highly praised (through votes). The tech community's own version of alternatives medicine kind of. I also noticed the ranting tone of the EFF article describing congressional overview in strange terms (Congress making it illegal for the federal government to ever go against them - having final say on laws of kind of Congress's job, not agencies). While I might disagree with some actions, others that seem to raise heart rates I'm not that concerned about. I'm 40 so maybe my days of over reacting are over? I work in finance so maybe my perception has changed? I generally tend to prefer less regulation as I get older (I campaigned for Greens in college)? Count me out of the daily outrage and revolution. I'm going to take nap and get the kids off my lawn.

M_Grey 10y ago

The best anyone can hope to do is roll things back to text-based systems... beyond that the cat is way too far out of the bag as you say.

mirimir 10y ago
Please say more. What sort of text-based systems? And why? Bandwidth? Riffing from Vinge's True Names, I've off-and-on wondered about mixnets as covert-channel overlays on high-definition video traffic. Given ~1% signal/carrier, you would pretty much be limited to text and small images.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  I wasn't thinking of anything in particular, sorry. I was just thinking in terms of what you're saying, if you break your messages down, hash them, send them in drips and drabs in the background noise, it would be almost impossible to track. Low-bandwidth MESH networks, and just plain people with microwave transmitters and receivers with direct line of sight, daisy-chaining around a neighborhood. The ideas are so prevalent in the public imagination now, that I can't imagine shutting things down would lead to anything other than innovation in the face of it.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    Yeah, that makes sense to me. I hope that we don't come to it, though. Edit: I'm reminded of Hyperboria and cjdns.[0,1] Arguably how IPv6 should work. 0) https://hyperboria.net https://hyperboria.net 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cjdns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cjdns

rhizome 10y ago

The decentralization of the Internet was killed by major NSPs closing their peering, the original Net Neutrality loss.

erikpukinskis 10y ago
Decentralization and centralization are processes happening every day everywhere throughout the internet. One big change in topography doesn't mean decentralization done for. It's a constant cat and mouse game and in net the decentralizers are winning.
- rhizome 10y ago
  I was using "decentralized" in the "sees censorship as damage and routes around it" sense. Whatever you think of the nature of control over and flexibility of networks, the topology is simpler and less flexible with major providers having closed peering, and this does not ebb and flow. Also, it was not "one big change." It happened over frog-boiling years.
mahyarm 10y ago
Decentralization will keep on losing until it is more economically efficient. And performs better. Kind of like solar.

colordrops 10y ago

And the signal that they have succeeded is that comments like this one can either not exist or will be pushed out of visibility.

devoply 10y ago

As they say be careful what you wish for, you might get it. A lot of people these days have been raised with propaganda about freedom of speech and other goodness. Which were just rhetorical phrases that meant little. When they mean much I am not sure you're going to like the results. Intellectual freedom means the freedom to tell the truth, but also your own truth as well as the truth of your group. All of these various partial truths don't always agree and might not be good from a utilitarian perspective. Not to mention all the spectrum of lies.

mirimir 10y ago
You seem to be arguing against actual freedom of speech. And focusing on the utilitarian importance of agreement with "the truth of your group" vs "the spectrum of lies". The problem is that "truth" is nontrivial to determine, and arguably best approximated through dialog. And without freedom for everyone to make their arguments, there can be no useful dialog.
- devoply 10y ago
  You can make your argument to only those people who share your frame of reference and a certain set of axioms. Everyone else can't even understand where you are coming from. The stupid people always have the intelligent at a disadvantage. And usually there are more or them and fewer of you (the intelligent man).
  - mirimir 10y ago
    It does seem that way, sometimes. But maybe consider this: As soon as you've decided that someone is stupid, you've lost the possibility of communicating effectively with them. Because they're not stupid ;)
    - RealityVoid 10y ago
      > But maybe consider this: As soon as you've decided that someone is stupid, you've lost the possibility of communicating effectively with them. Because they're not stupid ;) I'm sorry, what? This makes no sense, sounds like a platitude. So many questions: 1) Why would you loose posibility to communicate effectively with them? You can still choose to communicate, just at a different level of discourcs or applealing to different talking points than before. Actually, as soon you realise someone is stupid, if you're intelligent enough, you should be able to communicate MORE eaffectively, vecause you know your conversation partner more. 2) They could actually be stupid. There are stupid people on this earth, you know. Not that they're wrthless as a person, or anything, it's just that they don't have the processing power to keep up with certain concepts. And that's fine and normal, such people exist.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mirimir 10y ago

