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RFC 8890 – The Internet is for End Users (2020)
- iso1631 2mo agoWho's an end user. Unless you own your hardware, you aren't the end user. When your phone, tv, camera, or even laptop on a non-free OS is on your network, you can get some semblance of control by controlling what network services it uses. Things like DoH are part of the removal of my control as a home user and give it to Sony, or Apple, or TPLink The most obvious thing is it becomes harder to block adverts. Throw in internet-centralisation through HN darlings like cloudflare and you're screwed. You have no idea what anything is talking to, as it's the same destination IPs, so the choice is either block it completely, or allow it with no control.
- remix2000 2mo ago> Who's an end user. I think in this context it'd be any netizen who does not hold a significant amount of power to influence other [unrelated to them] netizens?
- iso1631 2mo agoSo me. The only influence I have over what "my" phone does is monitoring and blocking what it connects to when it's connected to my network. DoH works against that
- 1718627440 2mo agoI do share your actual concern, but I think the term 'end user' applies to any human sitting in front of a computer, trying to achieve something, independently of whether the effective sysadmin works against his interests or not.
- __MatrixMan__ 2mo agoRight, it's not about property, it's just about whether the computer is helpful to the immediately available human or whether it serves some remote one.
- 1718627440 2mo agoThe end user continues being an end user, even if the respective computer/system is unhelpful or crashes.
- Sha1rholder 2mo agoEvery technology has both pros and cons. Those who develop standards must weigh both sides rather than considering only one of them. In countries where the internet is subject to censorship, as well as in regions with underdeveloped infrastructure, DNS queries are highly likely to be deliberately tampered with, poisoned, or hijacked. DoH is a very practical way to mitigate this problem, and I do not believe that the ability to block advertisements is more important than that. Moreover, advanced users can still run their own DNS services for ad blocking, and, at least for the foreseeable future, DoH will not prevent them from continuing to use traditional DNS. You cannot criticize an important improvement in security merely because it makes ad blocking less convenient. Other people may face threat models that are a hundred times more serious than yours.
- aftbit 2mo agoThe internet is for whoever wants to send bits to each other and is willing to pay for transit to do it. The WWW might be for end users, though that seems less obvious by the day.
- penguin_booze 2mo ago> for whoever Whomever.
- aftbit 2mo agoWhomever thought this was a post worth making?
- supermaurio2000 2mo agowhat you write is excactly the problem the RFC tries to address. And not only for http but for the whole internet protocol family.
- reactordev 2mo agosorry but that ship has sailed.
- account42 2mo agoThen we'll just have to make it return to port.
- pocksuppet 2mo agoRight. The RFC is attempting to clarify the IETF's official position. The IETF is not the internet police, and can't make other actors obey. We can make our own internet though - with blackhack and jookers.
- lenerdenator 2mo agoHonestly, I feel like your draft could dispense with the internet part of the proposal.
- dlcarrier 2mo agoInevitably the internet will have two types of users: 1. The anti-bot bots that must stop you from proceeding, because they aren't entirely sure you aren't a bot and 2. The bots that can get past them, which we all must eventually deploy, if we want a chance to visit a web page
- ACCount37 2mo agoWhy would anyone ever want to solve 99 Cloudflare captchas a day if you can get a bot to do it instead?
- iso1631 2mo agoLiterally used an LLM to answer the latest one 20 minutes ago, which was "what can climb a tree". Cloudflare is a blight on the internet, but HN loves it.
- pocksuppet 2mo agoCloudflare just started blocking Googlebot, so maybe we'll see an exodus away from Cloudflare by people who want their sites indexed? Hopefully?
- warkdarrior 2mo agoI thought Google Search is dead, everyone is using ChatGPT now to find information.
- paulddraper 2mo agoThis is an awkward read, the result of trying to convey an idea while couched in other language. That idea being that AI is less important than humans.
- Atlas667 2mo agoThis is why ideology is so important. Is the end user viewed as an ISPs client? a consumer of tech companies? The idealistic language is fine but isnt based on any scientific approach to society. Its neutral at best. The internet is for end users, but how if its not "by end users"? If most protocols and standard implementations depend on adoption by ISPs and tech companies what does it mean to be "for the end user"? Is prison architecture "for the prisoners"? So how do we solve the "by end users" dilemma?
- murzynalbinos 2mo ago[flagged]
- vouaobrasil 2mo agoI think fighting for a purpose-based ideology of the internet is actually doomed to fail because the form of the technology will dictate how its used and regulation and efforts will only slightly affect that. E.g. If the internet is super-fast and has the capability to deliver video ads, it will be used for that. If everyone just had a connection with the speed of a 56K modem, that video-based ad model wouldn't work. If we really want the internet to be a certain way, we have to change the underlying technology used, not the ideology behind it. Because if an technology has a capability, it will be used to do whatever is most successful in the capitalistic system, not what's best for 'end users'. Regulation sometimes be effective, but...the model of regulation in a world of freely-evolving technology is a broken system most of the time.
- michaelmrose 2mo agoRegulation is on average stunning effective. You simply complely fail to notice all the times it works, notice whenever it doesn't, and profess that it doesn't. There is no meaningful alternatives.
- Bender 2mo agoThe internet is for porn [1] Mostly SFW, headphones I know I know, it's original purpose was to be a weapon. [2] It has certainly devolved into a weapon to divide the people. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_zAlVv73HI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_zAlVv73HI [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Xxi0b9trY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Xxi0b9trY
- voakbasda 2mo agoMission accomplished
- Elzair 2mo agoThat was a good article. From the title I assumed it would be about "agents". It is good to consider non technical considerations into the promotion of a protocol. I am glad that someone is still standing up for privacy.