basically a watercooler on a ship
April 11, 2018 8:22 AM Subscribe
Scuttlebutt is a a decent(ralised) secure gossip platform whose documentation is written not just as a how-to manual or an API reference but as a philosophical/political examination about what social media is good for and how the commons of that platform might be affected by the way the technology is designed.
From the Principles page: "Many of the concepts we have for thinking about this stuff are inadequate, for example, you asked about your "account". On a normal website, your account is just a record in a database which says if you know a password, you can post as that account. Before computers, you might have joined a club and "signed up" in the club's membership registry (a book). Because computers where first sold to military, then large corporations. Of course computers are about accounting. Keeping records about who owns what in books, or book-like systems."
In a database system, all the power is in the database. It's often called a "single source of truth". Who can do what is ultimately controlled by whoever administers the database.
Here, we have no central database to decide for us what a given action means, instead when you make a post or a 'dig' or change your picture, the other peers (or rather, the software they run) interprets that. A social consensus. Like how "blue" means what it does because we agree it does, and that agreement can also evolve. "blue" means, at least, a color, a sad feeling, and a certain type of film.
But what are the implications of a system that doesn't behave like an accounts book? Where could that go?
Just trying to understand what it means to be free."
and they have a sense of humor! "On consensus, I enjoy Locke's philosophy of social contract. We have to reach just enough consensus to interoperate, and no more. In Locke's world, the main "feature" of the social contract was property rights. For us, it'll be matters like message schemas."
From the Principles page: "Many of the concepts we have for thinking about this stuff are inadequate, for example, you asked about your "account". On a normal website, your account is just a record in a database which says if you know a password, you can post as that account. Before computers, you might have joined a club and "signed up" in the club's membership registry (a book). Because computers where first sold to military, then large corporations. Of course computers are about accounting. Keeping records about who owns what in books, or book-like systems."
In a database system, all the power is in the database. It's often called a "single source of truth". Who can do what is ultimately controlled by whoever administers the database.
Here, we have no central database to decide for us what a given action means, instead when you make a post or a 'dig' or change your picture, the other peers (or rather, the software they run) interprets that. A social consensus. Like how "blue" means what it does because we agree it does, and that agreement can also evolve. "blue" means, at least, a color, a sad feeling, and a certain type of film.
But what are the implications of a system that doesn't behave like an accounts book? Where could that go?
Just trying to understand what it means to be free."
and they have a sense of humor! "On consensus, I enjoy Locke's philosophy of social contract. We have to reach just enough consensus to interoperate, and no more. In Locke's world, the main "feature" of the social contract was property rights. For us, it'll be matters like message schemas."
But what are the implications of a system that doesn't behave like an accounts book? Where could that go?
On the face of it, where it's most likely to go is straight down into a morass of impersonation.
Online identity is a genuinely hard problem, one not made easier just by throwing a worldwide network of peers at it.
posted by flabdablet at 8:38 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
On the face of it, where it's most likely to go is straight down into a morass of impersonation.
Online identity is a genuinely hard problem, one not made easier just by throwing a worldwide network of peers at it.
posted by flabdablet at 8:38 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
This always sounds like a great idea - until the "social consensus" disagrees with you about what that is.
Yeah, I'm not sure there's a way to design around the problem that, given anonymity or near-anonymity, humans often behave like jerks.
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:47 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I'm not sure there's a way to design around the problem that, given anonymity or near-anonymity, humans often behave like jerks.
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:47 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Six minutes into the video and another six minutes to go...not very intuitive, apparently.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 9:04 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 9:04 AM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
They've got some nice ideas, but I don't like the attempt to handwave past the technical side of things.
... I've skipped around on the video and I'm going to give up on it for now. I don't believe they're going to cover
1) How do prevent Nazis from seeing what you wrote? (Answer: once you've ID'd them, you can block the individual from seeing your content. But there doesn't seem to be a way to say "block anyone who's mutuals with X person.")
2) How do you track down someone who's using the network to commit crimes--fraud, doxxing, nude photo posting, threats/blackmail, etc?
3) Since you have your entries/diary, can you edit past entries? Can you backdate? How do you prevent scams and fake histories?
We don't need more unregulated, "you do what you want, and they do what they want!" networks.
