Sheesh, Mozilla has really lost their way. Putting ads in the search bar? We already have a search engine that does that, we don't need two running at the same time.
@cuchaz
I mostly use #Brave now (with the shit turned off) because #Firefox was degrading in performance and stability, and became unusable on my cheap mobile. For now that's ok.
That #Mozilla are doing this is very sad. I am though hopeful better days are coming, with new ecosystems based on #p2p that will bypass the enclosure and unleash the next generation of openeness & creativity.
I'm literally working on a demo to publish and browse websites on #Autonomi, so it's not just work thinking.
@happyborg yeah, I'm hoping P2P is the way forward too. I'm working on a few projects of my own in that space. But moving to a browser monoculture (Chrome(ium) and forks) in the meantime won't be doing us any favors. We need some independent options. Actually viable ones.
@cuchaz it would be better of course but a browser is a massive undertaking.
I looked at using Servo for my demo but it proved impractical - being off grid I use mobile broadband and couldn't even clone the repo due to some weird intolerance in git or github. I now suspect the culprit is really AWS, but not sure.
So I went with Tauri + an iframe as it is only a demo.
What kind of thing are you writing on and what approach to p2p?
@happyborg Yeah, I'm hoping Servo becomes the next Firefox. .... Eventually.
Someday I'd like to build a social media app with actual privacy guarantees. Before that, there's apparently a ton of infrastructure I need to build first. One piece is a P2P network to host web sites and web services. I'm calling it the SmolWeb protoco. I'm using it to host a blog at the moment and the first post explains how it works.
@cuchaz
Oh, yes I forgotten you were doing SmolWeb. I haven't time to look at it and am all in with Autonomi who have been working on cracking this for 18 years, with me along for ten.
Their system is a truly autonomous self sustaining p2p backbone on which others can build and scale without server or infrastructure costs or maintenance.
Web will be only part of that but it's an important thing to demo to show what can be done, even by a lone developer.
@happyborg Bummer. It works in a lot of cases now, but some things still slip through. Some browsers have the needed technologies disabled by default, for example.
If you click on that "Error" button, you should get a ton of diagnostic info. Anything interesting in there? Like details about the error?
@happyborg Thanks for the info! Looks like you're getting a timeout in a place where I've never seen a timeout before. You must have an interesting internet configuration.
Sadly, there's nothing I can do to get you connected now, but I'll add this to the list of issues.
DuckDuckGo browser looks like maybe it's based on Firefox? Firefox on Android is one of the browsers that disables P2P by default. You can turn it on by going to about:config and toggling media.peerconnection.enabled to true.
@cuchaz I'm pretty sure DDG is Chrome based. I'm on desktop now (no DDG) so trying with Brave but I'm hammering my connection with downloads so that may spoil things... well it works in Brave Desktop 👏
@happyborg Ah well, I couldn't find any authoritative information about DDG browser's architecture online. I was basing my decision on screenshots, haha. I guess browser UIs have all carcinized at this point.
If the browser is Chrome based, there's a WebRTC setting for that too. Something about enabling host addresses, perhaps via mDNS, if I remember correctly.
Glad you got it working on desktop tho! :blobcatthumbsup:
@cuchaz It looks nice. If you're interested and that's static HTML I'll help you put a blog up on Autonomi when the demo is available. That would be cool.
I'm including an updateable list of p2p sites in the demo browser so you could be among the first.
I've got a couple of very simple static sites of my own, but having others would be much better and your SmolWeb site would get exposure to a very p2p crowd.
@happyborg To be completely honest, when I looked into Autonomi, I didn't like what I saw, so I would have reservations about associating with the project.
There seems to be some kind of digital currency involved? Any kind of cryptocurrencies get an automatic no from me. Even if the intentions behind the project are good, the digital currency well has been muddied by too many people whose intentions are anything but good. Easier to just stay away I think.
Also, the idea of hosting unreadable content from strangers on my devices doesn't sit well with me. That feels like a liability issue waiting to happen. What if my device is hosting content that I don't want to be there? Seems like I'd have little control over that. I feel like a lot of P2P approaches get this part wrong.
Digital currencies aside, the idea of "Lifetime Storage; One Time Fee" feels like an economic pipe dream. I have a lot of trouble believing that claim is true. Ongoing services have ongoing costs. Ignoring that feels ... disingenuous?
@cuchaz Those are all valid concerns and have been raised many times. There are answers but if your mind is made up I won't go into them.
When I became interested in this it was 2014, post Bitcoin, pre understanding downsides, scams. I looked into two projects, Ethereum (rejected because they put no limit on their fundraiser - doh!) and MaidSafe, which I liked because of the founder, whose ideas, manner, values etc were and still are all right on.
@happyborg Yeah, I figured these aren't new questions for a project that's been around that long, but they don't seem to be addressed on the website anywhere. The FAQ seems pretty rose-colored. I'm curious what the rebuttal would be, even if my mind is probably already made up. =)
@cuchaz the place for these Q&As is the forum: https://form.autonomi.community which is community run. You can search or post Q's - all Q's are welcome and the community is very friendly. So if you are still curious that's the best place.
@cuchaz Jeff, I just got around to watch this and thought you might find it informative about Autonomi's integrity.
