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Now the article was only talking about twitter and social media, but I can't help react on the title since there really is no evidence at all of internet wantin

by Puts 4y ago

Now the article was only talking about twitter and social media, but I can't help react on the title since there really is no evidence at all of internet wanting to be fragmented. In fact it's just the opposite. - Not even the most hardcore people are using IRC anymore - All web hosting is now in the cloud - There's basically only two rendering engines left, of which one is at the moment extremely marginalized - GIT that was supposed to be distributed is now used as a centralized versioning system in centralized services. If anything it seems that the internet wants to be consolidated.

Wazako 4y ago
What is important is, as the article says, "to be allowed to leave", this consists in having alternatives. - The web hosting is in the cloud, but if it's easy to change it, what's the problem? - Git a url and you can easily change the central backup server point.
api 4y ago
People don’t use IRC anymore because there are better open alternatives like Matrix and ActivityPub based systems. Those are what the “hard core” people use. As for the cloud there are loads of clouds. Web sites can be moved. Same with git hosting which just provides a convenient place to store the repo and post meta data like issues. Moving from GitHub to Gitea or GitLab is usually pretty easy. More and more people seem to be at least trying a less centralized approach. Personally I think we passed peak centralization in the middle 20-teens when there were just a few social platforms everyone used and federated stuff was primitive and new. We are well into the beginning of the unbundling phase.
LinuxBender 4y ago
I rarely use IRC any more and I used to run some small IRC servers. Most moved to Discord but I refuse to use such platforms for their abuse of retaining both text and voice transcription chat history forever. Discord voice transcription can run silently in any public or private channel and nobody can prove otherwise. This was not impossible on IRC but far less likely. Public channels were recorded with publicly visible bots that had permission to be in the channel. Some IRCD's had modules that would allow a NetAdmin to monitor private chats but that can be mitigated with clients that support OTR. Nowadays if I need to spin up a chat with people I know I just give them a shell function that utilizes a self-hosted instance of devzat. # uncensored chat using self hosted https://github.com/quackduck/devzat.git # add to .bashrc or /etc/profile.d/functions.sh on a VM somewhere function chat() { # make us a temporary nickname Name=$(base64 /dev/urandom | tr -d '/+' | dd bs=12 count=1 2>/dev/null) # make us a temporary throw away ssh key. key is our ID. ssh-keygen -q -t rsa -b 2048 -N "" -C "${Name}" -f ~/.ssh/.chat_"${Name}" # add +ssh-rsa in the event client restricts weaker ciphers ssh -i ~/.ssh/.chat_"${Name}" -p 22 -4 -o "HostkeyAlgorithms +ssh-rsa" -o "PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes +ssh-rsa" "${Name}"@23.239.0.70 rm -vf ~/.ssh/.chat_"${Name}" ~/.ssh/.chat_"${Name}".pub } If things go sideways I just nuke that instance and what little chat history the daemon had is gone.
- ilyt 4y ago
  Uh, IRC didn't even had encryption and anyone in IRC chat can still record everything just fine. That's so weird thing to have issue with.
  - LinuxBender 4y ago
    IRC has had encryption for a very long time. IRCS is typically on port 6697 but some admins also have it listen on 443 for people behind fascist firewalls. anyone in IRC chat can still record everything just fine I addressed this. Yes, someone can invite a bot in a channel they control and the channel operators can kick/ban a bot. Also people can achieve E2EE encryption using OTR. So in fact there are two layers of encryption, one of which individuals control and the IRC admin has no visibility into. There is an unsupported OTR custom client for Discord but it is against the terms of service. Discord on the other hand has visibility into everything and no way for users to know this. Anything said on Discord in text or voice is a permanent transcription record. People are made to believe they can delete messages, but they are just flagged as deleted in Cassandra. If I want a private voice conversation with someone or a group, I invite them to my private uMurmur server. There are clients for workstations and cell phones. Some people won't use such things and those are not people I would likely ever talk to anyway.
    - vasqw 4y ago
      >IRC has had encryption for a very long time. IRCS is typically on port 6697 but some admins also have it listen on 443 for people behind fascist firewalls. Transit encryption maybe, but admins can still read everything.
      - LinuxBender 4y ago
        Yup like I mentioned there are modules that allow snooping. This is why if people truly want privacy they need to use a client that supports OTR add-ons providing end-to-end encryption. Pidgin is one of them. Another option would be for each small circle of friends to run their own uMurmur or ngircd servers, then at worst the admin would spy on their friends. ngircd can be spun up in a few minutes, even faster if one already has some LetsEncrypt keys for a domain. uMurmur can also be spun up super fast on a linux home router.
poszlem 4y ago
I think the reason why you disagree is because you mean a different thing by "the internet". "The internet" - the corporate internet. "The internet" - normal people on the internet. "The internet" - etc.
TobyTheDog123 4y ago
These are all false equivalencies, as you're talking technology and implementation instead of a consumer product or idea. The author is talking about centralization of moderation and audience, not how it's hosted or how that moderation/audience is presented to the user People moved off of IRC because it was inconvenient for less-technical users, it is far easier to just download an app. That doesn't mean they want those apps to be centralized, or don't want their social media to be fragmented so they're talking to only like-minded individuals. It is 100% possible that someone creates a technologically-centralized app that allows for a decentralized audience and moderation. I'm not aware of anyone doing this though.
- borski 4y ago
  I agree, but I’d also argue discord or Slack does this, in the same way that IRC did; you essentially spin up separate servers and thus separate communities. Sure, it’s still hosted by a central entity, but the moderation and discourse is all yours to manage.
  - TobyTheDog123 4y ago
    I have no idea how I blanked on Discord. To me Slack still screams "business tool" and "only business tool," but you're very much right regardless. There's also Reddit (to an extent)
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    > the moderation and discourse is all yours to manage. No it isn't. Look at all the things https://discord.com/guidelines https://discord.com/guidelines and https://slack.com/acceptable-use-policy https://slack.com/acceptable-use-policy say you can't do. For example, Discord bans sharing cheats for even single-player games, and Slack bans discussing ideas for a chat app of your own.
    - borski 4y ago
      OK fine, I stand corrected. But my larger point was that the movement toward these types of communities / services is indicative of the article’s thesis being correct, in general.

