In 2020, I published This is Fine: Optimism & emergency in the p2p network(https://newdesigncongress.org/en/pub/this-is-fine). It laid out a clear argument that the #fediverse is irreparably vulnerable because of its p2p nature and political naivete:
"Anyone with administrator access to an Instance can read anything that travels through that Instance’s infrastructure – including direct messages. The level of risk correlates with the number of cross-Instance interactions between users. If users from different Instances communicate, an attacker need only compel one Instance to reveal the direct messages between all of the interacting accounts. [...] In a peer-to-peer network without encryption, there’s no structure, no agreed-upon governance, and absolutely no protection. Compromising or compelling an Instance or its staff means that all of network traffic is laid bare to its assailant. [...] The decentralised community seeks to antagonise a powerful status quo whilst making tradeoffs that do not acknowledge how societies directly threaten their communities."
Today, Kolektiva - a anti-colonial anarchist instance - announced an FBI raid of one of their admins, which included the seizure of an entire copy of the Kolektiva instance.
This is literally the kind of situation I warned about nearly three years ago.
This text reads like a vanguardist path, based on #mainstreaming reading and narrow #geekproblem thinking. It's missing the paths that hold value in #4opens horizontal activist paths we are taking but, yes, getting lost on in our the growing #fedivers and wide spread of #openweb current diversity projects.
What it does highlight is the need for social and political thinking is needed, the is value there.
Our #mainstreaming if you are wondering why I am documenting the devouring of this #ActivityPub#openweb reboot, it is because next time we can maybe try and mediate our "libertarian cats" for a better outcome. We cannot just keep fucking up like this #XR
I have been through this mess more than 5 times in my 20 years working on #openweb use and outreach. So voice of expirence, we have to stop fucking up like we keep doing, at the very least fuckup differently please.
Any instance that goes along with such a thing will be lost to surveillance capitalism. I don’t care how large they are or who they are, any instance that becomes Meta’s bitch should be defederated immediately by all others. Let the largest few get swallowed up whole by Silicon Valley if they’re dumb enough to do it. The rest of us will rebuild.
This information matters because it sheds light on the origins and development of #ActivityPub as a reboot of the #openweb. It highlights the contrast between mainstream platforms (#dotcons) and the grassroots efforts of individuals and communities (#weirdos) who are passionate about creating an open and decentralized web. The accidental nature of this reboot underscores the importance of DIY culture and the underfunding of openweb technologies.
The recent shift towards a "libertarian cats" path and the potential consumption of the #openweb reboot raises concerns about the future of alternative platforms. However, the focus on building real alternatives and shifting away from mainstreaming demonstrates a commitment to resisting the status quo and promoting a more inclusive and sustainable web ecosystem.
With "AI-generated content" all over the place, perhaps more people will get it why I objected and continue to object to using the term "user-generated content" for anything, anywhere, ever.
It's people, not "users."
It's created, not "generated."
And often it's just as creative as any "serious art."
Of course, tech robber barons want to make it seem like it's some undetermined grey goo, "content" to be mined and filtered and "engaged with", instead.
Es haben sich Programmierer der Fediverse Monopol-Softwares nun mit Meta getroffen und Stillschweigen vereinbart. (die mit eigenem Server, veränderter API, kein Client-2-Server – wie beim letzten Fedicamp beschrieben) …
Dies ist ein unglaublicher Vertrauensbruch und eventuell das Ende des Fediverse.
To real concerns that Meta might do to Acivitypub as Google & they did to XMPP, this seems helpful including this point via @darius
"Regardless of bigco shenanigans around open protocols, Kazemi isn’t worried about what happens with ActivityPub. 'The nice thing for me is that if the big companies do jump in [to support ActivityPub] and then sort of walk it back,' he remarked, 'at worst, we’ll be back to where we are right now, which is still a pretty nice place.'”
@tchambers@darius yep the key point is we have to have a strong "culture" so we can try and hold our #fashionista crew from going down the #dotcons path because it's "better", this is harder than our "logic" thinks it is. Take note.
I find #mainstreaming people to be actually mad and increasingly bad. When do we get more #4opens people pushing change challenge in these #openweb spaces, please?
Am increasingly seeing this #blocking as a culture of fear, or more real as a culture of fear pushed as power politics.
@witchescauldron Am thinking meany people will be confused and likely mix signal with noise on this subject.
Who are the bad people, the powerless pushing the #4opens on the #openweb or the powerful Burocrats worshipping the #deathcult while protecting there thin careers in the #mainstreaming
If you find yourself agenst the first and defending the second, then you are the problem.
The @sovtechfund is offering grants to people who contribute to a sustainable open source ecosystem. Grants go up to €300,000 per application and cover three main topics:
Improve FOSS Developer Tooling
Securing FOSS Software Production
FOSS Infrastructure Documentation
With this program the Sovereign Tech Fund seeks to stimulate an open digital infrastructure: fundamental technologies that enable the creation of other software.
For this funding to be a #openweb project, it needs #openprocess which transparency is a core #4opens I don't think either of the current funding projects do this - likely for privacy and security and "safety" issues -this makes them non "native" to the #openweb they are saying they are a part of. A tension we need to talk abut.
A core tenet of good technologies is that we can reason about them. And a common pattern of abusers is that they act in ways that are inconsistent and unreasonable. That's why it's a giant red flag that all the AI hype these days is about systems that we can't even reason about. https://www.anildash.com/2023/06/08/ai-is-unreasonable/
@alter_kaker@anildash this metaphor becomes complex, composting is a process of turning shit into rich growth medium. So our seedlings of social desires can regrow a divers "natural" eco syteam - society.
People are suiciding the idea of the #openweb agen, they just can't help themselves. 40 years of worshipping of the #deathcult affects people's attempt to be humane "common sense" wins in the current mess each time.