It is part of a series between Jim, who has been with the project for a while, and Sarah Buxton, recently appointed - from the crypto space - as CEO to take it from geekdom to launch.
I'm one of those who she refers to later on, but impressed with the fit between the values that motivated her in her past roles, and the values of this project.
@happyborg Thanks for the link to the forums. I browsed through a few things the other day and feel like I got a good vibe check. This is definitely not the project for me. I appreciate the effort you took to explain it though. :blobcatthumbsup:
@cuchaz yeh, I'm sorry you feel that because to be honest I think you may be letting worries about the crypto debacles obscure what this project really is.
But there we are, unless you feel like batting a few things towards me and see what comes back.
I am integrity on legs and convinced that this is the best project in the p2p space - not because others lack that integrity, but because they are incomplete. I'm impressed by what you have done - and what that means about you.
@happyborg Thanks! I'm glad you like my work. It's not quite ready yet, but I hope it will be useful to people someday.
Autonomi doesn't sit well with me mostly because there's a digital currency involved (and all the well-deserved bad reputations those kinds of projects have is a huge detractor for me), but also because they don't have a good solution to the I-dont-want-to-host-content-I-dont-like problem.
It's definitely possible to do P2P things without creating a digital currency, so that was probably a deliberate choice on their part. There's probably not much to be gained by questioning that decision this far into the project.
The I-dont-want-to-host-content-I-dont-like problem is harder to solve I think. For what it's worth, the solution I'm using in my P2P work is to let go of the idea of hosting content from strangers. If you only host content from people you know, I think the problem gets significantly easier.
The happy path is you trust the person to not send you content you don't like and then they actually don't send you content you don't like. The unhappy path is they violate your trust and send you content you don't like, but it's secret and you might not know right away. But if you ever find out (maybe from law enforcement), you know who sent it and can re-evaluate your relationship with them. You have no such recourse with strangers though.
@cuchaz
I think the content you don't like issue is insoluble, and one the community and project have agonised over many times. An alternative is to let people choose what they see / consume.
One issue for example is that if you can decide, you can be forced to filter and then we have centralised censorship again.
So the solution chosen is to ensure nobody knows as far as possible what is stored where by chunking and self encrypting.
It's not 100% watertight but I think it will work.
@cuchaz
On the reason for a token, you can do p2p without it but I think having it has a number of advantages when you want to create an alternative to the global enclosure.
I also think some important features would not be possible without it, and useful things for the future will be possible with it.
For example, maintaining availability of data without incentives to keep running nodes. You would have to pay/subscribe, as in IPFS then you get Filecoin or brokers and that's no longer p2p.
@cuchaz
Of course having the token doesn't only discourage those with good motives like yourself from wanting to be associated or involved, we do also attract those who lack scruples and think this is another make them rich opportunity.
While it is fair that people get rewarded for helping or investing in the project, most I know are there for good reasons and we are quick to point out if we fear something might be going astray! But it never has, in ten years 😃
@happyborg And that's the problem I have with these kinds of projects. Anti-censorship and moderation are two opposing goals.
Personally, I think moderation is the more important goal of the two. If people are putting content on your device that you don't want there, you need to have the power to remove it. It's your device and you're responsible for it, so you need to be the one in control of it.
And if your government compels you to use that power the censor something, that's not a technical problem you can solve by writing different code. It's a social problem. Regardless of what code you're running, if your government wants you to stop hosting something, they can make you do that. And if overthrowing your democratically elected government is in scope for your project, then I definitely want nothing to do with it. That's not a software project, that's a revolution. Associating with that kind of goal is not a decision to make lightly.
The same argument applies to digital currencies too. If the goal of the digital currency is to end-run around your country's monetary system, that's also not a technical problem you can solve by writing code. It's another, different, social problem and it doesn't care about your code.
@cuchaz
If you believe we live in democracies and that is sacrosanct, then we can disagree. I once believed that, and even in reforms such as PR but I see now that these are a modern form of religion and deceit, used to control more than empower. Though I do see Autonomi as a democratising force, because it is designed to maximise access and shift the balance of power away from the centre to individuals and non-profit focused entities, which I think is well worth doing.
2/2
@happyborg There are multiple different kinds of moderation at play here. Once is, as you said, the ability to moderate what you see. Another kind of moderation is to moderate what devices under your control enable other people to see. I'm not interested in systems that focus only on the first one and ignore the second one.
As a device operator, I have a responsibility to ensure it doesn't harm other people. And if a P2P network takes away my ability to do that, then the responsible choice is to not join that network.
Democracies are far from perfect. Mine may be actively failing at the moment. It's not clear what's going to happen there yet. But I think it's a bit naive to believe that these problems can be solved by building a certain kind of P2P network. In my opinion, sharing harmless files with your friends shouldn't be mixed together with joining a revolution against your government.
@cuchaz
We're not far apart in identifying the problems but have different approaches to solutions.
That's the way it should be. Nobody has all the answers so we need diversity, multiple endeavours - diverse and decentralised.
I do think you misunderstand the positives of this project though. By democratising the landscape and enabling the many, it allows the social to flourish.
We need both the social and the means. But the means have been enclosed, and p2p is a way to liberate it.
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