by Puts 4y ago

Wazako 4y ago

What is important is, as the article says, "to be allowed to leave", this consists in having alternatives. - The web hosting is in the cloud, but if it's easy to change it, what's the problem? - Git a url and you can easily change the central backup server point.

api 4y ago

People don’t use IRC anymore because there are better open alternatives like Matrix and ActivityPub based systems. Those are what the “hard core” people use. As for the cloud there are loads of clouds. Web sites can be moved. Same with git hosting which just provides a convenient place to store the repo and post meta data like issues. Moving from GitHub to Gitea or GitLab is usually pretty easy. More and more people seem to be at least trying a less centralized approach. Personally I think we passed peak centralization in the middle 20-teens when there were just a few social platforms everyone used and federated stuff was primitive and new. We are well into the beginning of the unbundling phase.

LinuxBender 4y ago

I rarely use IRC any more and I used to run some small IRC servers. Most moved to Discord but I refuse to use such platforms for their abuse of retaining both text and voice transcription chat history forever. Discord voice transcription can run silently in any public or private channel and nobody can prove otherwise. This was not impossible on IRC but far less likely. Public channels were recorded with publicly visible bots that had permission to be in the channel. Some IRCD's had modules that would allow a NetAdmin to monitor private chats but that can be mitigated with clients that support OTR. Nowadays if I need to spin up a chat with people I know I just give them a shell function that utilizes a self-hosted instance of devzat. # uncensored chat using self hosted https://github.com/quackduck/devzat.git # add to .bashrc or /etc/profile.d/functions.sh on a VM somewhere function chat() { # make us a temporary nickname Name=$(base64 /dev/urandom | tr -d '/+' | dd bs=12 count=1 2>/dev/null) # make us a temporary throw away ssh key. key is our ID. ssh-keygen -q -t rsa -b 2048 -N "" -C "${Name}" -f ~/.ssh/.chat_"${Name}" # add +ssh-rsa in the event client restricts weaker ciphers ssh -i ~/.ssh/.chat_"${Name}" -p 22 -4 -o "HostkeyAlgorithms +ssh-rsa" -o "PubkeyAcceptedKeyTypes +ssh-rsa" "${Name}"@23.239.0.70 rm -vf ~/.ssh/.chat_"${Name}" ~/.ssh/.chat_"${Name}".pub } If things go sideways I just nuke that instance and what little chat history the daemon had is gone.

