Re:It’s Time to Encrypt the Entire Internet
by dTal on Friday April 18, 2014 @03:44PM
(#7610913)
I can't be arsed posting a 9 page rebuttal with endnotes (most of my comments of that nature have 1 point) so I'll just pick on a few things:
>[big description of how the internet works]
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the internet was designed from day 1 to be decentralized. None of your examples count as "centralization" at the society level. There are millions of DHCP servers etc. The exception is DNS, which was a centralized replacement for the original decentralized mechanism of hosts files - an understandable decision as software techniques for decentralized consensus were unknown at the time. Fortunately we can now correct this, with Namecoin or similar.
>All the devices on the internet would be constantly communicating, trying to find consensus, trying to update routes, trying to search distributed rings (my personal favorite topology) to find peers, connect services, authenticate trust relationships, query data, update indexes
You seem to have a very detailed idea of how a "decentralized" internet would work at the technical level. Sounds like you're describing a global meshnet, as imagined today. Obviously we do not currently have the tools to develop an efficient global meshnet. However, just because you cannot personally imagine one doesn't mean it isn't possible.
>FDIC-insured bank
Must have missed something - what's Facebook's FDIC equivalent? I wasn't aware that coughcloudcough services had a regulatory body that would compensate me if they failed to do their job.
>It's just a really dangerous idea to put data you care about in a place that's easily available to thieves
I agree. How exactly is a hard drive in my basement more accessible to thieves than a data center (a much juicier target) run by people of unknown competence and ethics? Of course, if you're paranoid about your house burning down, there's nothing stopping you from putting an encrypted, uuencoded zip of your files on pastebin.
>the very idea of decentralized services is contrary to high-availability data
Bittorrent: Faster, cheaper, and more robust than a central server.
>we put a man on the moon with centralized services
Really? I thought we did it by funding a whole bunch of aerospace companies to design and build different pieces. Sounds pretty decentralized. "But the funding came from the government!" The funding came from taxes, which came from millions of people, who would not have had that money were it not for the economy! Now there's a whopping great decentralized system for you. Shall we switch to a planned economy? Would that be more efficient?
The best way to make a system do what you want is design its ground rules from the get-go such that it self-organizes that way.
>[big description of how the internet works]
As has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, the internet was designed from day 1 to be decentralized. None of your examples count as "centralization" at the society level. There are millions of DHCP servers etc. The exception is DNS, which was a centralized replacement for the original decentralized mechanism of hosts files - an understandable decision as software techniques for decentralized consensus were unknown at the time. Fortunately we can now correct this, with Namecoin or similar.
>All the devices on the internet would be constantly communicating, trying to find consensus, trying to update routes, trying to search distributed rings (my personal favorite topology) to find peers, connect services, authenticate trust relationships, query data, update indexes
You seem to have a very detailed idea of how a "decentralized" internet would work at the technical level. Sounds like you're describing a global meshnet, as imagined today. Obviously we do not currently have the tools to develop an efficient global meshnet. However, just because you cannot personally imagine one doesn't mean it isn't possible.
>FDIC-insured bank
Must have missed something - what's Facebook's FDIC equivalent? I wasn't aware that coughcloudcough services had a regulatory body that would compensate me if they failed to do their job.
>It's just a really dangerous idea to put data you care about in a place that's easily available to thieves
I agree. How exactly is a hard drive in my basement more accessible to thieves than a data center (a much juicier target) run by people of unknown competence and ethics? Of course, if you're paranoid about your house burning down, there's nothing stopping you from putting an encrypted, uuencoded zip of your files on pastebin.
>the very idea of decentralized services is contrary to high-availability data
Bittorrent: Faster, cheaper, and more robust than a central server.
>we put a man on the moon with centralized services
Really? I thought we did it by funding a whole bunch of aerospace companies to design and build different pieces. Sounds pretty decentralized. "But the funding came from the government!" The funding came from taxes, which came from millions of people, who would not have had that money were it not for the economy! Now there's a whopping great decentralized system for you. Shall we switch to a planned economy? Would that be more efficient?
The best way to make a system do what you want is design its ground rules from the get-go such that it self-organizes that way.