4 ms·

Cory Doctorow on the fight for a configurable and free internet

44 points by ohjeez 8y ago

awat 8y ago
The trick here seems to be boiling these messages down to a digestable bit for non-tehnical audiences without oversimplying. In my experience very few people want to hear my thoughts on last mile infrastructure in the US but do care when they find out thier location is being sold.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
I am afraid that fight is already lost. If you want a website, you need to register with a DNS provider. If you want to get word out about your website, you need twitter and facebook. If you want people to find your website, you need google. If you want to make a video that people will find, you need youtube. If you say something controversial and want to keep from DDOS'd, you need cloudflare. Every one of those entities is a commercial entity that has the right and the ability to remove you from their service if they don't like anything about you or what you say.
- blacksmith_tb 8y ago
  To a certain degree - though practically the bar to entry is very low to get your ideas onto the 'net. You do need access to a networked computer, but beyond that... While it's true as you say that Medium / Github / Youtube etc. can take what you post down, they do so with some risk that there will be public outcry. That doesn't prevent them from handwaving that away with reference to laws requiring them to shut you up, but at least it makes it harder.
  - quadrangle 8y ago
    If Facebook's algorithm buries you, you might never develop an audience in the first place who would cry about things… Smart censors pick their battles. The only way to avoid censorship is to build systems that aren't able to be censored. Note that https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/25/546127444/episode-790-rough-translations-in-ukraine https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/25/546127444/epis... convinced me that maybe we actually NEED censorship though… so no easy answers.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  Well, I'd like to challenge some of those. I believe they're wrong in one form or another. > If you want a website, you need to register with a DNS provider. Or use Tor and set up a hidden service and run your content. In conjunction, there are onion loadbalancers available. It's not super-fast, but it absolutely is publishing your own webpage. And it completely bypasses the ICANN DNS. > If you want to get word out about your website, you need twitter and facebook. Yeah, and Google, and friends. That's a hard one. >If you want to make a video that people will find, you need youtube. >If you say something controversial and want to keep from DDOS'd, you need cloudflare. I'd argue that no, you don't. The only reason those tools exist is because we can't easily amplify our bandwidth to match demand. But in reality, there is a tool that does work. IPFS does that thing. The more people that hit a site, the faster the cloud can respond to queries. And being a dHT, can semi-partition bad actors so that good actors can still effectively provide content fast. I was doing streaming video with IPFS back in the .31 beta days, and it went linespeed (900Mbps) from computer to computer. It's lightyears ahead now, and includes more features like MQQT message-like protocol and other things built in.
ppeetteerr 8y ago
The internet is already free and configurable. It takes some technical knowledge to create a website just like anything in life, but that barrier is rather small. What is happening is that to get free content, you have to give something back. That is data, attention or money. Don't want to live with the dominance of a DNS? You don't have to. Just share your website's IP address. Do you want to have looser rules around your content? Rent a server in a more liberal country. The reality that most technologist ignore is that people want the ease of Google or the reach of Facebook. They want cheap Android devices run by an ad company, or free phone and video calls run by another ad company. Perhaps they don't want the consequences of free stuff, but they are not willing to pay for it, either. The internet is exactly what people want from it: access to free information and connection to anyone on the planet. It has done exactly what it was suppose to. Let's not pretend that the internet is somehow broken (conceptually, obv. Technically, it could be better ;) )

44 points by ohjeez 8y ago

awat 8y ago

The trick here seems to be boiling these messages down to a digestable bit for non-tehnical audiences without oversimplying. In my experience very few people want to hear my thoughts on last mile infrastructure in the US but do care when they find out thier location is being sold.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago

I am afraid that fight is already lost. If you want a website, you need to register with a DNS provider. If you want to get word out about your website, you need twitter and facebook. If you want people to find your website, you need google. If you want to make a video that people will find, you need youtube. If you say something controversial and want to keep from DDOS'd, you need cloudflare. Every one of those entities is a commercial entity that has the right and the ability to remove you from their service if they don't like anything about you or what you say.

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
To a certain degree - though practically the bar to entry is very low to get your ideas onto the 'net. You do need access to a networked computer, but beyond that... While it's true as you say that Medium / Github / Youtube etc. can take what you post down, they do so with some risk that there will be public outcry. That doesn't prevent them from handwaving that away with reference to laws requiring them to shut you up, but at least it makes it harder.
- quadrangle 8y ago
  If Facebook's algorithm buries you, you might never develop an audience in the first place who would cry about things… Smart censors pick their battles. The only way to avoid censorship is to build systems that aren't able to be censored. Note that https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/25/546127444/episode-790-rough-translations-in-ukraine https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/25/546127444/epis... convinced me that maybe we actually NEED censorship though… so no easy answers.
crankylinuxuser 8y ago
Well, I'd like to challenge some of those. I believe they're wrong in one form or another. > If you want a website, you need to register with a DNS provider. Or use Tor and set up a hidden service and run your content. In conjunction, there are onion loadbalancers available. It's not super-fast, but it absolutely is publishing your own webpage. And it completely bypasses the ICANN DNS. > If you want to get word out about your website, you need twitter and facebook. Yeah, and Google, and friends. That's a hard one. >If you want to make a video that people will find, you need youtube. >If you say something controversial and want to keep from DDOS'd, you need cloudflare. I'd argue that no, you don't. The only reason those tools exist is because we can't easily amplify our bandwidth to match demand. But in reality, there is a tool that does work. IPFS does that thing. The more people that hit a site, the faster the cloud can respond to queries. And being a dHT, can semi-partition bad actors so that good actors can still effectively provide content fast. I was doing streaming video with IPFS back in the .31 beta days, and it went linespeed (900Mbps) from computer to computer. It's lightyears ahead now, and includes more features like MQQT message-like protocol and other things built in.

ppeetteerr 8y ago

The internet is already free and configurable. It takes some technical knowledge to create a website just like anything in life, but that barrier is rather small. What is happening is that to get free content, you have to give something back. That is data, attention or money. Don't want to live with the dominance of a DNS? You don't have to. Just share your website's IP address. Do you want to have looser rules around your content? Rent a server in a more liberal country. The reality that most technologist ignore is that people want the ease of Google or the reach of Facebook. They want cheap Android devices run by an ad company, or free phone and video calls run by another ad company. Perhaps they don't want the consequences of free stuff, but they are not willing to pay for it, either. The internet is exactly what people want from it: access to free information and connection to anyone on the planet. It has done exactly what it was suppose to. Let's not pretend that the internet is somehow broken (conceptually, obv. Technically, it could be better ;) )