5 ms·

The Book of Swarm (2020) [pdf]

34 points by kristianpaul 4y ago

kristianpaul 4y ago
“On the surface, everything was rosy. Technological utopia hyper-connected the world in a way no-one could have imagined. No longer was the web just for academics and the super 1337, it made the sum of human knowledge available to anyone, and now that smartphones became ubiquitous, it could be accessed anywhere. Wikipedia, gave everyone superhuman knowledge, Google allowed us to find and access it in a moment and Facebook gave us the ability to communicate with everyone we had ever known, for free. However, underneath all this, there was one problem buried just below the glittering facade. Google knew what they were doing. So were Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. So did some punks, since 1984.”
decebalus1 4y ago
For people who don't know the context for this (like I did not), I think this helps: https://medium.com/ethereum-swarm/this-is-book-of-swarm-e7ba645cbe23 https://medium.com/ethereum-swarm/this-is-book-of-swarm-e7ba...
joe_the_user 4y ago
"Today, the spoils are distributed unequally: the larger the companies’ data set, the more it can learn from the data, attract more users and hence even more data. Currently, this is most apparent with the dominating large tech companies such as FAANG, but it is predicted that this will also be increasingly importantin non-tech sectors, even nation states. " The idea that a scheme like this, which involved effectively universal DRM, could change the current inequality, is just preposterous. Sure, this might threaten a Google or Facebook model but a Disney or Elsevier would love this and the existing success of data aggregators who own their data shows where it would go.
YeBanKo 4y ago
What are the alternatives, that aren’t tied to any cryptocurrency?
- shakezula 4y ago
  Holochain is taking a similar approach (DHT backed content addressable store) in this space and aren’t tied to a cryptocurrency.
- RunSet 4y ago
  IPFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2138/what-is-the-difference-between-swarm-and-ipfs https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2138/what-is-th...
beders 4y ago
Fascinating read. Made for a society that doesn't exist yet - or ever. "free" access to crucial services on the internet is of course not free. You are paying with a very simple currency: your online behavior. That is super convenient and works fine. The ads you get to see are tailored to you and that - in turn - might make you spend money that - in turn - pays for more ads and keeps those services free. That's very simplistic but essentially what is happening. And that is perfectly fine by me. There's no privacy on the internet anyways. For services where you do care that data you give away is kept confidential, I'm paying for it. (Like Apple's cloud. I gladly pay a few bucks to give Apple all my pics and documents) This does involve trust: Does the company I'm paying for to keep my data (and money) secure keep their end of the bargain? So there we have the second currency: Trust. Do I trust a p2p network that uses my private resources and internet access to store illegal data on my devices? Hell no.
- NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  > no privacy on the internet anyways. This is a false dichotomy and you're confusion anonymity with privacy. Privacy is choosing what you want to share and there's always a baseline. The thing with the Big Tech mess is that they want EVERYTHING from you, even what they shouldn't have and that is where the problem lies. Not only are they not verifiable but also can never be trusted. Paying for services doesn't guarantee privacy, transparency does. FOSS is the only objective way to maintain true privacy. Privacy needs transparency and FOSS is forever transparent (for the most part).
  - beders 4y ago
    No no no, I meant privacy. Don't put words in my mouth. If you live in a world where you can't trust any corporation, you might need to adjust your views a little bit. Knowing full well that under capitalism the only goal of a corporation is to maximize profits, it doesn't mean it can't be trusted for certain purposes. So far, for example, Apple has done nothing to lose my trust. It hasn't lost my data, it didn't have a significant break-in that compromised my data. It provides amazing value to me. (And it sure uses FOSS on its servers) FOSS in itself doesn't guarantee anything. You still need someone to operate the service, pay for bandwidth, storage, maintenance, power etc.
armitron 4y ago
It's a shame that the - much needed - vision and philosophy behind mass-adoption of decentralized data storage/distribution is being contaminated with "Web3.0" crypto-garbage.