"Scuttlebut values subjectivity, and the truth of the individual experience."
... you're a white dude, aren't you.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:51 AM on April 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
the tired western (masculine?) notion that all we need is "enough public debate" to hash it all out (lol cryptopuns), that there is some single best opinion that will constitute an eventual consensus, is just so fundamentally broke it's crazy.OK, I like that approach, but... they're using a public-key ID system, and the contents stored on your computer instead of their servers. Terrific. They've re-invented the downloaded newsfeed.
....
teaching a man to fish is the easy part, you must then teach his community how to govern a commons
... I've skipped around on the video and I'm going to give up on it for now. I don't believe they're going to cover
1) How do prevent Nazis from seeing what you wrote? (Answer: once you've ID'd them, you can block the individual from seeing your content. But there doesn't seem to be a way to say "block anyone who's mutuals with X person.")
2) How do you track down someone who's using the network to commit crimes--fraud, doxxing, nude photo posting, threats/blackmail, etc?
3) Since you have your entries/diary, can you edit past entries? Can you backdate? How do you prevent scams and fake histories?
We don't need more unregulated, "you do what you want, and they do what they want!" networks.
"Scuttlebut values subjectivity, and the truth of the individual experience."
... you're a white dude, aren't you.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:51 AM on April 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
To Eris's point, it doesn't appear from my cursory reading that any editing is possible once a post is made. And blocking anyone who mutuals with X seems like functionality that could be added, this is an OSS project, isn't it?
posted by daHIFI at 10:23 AM on April 11, 2018
posted by daHIFI at 10:23 AM on April 11, 2018
And blocking anyone who mutuals with X seems like functionality that could be added, this is an OSS project, isn't it?
The fact that this wasn't considered in the first place is a red flag. It shows a lack of observation and understanding.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:25 AM on April 11, 2018
The fact that this wasn't considered in the first place is a red flag. It shows a lack of observation and understanding.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:25 AM on April 11, 2018
No-edits-possible is also a problem - no fixing typos or bad links? But there's a difference between editing the contents and the metadata, including date posted.
Whether that's do-able depends on how encrypted the database files on your computer are.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:28 AM on April 11, 2018
Whether that's do-able depends on how encrypted the database files on your computer are.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:28 AM on April 11, 2018
> KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat:
"Six minutes into the video and another six minutes to go...not very intuitive, apparently."
Elevator pitch in the Burj Khalifa
posted by chavenet at 10:33 AM on April 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
"Six minutes into the video and another six minutes to go...not very intuitive, apparently."
Elevator pitch in the Burj Khalifa
posted by chavenet at 10:33 AM on April 11, 2018 [6 favorites]
NoxAeternum: The "social consensus" they are talking about is unrelated to the one you are talking about.
They mean that you can send "I like metafilter" in some format and it is up to the software other people run to decide if they want to treat that like a facebook like, or a normal twitter post or a +1 upvote or a request to be added to "the list of people who have publicly said they like metafilter that I publish".
This isn't a twitter clone, this is a secure communications protocol. So if the first thing you think of is "ok, so no one can spy on who other people talk to ... but what about spying on who other people talk to because of this very specific problem I have on twitter that is caused entirely by the aspects of twitter that don't apply here", that's a red flag that shows a complete lack of understanding. So does any mention of things being stored on "their servers".
The intro posted obviously didn't do a good enough job of explaining what ssb is. That is good feedback for them, they obviously need another layer of documentation that explains low level concepts like protocols and apps and things that software devs take for granted.
posted by Infracanophile at 1:59 PM on April 11, 2018
They mean that you can send "I like metafilter" in some format and it is up to the software other people run to decide if they want to treat that like a facebook like, or a normal twitter post or a +1 upvote or a request to be added to "the list of people who have publicly said they like metafilter that I publish".
This isn't a twitter clone, this is a secure communications protocol. So if the first thing you think of is "ok, so no one can spy on who other people talk to ... but what about spying on who other people talk to because of this very specific problem I have on twitter that is caused entirely by the aspects of twitter that don't apply here", that's a red flag that shows a complete lack of understanding. So does any mention of things being stored on "their servers".