That does seem to be the dynamic. The popularization of the Internet beyond military and academia did catch oligarchies off guard. Also the associated popularization of PCs, and public-interest cryptography. So yes, the cat got out of the bag. But not out of the prison. There is no real freedom using smartphones, and now PCs are becoming more and more like smartphones. The Internet is a morass of nested panopticons. Anyway, hand wringing about FCC etc policy seems silly. Even if it does materially affect privacy for US citizens, it's irrelevant to everyone else. What we need are better approaches for individuals and groups to guarantee their own privacy.

vacri 10y ago

> The internet by design was resistent to centralization, the main method used on the other mediums Books are centralised... how? People self-publish left, right, and centre to this day. And you don't need "other people's pipes" to self-publish either, whereas the internet, by definition, is other people's pipes (the 'inter' bit). > the entire original purpose of the internet as a form of communication that could survive targeting The original purpose of the internet was maintaining military comms, not civilian. The network itself was meant to be decentralised, but the controlling entity couldn't have been more centralised. The end of net neutrality is a serious issue, but we shouldn't be rewriting history to make our points.

wu-ikkyu 10y ago
>Books are centralised... how? When a book is published, it is one source producing static information for many readers. One to many. Producer -> Consumer(s). To create a book before the internet you had to be in the central location of the working copy. For more detailed historical analysis of how the printing press created highly centralized societies, check out The Gutenberg Galaxy by Marshall McLuhan[1]. On the contrary, with the internet, many people are producing and consuming dynamic content simultaneously with many people who are doing the same. Many to many. Prosumer <-> Prosumer[2]. Think of a Google Doc where anyone located anywhere across the globe can simultaneously collaborate on a Google Doc. [1]https://www.amazon.com/Gutenberg-Galaxy-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/144261269X https://www.amazon.com/Gutenberg-Galaxy-Marshall-McLuhan/dp/... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer#Producer_and_consumer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosumer#Producer_and_consumer
- vacri 10y ago
  That's quite spin-doctory. You may as well say that food is centralised because you have to be in the central location of whatever food it is you're consuming, regardless of the fact that literally billions of different people prepare food every day, in every inhabited place on earth.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

TeMPOraL 10y ago

I want to propose a strictly simpler theory: there isn't any organized Oligarchy assaulting the Internet. There's just lots and lots of people with various interests trying to exploit the Internet for their own gains. Tons of companies, big and small, that don't think twice about fucking up the Internet in pursuit of profit. Politicians who want more power. Law enforcement people that want to make their jobs easier. None of them wanting to destroy the Internet, because the very thought doesn't cross their minds. They don't think in that large of a scale. I.e. the usual tragedy of the commons. Things were all fun when they were irrelevant. Then the Internet started to matter, and the exploiters came, fucking everything up.

pottersbasilisk 10y ago
I would agree with you but then I found out about the bilderberg meetings. It seems like the Oligarchy is very very real, maybe not unified in thought but real enough to set and discuss agendas. http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/ http://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/
gr3yh47 10y ago
there is absolutely an oligarchy. See 1, 2, and 3. if you think they arent organizing to protect their interests and expand their political influence, that honestly comes across as naive with the information available today. [1] http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Tb_z5Fcz--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/lckoza8wfctpe7k9k1de.jpg http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--Tb_z5Fcz... [2] http://cds.y5f6s2q6.hwcdn.net/25541/sx2xsdjns30fwy0557v4.jpeg http://cds.y5f6s2q6.hwcdn.net/25541/sx2xsdjns30fwy0557v4.jpe... [3] http://www.yellowstonepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bank_chart.jpg http://www.yellowstonepartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/0...
- newswriter99 10y ago
  You uploaded a few random pictures (also Gawker? Seriously?) of the different divisions of companies, and you think this in irrefutable proof of an organized conspiracy to go all "1984" on the internet? Real life isn't a movie. Move on.

jnordwick 10y ago

I think I might be drifting further from the tech community when conspiratorial rants are highly praised (through votes). The tech community's own version of alternatives medicine kind of. I also noticed the ranting tone of the EFF article describing congressional overview in strange terms (Congress making it illegal for the federal government to ever go against them - having final say on laws of kind of Congress's job, not agencies). While I might disagree with some actions, others that seem to raise heart rates I'm not that concerned about. I'm 40 so maybe my days of over reacting are over? I work in finance so maybe my perception has changed? I generally tend to prefer less regulation as I get older (I campaigned for Greens in college)? Count me out of the daily outrage and revolution. I'm going to take nap and get the kids off my lawn.