Bonum Certa Men Certa

Self-Hosting Parts of Techrights and Experiments With IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) for Distribution

Chair

Summary: Things are changing around here because it looks like the Internet approaches a tipping point (rebellion against bloat and surveillance)

THE Internet is fine. It's not great, but it's mostly OK. UDP is still used a lot (it is perfectly OK for a lot of things where packet sequencing isn't so essential a factor), but Web sites or pages reject it. See, nowadays it's considered normal to serve people up to 50 MB for a single article/page (videos, proprietary fonts, and full-scale photographs about 4,000 pixels across), not to mention loads and loads of JavaScript from as many as 50 different domains to occupy 4 CPU cores to their full capacity. That really sucks. So-called 'Web applications' make it hard to escape (they would not work without such JavaScript) and old computers are considered unfit for purpose, causing ewaste and spurring unnecessary sales of increasingly user-hostile hardware. Nowadays most browsers also come with blobs for DRM; they encrypt and decrypt things for no purpose other than serving so-called 'holders' of copyrights (never mind how easy it is to work around such restrictions).



Screw this. We need change. It has gone too far. The days of 'collaborating' by sending around -- back and forth -- E-mails with 5 MB Microsoft Office attachments are long gone (the Web served to eliminate such practices), but we're walking into even worse territories of endless surveillance -- down to one's mouse movements -- and limitless bloat. This is a ticking time bomb.

"The days of 'collaborating' by sending around -- back and forth -- E-mails with 5 MB Microsoft Office attachments are long gone (the Web served to eliminate such practices), but we're walking into even worse territories of endless surveillance -- down to one's mouse movements -- and limitless bloat."Every day around midnight (depending on timezone), Techrights produces a text-only version of all articles, including Daily Links. We started doing that just over a week ago and we've received only praise for that. Many people are sick and tired of how the Web works. The text-only bulletins can be opened and read without a Web browser, even directly from some plain text editors, command line tools and so on. They're fast to access, cheap in the CPU/RAM sense (both server and client side; those are static files after all), and they're easy to archive even at the reader's (or user's) side. They are, after all, just a collection of singular text files (images are converted into descriptions of the pictures and/or the text in the pictures). When we started the whole thing we had torrents, gopher and several other things in mind. But soon came IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) experts, enthusiatically offering to help us with the technical side/aspect (here's Wikipedia's introduction to IPFS). Last night we set up a new Raspberry Pi machine that had arrived just hours earlier. Someone sent it to us and we've set up remote access so we can explore more self-hosting (from home). Time will tell how this evolves or turns out (we envision transport of text-only files, which are more self-contained than Web pages with loads of files in each).

WordPress will still be used for this site (we've almost exceeded 30,000 posts in WordPress) and we don't plan to go "static" or serve cached pages any time soon (WordPress scales fine given the hardware we currently have, except when we hit the front page of some very major Web site). We'll still upload loads of files (see below) whilst always ensuring that blind people (or image-blind people who read text only) miss nothing that each image provides.

Wordpress closeup

Long term, we'd like to think that the majority of people will read this site without the World Wide Web (or a Web -- as in WWW -- browser). We need to look past all that. Pleroma already supports gopher and someone said to me yesterday in Pleroma about the FSF: "they should just not renew it and switch entirely to GNUNet for distributing its website or something" (the context being FSF "let[ting] its SSL cert expire. You'd think they should have this in the diary and renew in advance if they're run properly.")