The intro posted obviously didn't do a good enough job of explaining what ssb is. That is good feedback for them, they obviously need another layer of documentation that explains low level concepts like protocols and apps and things that software devs take for granted.
posted by Infracanophile at 1:59 PM on April 11, 2018
It's a mashup of "secure private-key communications protocol" and "social network, where you can meet people and explore your shared interests."
Skype is a communications protocol. As far as I know, it has no protections for doxxing, no specific crime-prevention systems. However, it also doesn't have a discovery feature - I can connect with people on Skype, but I can't see their connections.
Setting up "Signal with a friendslist/newsfeed" means running into all the problems of social websites--some people are cheats and liars; some people are abusive thugs; I am no longer willing to accept "eh, it's your job to avoid contact with scumbags" as an acceptable excuse for not building in safety features.
"...social network that no company can control..." also means "that no government can control." Social networks with no government oversight brought us gamergate and the current president; the fact that this one looks hard to squeeze profits from doesn't mean it won't be fraught with abuses if it catches on.
(I do like the idea of decentralizing the web, of putting control back into individual hands. But I'm sharply suspicious of techbro attempts at new communications software right now, because I often I think they're not solving for the problems the rest of us consider the real issues.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:47 PM on April 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
Skype is a communications protocol. As far as I know, it has no protections for doxxing, no specific crime-prevention systems. However, it also doesn't have a discovery feature - I can connect with people on Skype, but I can't see their connections.
Setting up "Signal with a friendslist/newsfeed" means running into all the problems of social websites--some people are cheats and liars; some people are abusive thugs; I am no longer willing to accept "eh, it's your job to avoid contact with scumbags" as an acceptable excuse for not building in safety features.
"...social network that no company can control..." also means "that no government can control." Social networks with no government oversight brought us gamergate and the current president; the fact that this one looks hard to squeeze profits from doesn't mean it won't be fraught with abuses if it catches on.
(I do like the idea of decentralizing the web, of putting control back into individual hands. But I'm sharply suspicious of techbro attempts at new communications software right now, because I often I think they're not solving for the problems the rest of us consider the real issues.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:47 PM on April 11, 2018 [4 favorites]
So what model would you folks have for a decentralised communications tool?
For a while we used to talk about webs of trust and the use of mutual trust to gateway both access to our own posts as well as filters for the wider public's. That seems to have been a dead end somehow, but I couldn't tell you if the problems were technical or not.
Just pretending that the Magical Crypto existed that would make your needs implementable, what would you want such a system to do?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:37 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
For a while we used to talk about webs of trust and the use of mutual trust to gateway both access to our own posts as well as filters for the wider public's. That seems to have been a dead end somehow, but I couldn't tell you if the problems were technical or not.
Just pretending that the Magical Crypto existed that would make your needs implementable, what would you want such a system to do?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:37 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
(and to be clear, I don't ask this in any snide "OH YEA LETS SEE U DO BETTER" way, but genuinely in a "MetaFilter works well, and I trust the people here to have some good priorities on this topic" sense)
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:38 PM on April 11, 2018
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 3:38 PM on April 11, 2018
For a while we used to talk about webs of trust and the use of mutual trust to gateway both access to our own posts as well as filters for the wider public's. That seems to have been a dead end somehow, but I couldn't tell you if the problems were technical or not.
The main problem is that most people care fuck-all about security or privacy, and won't respect others' preferences. (Not all of that is malicious indifference; it takes energy to pay attention to these things, and a lot of people just don't have the understanding or energy to spare.)
Any security measures reduce efficiency. This one only runs on a single computer - you can't use it on your phone, which is going to kill its widespread applicability; it'll be one more supergeek communications tool.
The problem with this one is that it's trying to combine two purposes: Secure, user-controlled communication, AND social networking. These don't share a lot of goals, and using a single tool for both means they're both compromised.
Secure communications are compromised by allowing your friends and their friends and their friends to have a permanent copy on their hard drives; there's no "scrub this content" feature, which gets especially problematic in the case of doxxing and criminal activity.
Social networking is compromised by tying the activity to a single hard drive per user, and by being reliant on contact and hub activity to bring new contact. It's also compromised by not being able to remove bad actors; each individual must discover and block each troll.
