Internet greybeards and upstarts gather to redecentralize the Internet
http://boingboing.net/2016/06/09/internet-greybeards-and-upstar.html#more-465741
This week, the Internet Archive is hosting a three-day event
(which finishes today) called The Decentralized Web Summit,
whose goal is to figure out how to build a new Internet that
is "locked open," an idea that emerged from Internet Archive
founder Brewster Kahle's 2015 series of talks and articles
about how technologists can build networks and protocols that
are resistant to attempt to capture, monopolize and control
them. I attended the first two days, and the event was
inspiring and brilliant. Speakers included Vint Cerf, one of
the inventors of the core Internet technologies; and Tim
Berners-Lee, who invented the web.
- - -
Executive Summary: I don't view this concept as generally practical,
for a whole bunch of reasons, some of which are fairly obvious. There
will likely be limited niche situations where it can be successfully
applied, however. Foundational problems include relative
centralization and limited/oligarchical nature of ISPs and associated
backbones (for technical, financial, and "political" reasons), the
real-world issues associated with peering of high-volume traffic, and
the infrastructure/operating costs associated with maintaining
reliable circuits and systems. Note the failures of various community
"mesh" environments to prove practical and reliable, for example.
Protocols are not the fundamental problem in these contexts.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein ([email protected]): http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Founder:
- Network Neutrality Squad: http://www.nnsquad.org
- PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility: http://www.pfir.org/pfir-info
Member: ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Google+: http://google.com/+LaurenWeinstein
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800 / Skype: vortex.com
I have consulted to Google, but I am not currently
doing so -- my opinions expressed here are mine alone.
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