ilyt 4y ago
Uh, IRC didn't even had encryption and anyone in IRC chat can still record everything just fine. That's so weird thing to have issue with.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  IRC has had encryption for a very long time. IRCS is typically on port 6697 but some admins also have it listen on 443 for people behind fascist firewalls. anyone in IRC chat can still record everything just fine I addressed this. Yes, someone can invite a bot in a channel they control and the channel operators can kick/ban a bot. Also people can achieve E2EE encryption using OTR. So in fact there are two layers of encryption, one of which individuals control and the IRC admin has no visibility into. There is an unsupported OTR custom client for Discord but it is against the terms of service. Discord on the other hand has visibility into everything and no way for users to know this. Anything said on Discord in text or voice is a permanent transcription record. People are made to believe they can delete messages, but they are just flagged as deleted in Cassandra. If I want a private voice conversation with someone or a group, I invite them to my private uMurmur server. There are clients for workstations and cell phones. Some people won't use such things and those are not people I would likely ever talk to anyway.
  - vasqw 4y ago
    >IRC has had encryption for a very long time. IRCS is typically on port 6697 but some admins also have it listen on 443 for people behind fascist firewalls. Transit encryption maybe, but admins can still read everything.
    - LinuxBender 4y ago
      Yup like I mentioned there are modules that allow snooping. This is why if people truly want privacy they need to use a client that supports OTR add-ons providing end-to-end encryption. Pidgin is one of them. Another option would be for each small circle of friends to run their own uMurmur or ngircd servers, then at worst the admin would spy on their friends. ngircd can be spun up in a few minutes, even faster if one already has some LetsEncrypt keys for a domain. uMurmur can also be spun up super fast on a linux home router.

poszlem 4y ago

I think the reason why you disagree is because you mean a different thing by "the internet". "The internet" - the corporate internet. "The internet" - normal people on the internet. "The internet" - etc.

TobyTheDog123 4y ago

These are all false equivalencies, as you're talking technology and implementation instead of a consumer product or idea. The author is talking about centralization of moderation and audience, not how it's hosted or how that moderation/audience is presented to the user People moved off of IRC because it was inconvenient for less-technical users, it is far easier to just download an app. That doesn't mean they want those apps to be centralized, or don't want their social media to be fragmented so they're talking to only like-minded individuals. It is 100% possible that someone creates a technologically-centralized app that allows for a decentralized audience and moderation. I'm not aware of anyone doing this though.

borski 4y ago
I agree, but I’d also argue discord or Slack does this, in the same way that IRC did; you essentially spin up separate servers and thus separate communities. Sure, it’s still hosted by a central entity, but the moderation and discourse is all yours to manage.
- TobyTheDog123 4y ago
  I have no idea how I blanked on Discord. To me Slack still screams "business tool" and "only business tool," but you're very much right regardless. There's also Reddit (to an extent)
- josephcsible 4y ago
  > the moderation and discourse is all yours to manage. No it isn't. Look at all the things https://discord.com/guidelines https://discord.com/guidelines and https://slack.com/acceptable-use-policy https://slack.com/acceptable-use-policy say you can't do. For example, Discord bans sharing cheats for even single-player games, and Slack bans discussing ideas for a chat app of your own.
  - borski 4y ago
    OK fine, I stand corrected. But my larger point was that the movement toward these types of communities / services is indicative of the article’s thesis being correct, in general.