I applaud the effort - but I don't think the same app is going to bring useful security and social activity. Useful social needs curation - ban the nazis; ban the doxxers; ban child porn; etc. Useful secure communication needs the ability to control who sees your content. I'm not sure there is a way to get both at once for a broad audience.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:55 PM on April 11, 2018
The main problem is that most people care fuck-all about security or privacy, and won't respect others' preferences. (Not all of that is malicious indifference; it takes energy to pay attention to these things, and a lot of people just don't have the understanding or energy to spare.)
Any security measures reduce efficiency. This one only runs on a single computer - you can't use it on your phone, which is going to kill its widespread applicability; it'll be one more supergeek communications tool.
The problem with this one is that it's trying to combine two purposes: Secure, user-controlled communication, AND social networking. These don't share a lot of goals, and using a single tool for both means they're both compromised.
Secure communications are compromised by allowing your friends and their friends and their friends to have a permanent copy on their hard drives; there's no "scrub this content" feature, which gets especially problematic in the case of doxxing and criminal activity.
Social networking is compromised by tying the activity to a single hard drive per user, and by being reliant on contact and hub activity to bring new contact. It's also compromised by not being able to remove bad actors; each individual must discover and block each troll.
I applaud the effort - but I don't think the same app is going to bring useful security and social activity. Useful social needs curation - ban the nazis; ban the doxxers; ban child porn; etc. Useful secure communication needs the ability to control who sees your content. I'm not sure there is a way to get both at once for a broad audience.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 3:55 PM on April 11, 2018
"...social network that no company can control..." also means "that no government can control." Social networks with no government oversight brought us gamergate and the current president
given that now that guy and his buddies are the government I continue to have a really hard time taking that as an argument against the development of decentralized/secure communications mechanisms
but I also agree with the sentiment expressed in this thread that while "decentralized" and "secure" can solve some real problems they also don't solve and never have solved the problem of quality of interaction on social media.
posted by atoxyl at 4:38 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
given that now that guy and his buddies are the government I continue to have a really hard time taking that as an argument against the development of decentralized/secure communications mechanisms
but I also agree with the sentiment expressed in this thread that while "decentralized" and "secure" can solve some real problems they also don't solve and never have solved the problem of quality of interaction on social media.
posted by atoxyl at 4:38 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
"The feds can't stop this signal" is a terrific sales pitch; it's less compelling when phrased as "Russian spies can use this to spread propaganda without limits."
In our current setting, I feel any ethical software app will tell its users how it can be abused, and they can decide for themselves whether to take those risks. Gliding past them with "you can make friends when you're offline!" is disingenuous at best.
(I am not in favor of gov't backdoors or oversight on every online activity. I just want the ones that are unregulated and unregulatable to be honest about their dangers as well as their advantages.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:52 PM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
In our current setting, I feel any ethical software app will tell its users how it can be abused, and they can decide for themselves whether to take those risks. Gliding past them with "you can make friends when you're offline!" is disingenuous at best.
(I am not in favor of gov't backdoors or oversight on every online activity. I just want the ones that are unregulated and unregulatable to be honest about their dangers as well as their advantages.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:52 PM on April 11, 2018 [2 favorites]
The idea that the same person would find "the Feds can't stop the signal" a selling point and at the same time find "the Feds can't stop foreign propaganda" to be both a non-obvious implication and a particularly scary one is a little odd to me.
This:
ban the doxxers; ban child porn; etc.
is a more in line with what comes to my own mind when I think of the biggest hazards of (the existence) of anonymous/secure communications. But I think the FBI et. al. are generally happy enough to remind everybody of this.
posted by atoxyl at 6:33 PM on April 11, 2018
This:
ban the doxxers; ban child porn; etc.
is a more in line with what comes to my own mind when I think of the biggest hazards of (the existence) of anonymous/secure communications. But I think the FBI et. al. are generally happy enough to remind everybody of this.
posted by atoxyl at 6:33 PM on April 11, 2018
Terrific. They've re-invented the downloaded newsfeed.
In the wise words of my friend Don: Those who fail to understand network protocols are doomed to re-implement them. Poorly. Over port 80.
posted by flabdablet at 8:14 PM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]
In the wise words of my friend Don: Those who fail to understand network protocols are doomed to re-implement them. Poorly. Over port 80.
posted by flabdablet at 8:14 PM on April 11, 2018 [3 favorites]
So what model would you folks have for a decentralised communications tool?
