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It turns out that decentralization closes the door on top-down censorship, but at the same time, invites spam and abuse of the system for personal gain. It's ve

It turns out that decentralization closes the door on top-down censorship, but at the same time, invites spam and abuse of the system for personal gain. It's very easy to do this in a decentralized model, and every single decentralized service suffers from this. IRC, Email, Mastodon, you name it. It's all bad.

CuriouslyC 6y ago
The solution is simple. Make the decentralized systems social, with reputation.
- lukevp 6y ago
  How do you prevent bots giving each other reputation?
  - wyager 6y ago
    Some strategies: Make reputation scores the result of some sort of eigendecomposition-based algorithm (similar to PageRank) where the initial state vector is based on the people you trust. That way, you’ll only give credence to a bot to whatever degree you (indirectly) trust the bot. Implement Sybil resistance with a combination of verifiable cost and blacklisting. Make it cost real verifiable resources to create an identity (hashcash or Bitcoin burning or something) and then have a system for blacklisting fake IDs.
    - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      > Make reputation scores the result of some sort of eigendecomposition-based algorithm (similar to PageRank) where the initial state vector is based on the people you trust. That way, you’ll only give credence to a bot to whatever degree you (indirectly) trust the bot. This is just 'web of trust', right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    By punishing their connections when they misbehave. Or at least, that's how you make it not matter. If spam-bot hands out reputation to spim-bot and then you get a bunch of garbage from spim-bot, derate everything coming from anyone that has given either of them reputation (and perhaps ignore their attestations also).
    - walls 6y ago
      Now what happens when spam is done through a compromised user, or when the user acts human and has real interactions before spamming?
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        I suppose it depends on the details quite a lot. But fundamentally, it isn't particularly harmful to just burn a user that starts spamming. If a compromised account is recovered, it's fine if they have to restore communication out of band, if it isn't recovered it's fine that it is burned.
  - Evidlo 6y ago
    I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but maybe trade it through cryptocurrency. Pay a few bucks to create an account. It might get expensive to start a server and have others agree to federate with you though. Could also just use regular money.
- asutekku 6y ago
  And that then is extremely easy to abuse as soon as you have enough people with high rank enough deciding to start to misbehave.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - colordrops 6y ago
    Sounds like IRL
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Turns out most problems are people problems, not tech problems. Tech is just how the symptoms present.
  - CuriouslyC 6y ago
    If everything revolves around people I give authority to (my "friends") then any attempt to game my feed is going to result in a swift defriend. Problem solved.
  - Sunspark 6y ago
    It even happens in the real world too. I remember one guy who had been on eBay or something for years working up a huge positive karma, and then one day a switch flipped and he disappeared with everyone's money and was never seen again.
- michelb 6y ago
  “If you like my post I will like yours.” We can’t have many nice things, it’s human nature.
- mertd 6y ago
  Will the arbiter of reputations be central or decentralized?
  - CuriouslyC 6y ago
    If each person controls the authority they provide to others (via friending, upvotes, etc) then the system can't be mass gamed, which is enough to deter most bad behavior.
- proactivesvcs 6y ago
  I see a lot more witch hunts these days than I did 10 years ago, and most of them are as principled as the days when they were with torches and pitchforks. If I came across a system with a reputation-based feature it would be a red line I would definitely not cross.
rasengan 6y ago
The footnote[1] project helps to provide spam and abuse by limiting each user to 10 MB. [1] https://github.com/kyokan/footnote/ https://github.com/kyokan/footnote/

CuriouslyC 6y ago

The solution is simple. Make the decentralized systems social, with reputation.

lukevp 6y ago
How do you prevent bots giving each other reputation?
- wyager 6y ago
  Some strategies: Make reputation scores the result of some sort of eigendecomposition-based algorithm (similar to PageRank) where the initial state vector is based on the people you trust. That way, you’ll only give credence to a bot to whatever degree you (indirectly) trust the bot. Implement Sybil resistance with a combination of verifiable cost and blacklisting. Make it cost real verifiable resources to create an identity (hashcash or Bitcoin burning or something) and then have a system for blacklisting fake IDs.
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    > Make reputation scores the result of some sort of eigendecomposition-based algorithm (similar to PageRank) where the initial state vector is based on the people you trust. That way, you’ll only give credence to a bot to whatever degree you (indirectly) trust the bot. This is just 'web of trust', right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_of_trust
- maxerickson 6y ago
  By punishing their connections when they misbehave. Or at least, that's how you make it not matter. If spam-bot hands out reputation to spim-bot and then you get a bunch of garbage from spim-bot, derate everything coming from anyone that has given either of them reputation (and perhaps ignore their attestations also).
  - walls 6y ago
    Now what happens when spam is done through a compromised user, or when the user acts human and has real interactions before spamming?
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      I suppose it depends on the details quite a lot. But fundamentally, it isn't particularly harmful to just burn a user that starts spamming. If a compromised account is recovered, it's fine if they have to restore communication out of band, if it isn't recovered it's fine that it is burned.
- Evidlo 6y ago
  I can't believe I'm suggesting this, but maybe trade it through cryptocurrency. Pay a few bucks to create an account. It might get expensive to start a server and have others agree to federate with you though. Could also just use regular money.
asutekku 6y ago
And that then is extremely easy to abuse as soon as you have enough people with high rank enough deciding to start to misbehave.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- colordrops 6y ago
  Sounds like IRL
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Turns out most problems are people problems, not tech problems. Tech is just how the symptoms present.
- CuriouslyC 6y ago
  If everything revolves around people I give authority to (my "friends") then any attempt to game my feed is going to result in a swift defriend. Problem solved.
- Sunspark 6y ago
  It even happens in the real world too. I remember one guy who had been on eBay or something for years working up a huge positive karma, and then one day a switch flipped and he disappeared with everyone's money and was never seen again.
michelb 6y ago
“If you like my post I will like yours.” We can’t have many nice things, it’s human nature.
mertd 6y ago
Will the arbiter of reputations be central or decentralized?
- CuriouslyC 6y ago
  If each person controls the authority they provide to others (via friending, upvotes, etc) then the system can't be mass gamed, which is enough to deter most bad behavior.
proactivesvcs 6y ago
I see a lot more witch hunts these days than I did 10 years ago, and most of them are as principled as the days when they were with torches and pitchforks. If I came across a system with a reputation-based feature it would be a red line I would definitely not cross.

rasengan 6y ago

The footnote[1] project helps to provide spam and abuse by limiting each user to 10 MB. [1] https://github.com/kyokan/footnote/ https://github.com/kyokan/footnote/