Bonum Certa Men Certa

Our Move Further Away From the World Wide Web, the Browser Monopolies, HTTP, and HTML

Passage of time does not necessarily beget progress

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Summary: The World Wide Web (WWW) is going down a bad path and a clearly regressive direction; the solution isn't going 'retro' but exploring more sophisticated systems which are robust to censorship (localised or globalised) and downtime (related to censorship) while reducing surveillance by leveraging encryption at the endpoints

THE year 2020 was horrific to many of us. To me, personally, it wasn't too difficult as I had already worked from home since 2007 and for Techrights it was an inadvertent boon because having to stay at home a lot more time meant that we could do projects. In late summer we started implementing censorship circumvention for the site. The first step was turning Web pages into one-page or single-object elements. We worked on the daily bulletins. Later came text versions of IRC logs. Last week we started converting images into unicode art, in effect embedding a sort of abstraction of images inside the bulletins. All those things are being fed into IPFS and then distributed (decentralised) overnight, every night at around 3AM. Videos, we've recently been told, are already circulating in IPFS. Some people share them in a peer-to-peer fashion. The physical, centralised server is said to have served 11.2 TB of traffic over the past 2.5 weeks. That's about 7.5 megabytes per second, on average. So the decentralised nature of the site helps reduce load and improve capacity, not just talking about censorship aspects here...



"The physical, centralised server is said to have served 11.2 TB of traffic over the past 2.5 weeks."An increase in capacity (disk space, bandwidth, processors) has facilitated expansion and growth. Not many sites can afford to self-host videos, not quite so frequently anyway. Many just come to rely on Google as a faceless censor (fear of removal of videos, deplatforming, demonetisation, delisting from searches/contextual recommendations and so on) and some opt for PeerTube, LBRY and other platforms/options that themselves have downsides (including threats of muzzling).

WWWIf all goes according to plan, Techrights will be one of the very few sites that are available through multiple channels (maybe Onion/Tor as well one day), including decentralised ones. We will of course remain on the World Wide Web (most people still choose that option), but seeing the direction the Internet has taken, especially the browser monoculture, we must explore alternatives before it's too late to do so. Censorship agenda is being promoted even by supposedly 'liberal' companies like Mozilla. They already discriminate against sites that don't do 'pseudo-security' (centralised, CA-based and often Microsoft-hosted) the way they want everyone to. Not a good sign...

When those who claim to champion Internet freedom and software freedom (not really) are acting in this way you have to wonder who the "bad actors" really are and whether you wish to associate with them.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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 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)
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
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025