4 ms·

The costs would depend entirely on the userbase; usenet was in heavy use during the 1990-2000 era so the software must be incredibly lightweight by today's stan

The costs would depend entirely on the userbase; usenet was in heavy use during the 1990-2000 era so the software must be incredibly lightweight by today's standards. I don't know what ongoing development has taken place wrt usenet server software. The clients will all be hopelessly outdated, I imagine WinVN will still run but you probably wouldn't enjoy the experience much. The big issue would be preventing the server/servers from filling up with AI entities. If you're attracting enough of a userbase to be worth influencing they will creep in unless you somehow find a way to guarantee that all users are real people, and that presents its own problems.

b112 3y ago
Sadly, I think AI will force a complete de-anonymization of the internet. No accounts without government ID, no connectivity without it either, open access points illegal, and so on. Governments and police would love this, and with AI, spam (as you elude to) is going to rise to a new level. And there are already issues, with most of the net's citizens, unable to detect fraudulent posts. Countries have already had civil wars, thanks to Cambridge Analytics, and disinformation will only make this worse. Long story short, accountability is impossible with anonymity, and so to sue, to charge with crimes, I sadly think the internet will soon change.
- delfinom 3y ago
  Until you know, mass data breaches of said government ID from corporate systems and those AI bots now just use said ID
  - b112 3y ago
    Your online ID, doesn't need to be your government ID. It does need to be validated though. That said, this is the same problem you have with loads of other accounts. Be it banks, trading houses, or just compromised meta, X, or whatever accounts. Still, my point wasn't whether or not it would work, but merely that it will happen. Governments will become more and more frustrated with a deluge of propaganda, which makes what we see today seem inconsequential. And I believe this will be their response. And it is already true in many countries. I did say it makes me sad. Not happy.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    Not if done right. Everyone's ID card/drivers license (for the USA) gets an RFID smartcard with a cryptoprocessor and secure storage. Upon first activation (during production) it is seeded with the personal data of the person (name, personal identifier e.g. SSN), generates its own rsa4096/ec keypair, provides the public key to the interface, and gets a certificate signed by a government root CA back. Upon an attempt to log in at a service (using a phone with a companion app), a nonce signed accompanied by a certificate signed by the government root CA gets signed by the private key on card, and that as well as the signed personal data gets provided to the requesting service.
- smrtinsert 3y ago
  It doesn't have to be complete and it will probably thrive. Misinformation will take a nose dive compared to today since you can't have multiple anonymous accounts constantly being created and driving nonsense.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "Sadly, I think AI will force a complete de-anonymization of the internet. No accounts without government ID, no connectivity without it either, open access points illegal, and so on." Or we see the rise of social networks that require a personal invite. In the extreme variant, with a personal meetup requirement. Probably both, with government ID accounts being the standard for the mainstream, while all the interesting stuff will be invite only.
- mostlylurks 3y ago
  AI by no means necessitates de-anonymization, though I have no doubt that that will be the narrative that politicians and corporations will run with as an unquestionable truth. All you need is something that implements a mix of a reputation system and a web of trust and you're good to go. Technically pseudonymous, not anonymous, but it would give you basically all of the benefits of tying online activity to real identities without any of the downsides. It would also be completely decentralized, which would prevent large players from manipulating the political landscape on a mass level.

b112 3y ago

Sadly, I think AI will force a complete de-anonymization of the internet. No accounts without government ID, no connectivity without it either, open access points illegal, and so on. Governments and police would love this, and with AI, spam (as you elude to) is going to rise to a new level. And there are already issues, with most of the net's citizens, unable to detect fraudulent posts. Countries have already had civil wars, thanks to Cambridge Analytics, and disinformation will only make this worse. Long story short, accountability is impossible with anonymity, and so to sue, to charge with crimes, I sadly think the internet will soon change.

delfinom 3y ago
Until you know, mass data breaches of said government ID from corporate systems and those AI bots now just use said ID
- b112 3y ago
  Your online ID, doesn't need to be your government ID. It does need to be validated though. That said, this is the same problem you have with loads of other accounts. Be it banks, trading houses, or just compromised meta, X, or whatever accounts. Still, my point wasn't whether or not it would work, but merely that it will happen. Governments will become more and more frustrated with a deluge of propaganda, which makes what we see today seem inconsequential. And I believe this will be their response. And it is already true in many countries. I did say it makes me sad. Not happy.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  Not if done right. Everyone's ID card/drivers license (for the USA) gets an RFID smartcard with a cryptoprocessor and secure storage. Upon first activation (during production) it is seeded with the personal data of the person (name, personal identifier e.g. SSN), generates its own rsa4096/ec keypair, provides the public key to the interface, and gets a certificate signed by a government root CA back. Upon an attempt to log in at a service (using a phone with a companion app), a nonce signed accompanied by a certificate signed by the government root CA gets signed by the private key on card, and that as well as the signed personal data gets provided to the requesting service.
smrtinsert 3y ago
It doesn't have to be complete and it will probably thrive. Misinformation will take a nose dive compared to today since you can't have multiple anonymous accounts constantly being created and driving nonsense.
hutzlibu 3y ago
"Sadly, I think AI will force a complete de-anonymization of the internet. No accounts without government ID, no connectivity without it either, open access points illegal, and so on." Or we see the rise of social networks that require a personal invite. In the extreme variant, with a personal meetup requirement. Probably both, with government ID accounts being the standard for the mainstream, while all the interesting stuff will be invite only.
mostlylurks 3y ago
AI by no means necessitates de-anonymization, though I have no doubt that that will be the narrative that politicians and corporations will run with as an unquestionable truth. All you need is something that implements a mix of a reputation system and a web of trust and you're good to go. Technically pseudonymous, not anonymous, but it would give you basically all of the benefits of tying online activity to real identities without any of the downsides. It would also be completely decentralized, which would prevent large players from manipulating the political landscape on a mass level.