6 ms·

Decentralizing the Internet So Big Brother Can’t Find You

87 points by davewiner 16y ago

naner 16y ago
For pete's sake... I'm a fan of Moglen and the SFLC but this is about as practical as a bicycle with square wheels.
- pig 16y ago
  http://stanwagon.com/ http://stanwagon.com/
- adammichaelc 16y ago
  What you've said doesn't add anything to the conversation. It's roughly equivalent to standing up in the middle of a lecture, yelling "You suck!" and then walking out without any explanation of your own ideas. Why is his idea flawed? What would it require to succeed? Are there other similar ideas that you think are good? Answering these questions would be interesting. Doing what you did is not.
  - twir 16y ago
    I'll bite. It's a fantastic idea. What is missing from it is how the infrastructure is and probably always will be under the domain (pun intended) of corporations. For example, how do we provide "internet access" with these servers? We don't own the fiber; it it gets shut down we're dead in the water. ISPs run the networks and therefore control the content and charge for it as much as they want. An alternative is state-controlled ISPs--but we all can guess how fun that would be. I'm trying to think of yet other alternatives, but I'm drawing a blank.
    - trout 16y ago
      I'm not entirely sure it's possible. We've seen examples of other governments taking down sites because of the way internet protocols work, specifically BGP [1]. I believe some number of the DNS root servers are directly or nearly-directly controlled by the government. Service providers have legal obligations to allow access into their facilities. We're not as bad off as others - some governments do run the ISPs. I don't see the difference between having encrypted data on a mini-server at your house vs. housed at a provider. If the data was stored centrally and there were few options, it would make the legal process of getting the data easier. With the existing options for hosting data in many different countries, this doesn't seem to be a problem. Even then, you could probably stripe this data across centrally stored hosting solutions and still have a more efficient and secure process than hosting off of a 'Freedom Box'. Options seem to be: 1. Distributed storage. The storage is striped across these boxes all over, and no single box has any data. Nobody can subpoena the data because of the process involved in getting the information from so many people at once. I think using distributed storage would be very, very difficult with data redundancy, latency, and maintaining security with such high availability and access. 2. Each box is self operating, but managed centrally. Data storage is contained to a single (or few) boxes to simplify data access and speed. This still allows centralized access to the data, and fewer people would be involved in collecting the data. Higher levels of security could be maintained, but legally easier to access. 3. Self managed secure boxes that have a 'cloud' or 'bot' organization of peer-to-peer relationships. Again, these types of systems work today, but there are still centralized servers and most of the workload is still carried by large servers/organizations. It seems easier to simply make Tor more secure, which is a different debate if that's even possible. The article reads like a lawyer who has some tech experience thinks he has created a magic Internet v2.0 because he's found a way to get around the legal ramifications of privacy without regard to technical ramifications. 1. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/022608-youtube-outage-underscores-big-internet.html http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/022608-youtube-outage-...
trout 16y ago
Because having a night-light server plugged into your wall will prevent the government from turning off internet services? Because encrypted distributed servers running around the country will efficiently serve internet traffic?
MatthewB 16y ago
This seems like an awesome idea in concept but I agree with twir...what stops the government from just getting the ISPs to turn off traffic? I would pay $99 for myself and buy each and every one of my friends one of these boxes if the concept proved true.
- Wildweasal 16y ago
  Assuming the goal here is to have the Free Exchange of Information: Step 1 is to own the hardware that serves up your information. Step 2 is to own the path that your information travels upon. You are correct, Step 2 is a significantly more difficult problem to solve, but this does not mean that we should not try to solve Step 1 while we have an opportunity to do so.
  - pestaa 16y ago
    Let's everyone have their own satellite! I'm kidding, but maybe not necessarily...
  - stewars 16y ago
    I believe IPv6 provides a start for what is necessary to solve Step 2. IPSec is part of the protocol so these connections can be trusted. Also no NAT issues so connecting directly between trusted 'plugs' may be simpler than with IPv4. May need to start with a mesh network over a mix of paths that you own and paths that you may not. I have no real world experience implementing IPv6, just been looking into it lately.
  - praptak 16y ago
    Step 2 is hard but not 100% impossible. There's long range wifi and in densely populated areas it does not even need to be long range.
- to 16y ago
  so true... i would invest into it, only if i knew if it has a future or if it will end where the free anonymous wireless idea went. (how did they call that software again for your router? i cant remember...)
bootload 16y ago
"... Eben Moglen, was putting together a shopping list to rebuild the Internet — this time, without governments and big companies able to watch every twitch of our fingers. ..." The key idea behind the "Freedom box" is to own your logs and not let anyone else infer without your express permission. The idea was discussed in full in his speech, "Freedom In the Cloud" at the NY Internet society, 2010FEB05. You can read speech ~ http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2010/isoc-ny/FreedomInTheCloud-transcript.html http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2010/isoc-ny/FreedomIn... or listen/watch here ~ http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338 http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338
- wingo 16y ago
  And his recent FOSDEM speech can be read at http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2011/fosdem/moglen-fosdem-keynote.html http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2011/fosdem/moglen-fos.... There was good discussion on the recent LWN story, too: http://lwn.net/Articles/426763/ http://lwn.net/Articles/426763/
ez77 16y ago
“They’re $99; they will go to $69. Once everyone is getting them, they will cost $29.” They're $99 now? Where?
- icarus_drowning 16y ago
  A Tonidoplug, which is a Sheeva plug with the Tonido software on it, is $99: http://tonidoplug.com http://tonidoplug.com
Groxx 16y ago
There's a ridiculous amount of a lack of information in that "news" entry. "Rebuild the Internet"... how? They're evidently not planning on wall-warts to route the Internet. "would decentralize information and power" how, precisely? There's absolutely squat in the article about wtf the thing would do.
retube 16y ago
But what is it? What does it do? How does it work? I skimmed the article, maybe I missed the answers to these, but seemed precious thin on actual information.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
romaniv 16y ago
I would start thinking about decentralization from the software end, because it's much simpler to change. My #1 item would be decentralized alternative to DNS. Once you decentralize names, the state of a particular physical server stops to matter that much, because you can always point your name to another server Without that you will always have a single choke-point - the server's name.