"The growing complexity of the Web (and Web browsers that actively block access to those who reject such complexity) is partly to blame for downtime (of services that are actually up albeit blacklisted by centralised CAs)."Yes, the FSF's site was not accessible or barely accessible for a while because somebody forgot to renew certificates. The growing complexity of the Web (and Web browsers that actively block access to those who reject such complexity) is partly to blame for downtime (of services that are actually up albeit blacklisted by centralised CAs). We need to explore something else, potentially something a lot better and a lot less bloated.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Confirmed in the Mainstream Media: A Lot of Microsoft "Workloads" Were Just LLM Slop (Helping to Fake Growth for Years, as Microsoft Had Paid "Open" "AI" to Become a "Client") and Demand is Rapidly Waning, Datacentres Canceled and/or Shut Down
Anything to facilitate further accounting fraud
Taiwan's Media Covers Closure of Microsoft's "AI" Lab, It's Time to Talk About the Gradual Death of Windows and Implosion of the "AI" Bubble
Earlier this week we showed that mostly Asian media had the 'nerve' to mention Microsoft silently shutting down its 'AI' lab
More Gains for GNU/Linux, Based on Web Surveys
the Steam site shows rapid growth for "Linux" this month
 
Microsoft's Trouble in Africa and Asia
A new all-time high for GNU/Linux
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
The saddest thing in all this is that law firms can maintain high standards shall they wish to
Links 03/04/2025: Tariff Pains and C.D.C. Cuts
Links for the day
StatCounter: Microsoft is Masking a Disaster, It's Way Behind DeepSeek Already and Interest in LLMs Has Waned
it turns out the money "raised" for "Open" "AI" may not even exist at all
Links 03/04/2025: SoftBank Money for Microsoft "Open" "AI" Probably Doesn't Even Exist, Wikimedia Foundation Blasts LLM Nuisance While Microsoft Admits Demand Has Shrunk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/04/2025: Patch Panel and Pictures
Links for the day
Islamic Republic of Iran: GNU/Linux at All-time High This Month, Windows Falls to 12%
Vista 10 is up this month despite being "end of life" (EoL) soon
Indonesia: All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux
What's noteworthy right now is the growth of GNU/Linux
statCounter Says GNU/Linux Usage is Up Again (Internationally)
some preliminary April data
Only on April 1st Can the Free Software Foundation Associate With Microsoft's Open Source Initiative (OSI)
We saw some pranks that day linking the FSF to Microsoft (e.g. "endorsing" Windows)
IBM Gets Rid of Kelly Chambliss as Mass Layoffs Reported in IBM Consulting, IBM Loses Key Contracts/Graft
IBM Consulting has been in disarray lately
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles, Not Even Written by Humans
Why aren't Web sites more vocal about this problem?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 02, 2025
Links 03/04/2025: Apple Fined Over Secret Surveillance, "Elegant Writer For A More Civilized Age"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: Books and Cold Tea
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: More Layoffs, Nokia Again Takes Advantage of Illegal and Unconstitutional Patent Court With Nokia Staff as 'Judges'
Links for the day
Links 02/04/2025: Seizures and Returns to Windows of 24 Years Ago
Links for the day
LLM Slop Helps Obscure and Distort News About Layoffs (IBM, GAFAM)
It's hard to find accurate information
Links 02/04/2025: Microsoft Developers Are Threatening to Go on Strike, World Backup Day Noted
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol Has Growing Appeal (the Web Got Too Bloated and Full of LLM Slop)
For any "data plan" with bandwidth limits or "tiers" it would be cheaper to use/browse Geminispace
The Web Can Survive LLM Slop, But Only If We Collectively Shun and Discourage Serial Sloppers
Doing nothing ought not be a possibility
Amid Secret Shut-downs and Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (4 Waves of Layoffs in 3 Months of 2025) Some Microsoft Staff Expected to Go On Strike
workers going on strike
Gemini Links 02/04/2025: No more on Mastodon and Gemini Mention Script in Go
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 01, 2025
My Motion Disbarring or “Striking Off” Brett Wilson LLP for Enabling Violent Americans Who Try to Crush Microsoft Critics in the United Kingdom by Multiple SLAPPs
"Guns for hire" (for Microsoft people who received Microsoft salaries)
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Hijacked Again by Patent Litigation Industry, as President Cheeto Prioritises Aggressors
The "mafia" has taken over the "industry" and the Federal system (justice and constitutions trampled upon)
Ubuntu Slop and FUD Manufactured With LLMs and Funded (by Oneself) 'Studies'
Slop and FUD are ruining the Web
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025