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It's not really what I meant by distributed. I meant more in terms of governance, though the underlying implementation should mirror than distributed governance

It's not really what I meant by distributed. I meant more in terms of governance, though the underlying implementation should mirror than distributed governance. Living close to Russia, then close to China for many years, I realised how western-centric my view of the internet was. Internet was built on originally distributed technologies (DNS, BGP, etc) but the scale of this distribution did not expand with adoption. "Distributed" back then meant "a bunch of universities interconnected". For instance, most root DNS servers and major TLDs are controlled by western orgs or governments. How could you convince non-western entities to rely on DNS to address their content, when e.g. the US can unilaterally order the disappearance of a domain? Maybe the good question to ask ourselves is "would I use Outlook if it was made by a Russian company?" or "would I trust SSL if 90% of the websites I visit have a certificate from a Chinese CA?". I think most of us would say no, and that scares me, because the way I see it, internet is more and more becoming just a bunch of separated "islands", with fewer and fewer bridges in between. I would not be surprised if in 10 years time, each superpower will have reinvented and deployed their own version of internet, incompatible with each other, with vastly different content and technologies, and each user will live in the illusion that they are accessing a worldwide network. I would love to see a new internet emerging. Something that would be secure, opt-in anonymous, reliable, and unrestrictable by design. And I think for this to succeed, we will need to accept that we cannot have the same performance, immediacy and simplicity as we have now.

pclmulqdq 4y ago
You're talking about an internet - in fact, an internet that already exists - and deciding that the infrastructure architecture of users of that internet should mirror the "ethos" of that internet. That's quite a leap! Infrastructure is very different than "the web," particularly because there are contracts involved - you pay AWS to store bits and it stores them. If they lose your bits, you sue them. They don't like being sued, so they don't lose your bits. If you are concerned about AWS banning you, store a copy in GCP too, or on a backup service. Because of the customer-provider relationship, infrastructure generally doesn't need to be distributed in the way you suggest, and probably can't be. The infrastructure you use has a contractual relationship with you, which implicitly relies on contract law. You have something better than distributed systems here, you have economic incentives and courts. Also note that the infrastructure behind the internet also isn't particularly distributed as you describe: most of the physical wires in your local area are usually owned by 2-4 companies total, if they aren't state-controlled. Those companies do not have distributed governance. What they do have is a set of contracts and regulations that ensure that you are free to use them as you want.
- Galanwe 4y ago
  > The infrastructure you use has a contractual relationship with you, which implicitly relies on contract law. You have something better than distributed systems here, you have economic incentives and courts. My point actually is that this is only locally true, not globally. As long as you live within the realm of one superpower, then the laws of countries close to that superpower will apply. Beyond that, nobody cares. Do you think having a contract with AWS would prevent them from cutting you out if you are in an embargoed country? Of course not Do you think local user privacy laws would prevent Google from handing over your mails to the US government if they want to have it? Of course not Ultimately, even global mega corporations are not "government free". Each and every one of them has a _country of major importance_ to which it will comply. Governments around the world are perfectly aware of that, and the very foundations of internet infrastructure, as of now, are still heavily biased toward western countries. The US has shown already that it can unilaterally erase the DNS of a website domiciled in a foreign country because it broke US laws, through pressure on root DNS servers. > Also note that the infrastructure behind the internet also isn't particularly distributed as you describe Indeed, but the problem I see currently is that internet manipulation can be done unbeknownst to it's users. No US internet user knows which websites were barred from having a DNS. No Chinese internet user knows which websites aren't accessible. Etc. Governments can have it both ways: let the population think they have internet access without realizing all the nits and bits that were removed. I would like to see an internet that is "all or nothing". You cannot temper it without obviously destroying it. That would mean for instance stopping to use IP for content addressing, and add a randomized anycast on top of it, etc.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    If the physical wires and switches can never be controlled by more than a few players, or the government itself, anywhere on Earth, then what's the point of 'decentralizing' some other level?
    - Galanwe 4y ago
      Because if everything that transits on wires is blackbox encrypted anycast content, then you can either 1) block it, and cut the whole internet for that individual, or 2) let it go.

pclmulqdq 4y ago

You're talking about an internet - in fact, an internet that already exists - and deciding that the infrastructure architecture of users of that internet should mirror the "ethos" of that internet. That's quite a leap! Infrastructure is very different than "the web," particularly because there are contracts involved - you pay AWS to store bits and it stores them. If they lose your bits, you sue them. They don't like being sued, so they don't lose your bits. If you are concerned about AWS banning you, store a copy in GCP too, or on a backup service. Because of the customer-provider relationship, infrastructure generally doesn't need to be distributed in the way you suggest, and probably can't be. The infrastructure you use has a contractual relationship with you, which implicitly relies on contract law. You have something better than distributed systems here, you have economic incentives and courts. Also note that the infrastructure behind the internet also isn't particularly distributed as you describe: most of the physical wires in your local area are usually owned by 2-4 companies total, if they aren't state-controlled. Those companies do not have distributed governance. What they do have is a set of contracts and regulations that ensure that you are free to use them as you want.

Galanwe 4y ago
> The infrastructure you use has a contractual relationship with you, which implicitly relies on contract law. You have something better than distributed systems here, you have economic incentives and courts. My point actually is that this is only locally true, not globally. As long as you live within the realm of one superpower, then the laws of countries close to that superpower will apply. Beyond that, nobody cares. Do you think having a contract with AWS would prevent them from cutting you out if you are in an embargoed country? Of course not Do you think local user privacy laws would prevent Google from handing over your mails to the US government if they want to have it? Of course not Ultimately, even global mega corporations are not "government free". Each and every one of them has a _country of major importance_ to which it will comply. Governments around the world are perfectly aware of that, and the very foundations of internet infrastructure, as of now, are still heavily biased toward western countries. The US has shown already that it can unilaterally erase the DNS of a website domiciled in a foreign country because it broke US laws, through pressure on root DNS servers. > Also note that the infrastructure behind the internet also isn't particularly distributed as you describe Indeed, but the problem I see currently is that internet manipulation can be done unbeknownst to it's users. No US internet user knows which websites were barred from having a DNS. No Chinese internet user knows which websites aren't accessible. Etc. Governments can have it both ways: let the population think they have internet access without realizing all the nits and bits that were removed. I would like to see an internet that is "all or nothing". You cannot temper it without obviously destroying it. That would mean for instance stopping to use IP for content addressing, and add a randomized anycast on top of it, etc.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  If the physical wires and switches can never be controlled by more than a few players, or the government itself, anywhere on Earth, then what's the point of 'decentralizing' some other level?
  - Galanwe 4y ago
    Because if everything that transits on wires is blackbox encrypted anycast content, then you can either 1) block it, and cut the whole internet for that individual, or 2) let it go.