Ever since Facebook became a thing, I've been liking email and personal web sites more and more and more.
posted by flabdablet at 8:17 PM on April 11, 2018
Ever since Facebook became a thing, I've been liking email and personal web sites more and more and more.
posted by flabdablet at 8:17 PM on April 11, 2018
Perhaps the biggest problem I can see is the lack of erasure. If I am reading this correctly, once said, it can never be unsaid. People change all time time, I'm not the same Jonnay I was 10 years ago.
Secure communications are compromised by allowing your friends and their friends and their friends to have a permanent copy on their hard drives; there's no "scrub this content" feature, which gets especially problematic in the case of doxxing and criminal activity.
Agreed, but only kinda? I mean, yes, it's a problem in that the dox is now forever. Criminal activity is a pretty nebulous idea here. What kind of criminal activity are we talking about here? Lets say, for instance, 2 "bad guys" use it to plan to rob a bank. Sure this is bad, but this is also an evidence trail that is more like a super-highway, right? Because the communication is block-chained, forever, and digitally signed, then assuming that the badguys get captured and the computers are accessible, then there is a mountain of evidence pointing to wrongdoing.
I think it's a mistake, on many levels, to look at this tool and draw comparisons with Facebook. Sure, it can be used as a mouthpiece for propaganda, but it seems like you'd have to be friends with people who are friends with the KGB.
Also it's important to keep in mind that Facebook is a centralized model built on social networks that stretch back to... Orkut? Friendster? I recall an even earlier social network in the late 90s, but i'll be damned if I can remember its name. This model is vastly different. There were shades of it in the early aughties web (there was an xml thing called FOAF that was getting close).
And yes, there is a lot of things to work out. Lack of a phone app is definitely a thing. But I think the bigger question to answer is how can you effectively decentralize it so that you don't need to be in Wifi range, and you don't need to spend money on an Googlezon-Herkoku-whatever and figure out how to setup, secure and run a personal pub?
The main problem is that most people care fuck-all about security or privacy.
I don't believe this is true. People have door locks and generally have curtains on their windows. But understanding say, the privacy of your Facebook profile which actively works against you _is_ hard. I don't think that this app is helping with that yet, but it isn't actively working against you. More importantly the mission seems to be to help the user understand their privacy decisions. They aren't there, but they're getting there.
The biggest flaw here I can see is that of identity. Impersonation is a possibility, but I can see there being ways around this. Sure you can name yourself "jonnay" but (if I understand the technology correctly) by virtue of how this is built, you can't also be the one that wrote everything I wrote, saved everything I saved. No the flaw here is that identity is singular in the app, when people rarely have a singular identity. More importantly, sometimes people will want to separate and even firewall identities—especially if everything is on permanent record.
I am hopeful. I don't think this is going to be the next better Facebook, but it might be the path to it. I do like that it gives control back to the end users. I'm not sure I want to sink the time into setting up my own pub yet (though I have an itch...) and I'll be watching this project to see where it goes.
posted by jonnay at 9:43 PM on April 11, 2018
Secure communications are compromised by allowing your friends and their friends and their friends to have a permanent copy on their hard drives; there's no "scrub this content" feature, which gets especially problematic in the case of doxxing and criminal activity.
Agreed, but only kinda? I mean, yes, it's a problem in that the dox is now forever. Criminal activity is a pretty nebulous idea here. What kind of criminal activity are we talking about here? Lets say, for instance, 2 "bad guys" use it to plan to rob a bank. Sure this is bad, but this is also an evidence trail that is more like a super-highway, right? Because the communication is block-chained, forever, and digitally signed, then assuming that the badguys get captured and the computers are accessible, then there is a mountain of evidence pointing to wrongdoing.
I think it's a mistake, on many levels, to look at this tool and draw comparisons with Facebook. Sure, it can be used as a mouthpiece for propaganda, but it seems like you'd have to be friends with people who are friends with the KGB.
Also it's important to keep in mind that Facebook is a centralized model built on social networks that stretch back to... Orkut? Friendster? I recall an even earlier social network in the late 90s, but i'll be damned if I can remember its name. This model is vastly different. There were shades of it in the early aughties web (there was an xml thing called FOAF that was getting close).
