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Conceptually it is very simple to understand. The point that Moxie was making at the time was that, pragmatically, most users would end up not doing this. Just

Conceptually it is very simple to understand. The point that Moxie was making at the time was that, pragmatically, most users would end up not doing this. Just as most people share their thoughts on Facebook or Twitter and not on their own blogs, and if they do have their own blogs they don't run their own server, and if they do it's a virtual machine on Amazon's hardware. So something can be theoretically capable of enabling enormous decentralisation but actually not have that effect at all.

throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
People look at decentralization as an ideology rather then a threat model. The security you might implement to protect $100 vs $100k vs $100 million is different. Running your blog on AWS is running your own server in a decentralized sense; but if your threat model includes Amazon shutting you down or something like the US Govt/public compelling Amazon to shut you down then it might not be good enough. Which is why Target, Walmart, Parler (assuming that's still true) don't run on AWS. Any threat model is about mitigation and acceptance of risk. Easiest way to secure a database/system is to isolate it from the internet and let nobody read/write from it; probably wouldn't be a very useful system for most usecases but something you might do for the nuclear weapons arsenal. Centralization vs Decentralization is a similar concept to closed source vs open source. Just because the code is open source doesn't mean that people are going to download the source code and compile it themselves. The option to fork the codebase is also there. Neither of those options are possible for a closed source project. And to your point, the fact that a project is open source might not "actually have any effect at all". Doesn't mean the concept is inherently bad.
- warkdarrior 4y ago
  > The security you might implement to protect $100 vs $100k vs $100 million is different. This almost makes sense, except that you have to take into the relative value of that amount, in particular relative to one's total net worth. If I want to protect $100, and that is all the money I have, I'll worry about security a lot. If I have $1,000,000, protecting $100 is not a priority. The general assumption is that people put all of their money in one place, which is not true for anyone I know -- poor, middle class, or rich. Everyone has cash, bank accounts, various physical valuables, stock, etc.
  - throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
    It could be absolute and/or relative depending on the mechanisms. Relying on FDIC insurance to protect $1 million in a bank account is probably not a good idea.

throw_nbvc1234 4y ago

People look at decentralization as an ideology rather then a threat model. The security you might implement to protect $100 vs $100k vs $100 million is different. Running your blog on AWS is running your own server in a decentralized sense; but if your threat model includes Amazon shutting you down or something like the US Govt/public compelling Amazon to shut you down then it might not be good enough. Which is why Target, Walmart, Parler (assuming that's still true) don't run on AWS. Any threat model is about mitigation and acceptance of risk. Easiest way to secure a database/system is to isolate it from the internet and let nobody read/write from it; probably wouldn't be a very useful system for most usecases but something you might do for the nuclear weapons arsenal. Centralization vs Decentralization is a similar concept to closed source vs open source. Just because the code is open source doesn't mean that people are going to download the source code and compile it themselves. The option to fork the codebase is also there. Neither of those options are possible for a closed source project. And to your point, the fact that a project is open source might not "actually have any effect at all". Doesn't mean the concept is inherently bad.

warkdarrior 4y ago
> The security you might implement to protect $100 vs $100k vs $100 million is different. This almost makes sense, except that you have to take into the relative value of that amount, in particular relative to one's total net worth. If I want to protect $100, and that is all the money I have, I'll worry about security a lot. If I have $1,000,000, protecting $100 is not a priority. The general assumption is that people put all of their money in one place, which is not true for anyone I know -- poor, middle class, or rich. Everyone has cash, bank accounts, various physical valuables, stock, etc.
- throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
  It could be absolute and/or relative depending on the mechanisms. Relying on FDIC insurance to protect $1 million in a bank account is probably not a good idea.