87 points by davewiner 16y ago

naner 16y ago

For pete's sake... I'm a fan of Moglen and the SFLC but this is about as practical as a bicycle with square wheels.

pig 16y ago
http://stanwagon.com/ http://stanwagon.com/
adammichaelc 16y ago
What you've said doesn't add anything to the conversation. It's roughly equivalent to standing up in the middle of a lecture, yelling "You suck!" and then walking out without any explanation of your own ideas. Why is his idea flawed? What would it require to succeed? Are there other similar ideas that you think are good? Answering these questions would be interesting. Doing what you did is not.
- twir 16y ago
  I'll bite. It's a fantastic idea. What is missing from it is how the infrastructure is and probably always will be under the domain (pun intended) of corporations. For example, how do we provide "internet access" with these servers? We don't own the fiber; it it gets shut down we're dead in the water. ISPs run the networks and therefore control the content and charge for it as much as they want. An alternative is state-controlled ISPs--but we all can guess how fun that would be. I'm trying to think of yet other alternatives, but I'm drawing a blank.
  - trout 16y ago
    I'm not entirely sure it's possible. We've seen examples of other governments taking down sites because of the way internet protocols work, specifically BGP [1]. I believe some number of the DNS root servers are directly or nearly-directly controlled by the government. Service providers have legal obligations to allow access into their facilities. We're not as bad off as others - some governments do run the ISPs. I don't see the difference between having encrypted data on a mini-server at your house vs. housed at a provider. If the data was stored centrally and there were few options, it would make the legal process of getting the data easier. With the existing options for hosting data in many different countries, this doesn't seem to be a problem. Even then, you could probably stripe this data across centrally stored hosting solutions and still have a more efficient and secure process than hosting off of a 'Freedom Box'. Options seem to be: 1. Distributed storage. The storage is striped across these boxes all over, and no single box has any data. Nobody can subpoena the data because of the process involved in getting the information from so many people at once. I think using distributed storage would be very, very difficult with data redundancy, latency, and maintaining security with such high availability and access. 2. Each box is self operating, but managed centrally. Data storage is contained to a single (or few) boxes to simplify data access and speed. This still allows centralized access to the data, and fewer people would be involved in collecting the data. Higher levels of security could be maintained, but legally easier to access. 3. Self managed secure boxes that have a 'cloud' or 'bot' organization of peer-to-peer relationships. Again, these types of systems work today, but there are still centralized servers and most of the workload is still carried by large servers/organizations. It seems easier to simply make Tor more secure, which is a different debate if that's even possible. The article reads like a lawyer who has some tech experience thinks he has created a magic Internet v2.0 because he's found a way to get around the legal ramifications of privacy without regard to technical ramifications. 1. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/022608-youtube-outage-underscores-big-internet.html http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/022608-youtube-outage-...