And yes, there is a lot of things to work out. Lack of a phone app is definitely a thing. But I think the bigger question to answer is how can you effectively decentralize it so that you don't need to be in Wifi range, and you don't need to spend money on an Googlezon-Herkoku-whatever and figure out how to setup, secure and run a personal pub?
The main problem is that most people care fuck-all about security or privacy.
I don't believe this is true. People have door locks and generally have curtains on their windows. But understanding say, the privacy of your Facebook profile which actively works against you _is_ hard. I don't think that this app is helping with that yet, but it isn't actively working against you. More importantly the mission seems to be to help the user understand their privacy decisions. They aren't there, but they're getting there.
The biggest flaw here I can see is that of identity. Impersonation is a possibility, but I can see there being ways around this. Sure you can name yourself "jonnay" but (if I understand the technology correctly) by virtue of how this is built, you can't also be the one that wrote everything I wrote, saved everything I saved. No the flaw here is that identity is singular in the app, when people rarely have a singular identity. More importantly, sometimes people will want to separate and even firewall identities—especially if everything is on permanent record.
I am hopeful. I don't think this is going to be the next better Facebook, but it might be the path to it. I do like that it gives control back to the end users. I'm not sure I want to sink the time into setting up my own pub yet (though I have an itch...) and I'll be watching this project to see where it goes.
posted by jonnay at 9:43 PM on April 11, 2018
I'm not grumbling about the lack of interest or energy spent on security; most people use the minimum security procedures that they think their lifestyle requires. However, in a social network, that means (just as within the "circle of trust" of shared keys) that everyone is at risk from whoever's got the least security.
the flaw here is that identity is singular in the app, when people rarely have a singular identity.
Two computers = two identities. No idea if one computer could have multiples, but I suspect it could - just point them at different storage folders. But it means you have to do the legwork of keeping them separate, and part of the reason FB and twitter exploded was that it let people just put all their contacts in one place.
Sure, it can be used as a mouthpiece for propaganda, but it seems like you'd have to be friends with people who are friends with the KGB.
Depends on how far the friend-of-friend feed works. But if you can use it to find distant strangers who happen to share your interests, it can be used to find you. Its strength is that, unlike FB/Twitter, there's no buying ad placements, and no user data to purchase and analyze; it'd all have to be done manually.
What kind of criminal activity are we talking about here?
Fraud - "My parents have thrown me out because I'm gay; I'm begging you to send $$$ to my gofundme."
Copyright infringement of several sorts - and once it's on the network, it stays there
Doxxing; "nude pics of my ex," libel; defamation; harassment
Releasing business secrets, confidential information, breaking legal privilege
It seems tailor-made for crimes where what's illegal is releasing information into the wild: wikileaks with no need for a server.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:29 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
the flaw here is that identity is singular in the app, when people rarely have a singular identity.
Two computers = two identities. No idea if one computer could have multiples, but I suspect it could - just point them at different storage folders. But it means you have to do the legwork of keeping them separate, and part of the reason FB and twitter exploded was that it let people just put all their contacts in one place.
Sure, it can be used as a mouthpiece for propaganda, but it seems like you'd have to be friends with people who are friends with the KGB.
Depends on how far the friend-of-friend feed works. But if you can use it to find distant strangers who happen to share your interests, it can be used to find you. Its strength is that, unlike FB/Twitter, there's no buying ad placements, and no user data to purchase and analyze; it'd all have to be done manually.
What kind of criminal activity are we talking about here?
Fraud - "My parents have thrown me out because I'm gay; I'm begging you to send $$$ to my gofundme."
Copyright infringement of several sorts - and once it's on the network, it stays there
Doxxing; "nude pics of my ex," libel; defamation; harassment
Releasing business secrets, confidential information, breaking legal privilege
It seems tailor-made for crimes where what's illegal is releasing information into the wild: wikileaks with no need for a server.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:29 PM on April 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
The lack of deletion reminds me of when I heard that someone had verified there was child pornography in the bitcoin blockchain now. At least with an NNTP server you can moderate and scrub, and articles expire. I'm not sure how this system deletes anything.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:34 AM on April 12, 2018
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 12:34 AM on April 12, 2018
This system can't delete anything; the content is stored on individual people's hard drives. Content in pubs has a chance of being traced and deleted (and pub owners charged as accessories, if the content is illegal to share), but it's likely impossible to even identify where the content has been shared.