34 points by kristianpaul 4y ago

“On the surface, everything was rosy. Technological utopia hyper-connected the world in a way no-one could have imagined. No longer was the web just for academics and the super 1337, it made the sum of human knowledge available to anyone, and now that smartphones became ubiquitous, it could be accessed anywhere. Wikipedia, gave everyone superhuman knowledge, Google allowed us to find and access it in a moment and Facebook gave us the ability to communicate with everyone we had ever known, for free. However, underneath all this, there was one problem buried just below the glittering facade. Google knew what they were doing. So were Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft. So did some punks, since 1984.”

decebalus1 4y ago

For people who don't know the context for this (like I did not), I think this helps: https://medium.com/ethereum-swarm/this-is-book-of-swarm-e7ba645cbe23 https://medium.com/ethereum-swarm/this-is-book-of-swarm-e7ba...

joe_the_user 4y ago

"Today, the spoils are distributed unequally: the larger the companies’ data set, the more it can learn from the data, attract more users and hence even more data. Currently, this is most apparent with the dominating large tech companies such as FAANG, but it is predicted that this will also be increasingly importantin non-tech sectors, even nation states. " The idea that a scheme like this, which involved effectively universal DRM, could change the current inequality, is just preposterous. Sure, this might threaten a Google or Facebook model but a Disney or Elsevier would love this and the existing success of data aggregators who own their data shows where it would go.

YeBanKo 4y ago

What are the alternatives, that aren’t tied to any cryptocurrency?

shakezula 4y ago
Holochain is taking a similar approach (DHT backed content addressable store) in this space and aren’t tied to a cryptocurrency.
RunSet 4y ago
IPFS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2138/what-is-the-difference-between-swarm-and-ipfs https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/2138/what-is-th...

beders 4y ago

Fascinating read. Made for a society that doesn't exist yet - or ever. "free" access to crucial services on the internet is of course not free. You are paying with a very simple currency: your online behavior. That is super convenient and works fine. The ads you get to see are tailored to you and that - in turn - might make you spend money that - in turn - pays for more ads and keeps those services free. That's very simplistic but essentially what is happening. And that is perfectly fine by me. There's no privacy on the internet anyways. For services where you do care that data you give away is kept confidential, I'm paying for it. (Like Apple's cloud. I gladly pay a few bucks to give Apple all my pics and documents) This does involve trust: Does the company I'm paying for to keep my data (and money) secure keep their end of the bargain? So there we have the second currency: Trust. Do I trust a p2p network that uses my private resources and internet access to store illegal data on my devices? Hell no.

NayamAmarshe 4y ago
> no privacy on the internet anyways. This is a false dichotomy and you're confusion anonymity with privacy. Privacy is choosing what you want to share and there's always a baseline. The thing with the Big Tech mess is that they want EVERYTHING from you, even what they shouldn't have and that is where the problem lies. Not only are they not verifiable but also can never be trusted. Paying for services doesn't guarantee privacy, transparency does. FOSS is the only objective way to maintain true privacy. Privacy needs transparency and FOSS is forever transparent (for the most part).
- beders 4y ago
  No no no, I meant privacy. Don't put words in my mouth. If you live in a world where you can't trust any corporation, you might need to adjust your views a little bit. Knowing full well that under capitalism the only goal of a corporation is to maximize profits, it doesn't mean it can't be trusted for certain purposes. So far, for example, Apple has done nothing to lose my trust. It hasn't lost my data, it didn't have a significant break-in that compromised my data. It provides amazing value to me. (And it sure uses FOSS on its servers) FOSS in itself doesn't guarantee anything. You still need someone to operate the service, pay for bandwidth, storage, maintenance, power etc.

armitron 4y ago

It's a shame that the - much needed - vision and philosophy behind mass-adoption of decentralized data storage/distribution is being contaminated with "Web3.0" crypto-garbage.