trout 16y ago

Because having a night-light server plugged into your wall will prevent the government from turning off internet services? Because encrypted distributed servers running around the country will efficiently serve internet traffic?

MatthewB 16y ago

This seems like an awesome idea in concept but I agree with twir...what stops the government from just getting the ISPs to turn off traffic? I would pay $99 for myself and buy each and every one of my friends one of these boxes if the concept proved true.

Wildweasal 16y ago
Assuming the goal here is to have the Free Exchange of Information: Step 1 is to own the hardware that serves up your information. Step 2 is to own the path that your information travels upon. You are correct, Step 2 is a significantly more difficult problem to solve, but this does not mean that we should not try to solve Step 1 while we have an opportunity to do so.
- pestaa 16y ago
  Let's everyone have their own satellite! I'm kidding, but maybe not necessarily...
- stewars 16y ago
  I believe IPv6 provides a start for what is necessary to solve Step 2. IPSec is part of the protocol so these connections can be trusted. Also no NAT issues so connecting directly between trusted 'plugs' may be simpler than with IPv4. May need to start with a mesh network over a mix of paths that you own and paths that you may not. I have no real world experience implementing IPv6, just been looking into it lately.
- praptak 16y ago
  Step 2 is hard but not 100% impossible. There's long range wifi and in densely populated areas it does not even need to be long range.
to 16y ago
so true... i would invest into it, only if i knew if it has a future or if it will end where the free anonymous wireless idea went. (how did they call that software again for your router? i cant remember...)

bootload 16y ago

"... Eben Moglen, was putting together a shopping list to rebuild the Internet — this time, without governments and big companies able to watch every twitch of our fingers. ..." The key idea behind the "Freedom box" is to own your logs and not let anyone else infer without your express permission. The idea was discussed in full in his speech, "Freedom In the Cloud" at the NY Internet society, 2010FEB05. You can read speech ~ http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2010/isoc-ny/FreedomInTheCloud-transcript.html http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2010/isoc-ny/FreedomIn... or listen/watch here ~ http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338 http://www.isoc-ny.org/?p=1338

wingo 16y ago
And his recent FOSDEM speech can be read at http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2011/fosdem/moglen-fosdem-keynote.html http://www.softwarefreedom.org/events/2011/fosdem/moglen-fos.... There was good discussion on the recent LWN story, too: http://lwn.net/Articles/426763/ http://lwn.net/Articles/426763/

ez77 16y ago

“They’re $99; they will go to $69. Once everyone is getting them, they will cost $29.” They're $99 now? Where?

icarus_drowning 16y ago
A Tonidoplug, which is a Sheeva plug with the Tonido software on it, is $99: http://tonidoplug.com http://tonidoplug.com

Groxx 16y ago

There's a ridiculous amount of a lack of information in that "news" entry. "Rebuild the Internet"... how? They're evidently not planning on wall-warts to route the Internet. "would decentralize information and power" how, precisely? There's absolutely squat in the article about wtf the thing would do.

retube 16y ago

But what is it? What does it do? How does it work? I skimmed the article, maybe I missed the answers to these, but seemed precious thin on actual information.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

romaniv 16y ago

I would start thinking about decentralization from the software end, because it's much simpler to change. My #1 item would be decentralized alternative to DNS. Once you decentralize names, the state of a particular physical server stops to matter that much, because you can always point your name to another server Without that you will always have a single choke-point - the server's name.