People who want a network of private-interest filesharing, legal or not, will love this.
And mostly, I'm in favor of private filesharing options, even knowing that sometimes that'll be used for serious crime. (So are telephones; I am not in favor of more wiretapping.) But the combination of "use this to talk with your friends, in a way that can't be controlled or spied on" (a good thing, for the most part) with "use this for social outreach and community-building" seems more than a little problematic.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:36 AM on April 12, 2018
People who want a network of private-interest filesharing, legal or not, will love this.
And mostly, I'm in favor of private filesharing options, even knowing that sometimes that'll be used for serious crime. (So are telephones; I am not in favor of more wiretapping.) But the combination of "use this to talk with your friends, in a way that can't be controlled or spied on" (a good thing, for the most part) with "use this for social outreach and community-building" seems more than a little problematic.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 7:36 AM on April 12, 2018
Umm, isn't this basically Fidonet?
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:03 AM on April 12, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:03 AM on April 12, 2018 [3 favorites]
ErisLordFreedom: In our current setting, I feel any ethical software app will tell its users how it can be abused, and they can decide for themselves whether to take those risks. Gliding past them with "you can make friends when you're offline!" is disingenuous at best.
I find this a really intriguing idea. It's going to raise the automatic reaction "No one will read/pay attention to it!!1!1!" but I don't think that's a good reason not to do it. It's almost strange, when I think about it, the way communication apps don't talk about those things, or at least not very much. I appreciate Steam and Twitch warning me not to give my password to anyone every time I open a chat window, even though I'm OldSkool (TM) and would never imagine typing any password in plaintext anywhere let alone in chat, because it's at least an explicit attempt in the direction of being protective.
posted by seyirci at 8:05 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
I find this a really intriguing idea. It's going to raise the automatic reaction "No one will read/pay attention to it!!1!1!" but I don't think that's a good reason not to do it. It's almost strange, when I think about it, the way communication apps don't talk about those things, or at least not very much. I appreciate Steam and Twitch warning me not to give my password to anyone every time I open a chat window, even though I'm OldSkool (TM) and would never imagine typing any password in plaintext anywhere let alone in chat, because it's at least an explicit attempt in the direction of being protective.
posted by seyirci at 8:05 AM on April 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
And mostly, I'm in favor of private filesharing options, even knowing that sometimes that'll be used for serious crime. (So are telephones; I am not in favor of more wiretapping.) But the combination of "use this to talk with your friends, in a way that can't be controlled or spied on" (a good thing, for the most part) with "use this for social outreach and community-building" seems more than a little problematic.
I do not understand how the the latter flows from the former: if being able to talk to your friends securely is "a good thing" then why should "social outreach and community building" be any different? Talking to friends, yes, making friends, no? Is it just because of the specific potential abuses of anonymized file-sharing?
I haven't dug into the docs because too much wool and vapor, but can you run a "pub" and refuse to accept binaries? Not every BBS had a downloads section.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:26 AM on April 12, 2018
I do not understand how the the latter flows from the former: if being able to talk to your friends securely is "a good thing" then why should "social outreach and community building" be any different? Talking to friends, yes, making friends, no? Is it just because of the specific potential abuses of anonymized file-sharing?
I haven't dug into the docs because too much wool and vapor, but can you run a "pub" and refuse to accept binaries? Not every BBS had a downloads section.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:26 AM on April 12, 2018
I haven't dug into the docs because too much wool and vapor, but can you run a "pub" and refuse to accept binaries? Not every BBS had a downloads section.
Wool and vapour? It's pretty easy to set up a client and play around. (A pub? not so much)
posted by jonnay at 3:08 PM on April 13, 2018
Wool and vapour? It's pretty easy to set up a client and play around. (A pub? not so much)
posted by jonnay at 3:08 PM on April 13, 2018
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This always sounds like a great idea - until the "social consensus" disagrees with you about what that is. This is part of the reason why it's near impossible to get erroneous information about you corrected by data brokers - because even if you force one to correct, all the others have the error, and they form the consensus...
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:32 AM on April 11, 2018 [5 favorites]