BitCloud: BitCoin concepts applied to... everything else.

[wraith808]

Announced on Reddit with a project on GitHub, and reported on now by the Guardian, BitCloud is the attempt to replace a whole lot of what people use the internet for other than buying things with a shadow-internet equivalent.  Where BitCoin is based on proof of processing power spent, BitCloud will apparently be based on proof of bandwidth given to the network.  This is in the very early stages- so much so that no one is even sure what proof of bandwidth means.  But it's very interesting to follow...

[Draft document on GitHub]

[40hz]

I must be denser than usual today. Because I read it twice but I can't see exactly what it hopes to accomplish.

You still need a ramp onto the internet - which means putting a government or corporate Telco or ISP somewhere in the loop.

And basing things on 'bandwidth given back' or 'processing power spent' is blatantly favoring those who can afford high capacity hi-speed connections and powerful PCs over those less well-heeled. So it's unavoidably economic-elitist at its core.

As far as privacy goes, being 'as private as Tor' is no longer saying much. Especially now that the NSA has wormed itself down to the hardware level. Seriously, who can ever really know what a CPU, GPU, NIC, router, switch, etc. etc. etc. is reporting back these days? If weasel code is burned into proprietary silicone, it's safely out of sight for all practical purposes. Just tell the chip to do certain things but not report or log it; or, ignore 'seeing' specific things (like an NSA header) in a data packet and Bob's yer uncle! Talk about FNORD!

No...it's a nice idea. But as long as you're running on somebody else's physical backbone and closed hardware it'll never be your own private internet. This is a rearguard or short-term strategy at best.

Where we are today is the result of a people problem, not a tech problem.

And it always will be.

[wraith808]

No...it's a nice idea. But as long as you're running on somebody else's physical backbone and closed hardware it'll never be your own private internet. This is a rearguard or short-term strategy at best.

-40hz (January 22, 2014, 11:39 AM)

Well, as I understand it, it works on a similar principle to the other BC uses that leverage the privacy of BC and the tenets, i.e. you know that communication has taken place, but not what communication, nor for what.  And yes, the bandwidth favors those that have high speed.  But doesn't BC in general favor those that have a lot of processing power?  This isn't a socialist view of the internet... just a more private one.

[rgdot]

Things never change overnight but change is possible. I am almost tempted to call all these efforts lazy. The solution is to replace the regimes that make you want to develop stuff like this. Anybody who may be saying that it is impossible or unrealistic is, like I said, being lazy.

The people setting up and operating the likes of the NSA are still elected. There is no way change is impossible.

[40hz]

I am almost tempted to call all these efforts lazy.

-rgdot (January 22, 2014, 12:22 PM)

Yup. It's like trying to "monetize" something rather than go out and run a business where you actually try sell a product or service. Just one more way to get by with as little human interaction as possible. And those who embrace the darkness in the guise of 'freedom' and 'democracy' and are counting on the average Joe's reluctance to interact with his neighbors and organize for change. They much prefer that people fall into the trap of irony and snark - and spend all their time tweeting and redditting and facebooking it.

As T.S. Elliot put it:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
.
.
.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

 
 

[tomos]

I agree that "Where we are today is the result of a people problem" and that "Things never change overnight but change is possible" (but amn't 100% sure about the 'never' there :p).

But, I dunno, to suggest that we should vote instead, or organise for change -- I'm struggling with these responses...
you vote: you most likely vote within a corrupt system; you organise: no offence intended, but I've never seen anything organised that hasnt degenerated into something comparable to what it's replacing -- and even if it could work, it's just one possible solution -- why not be open to the possibility of another possibility i.e. let's *not* just give up with a whimper (or: I dont see any particular reason to see things that way -- YMMV naturally).

The way I see things, they are most likely to change through something grass-roots so long as it involves something outside the box of the current societies' world-view -- seems to me something like that could have a chance.

I'm not even commenting on the topic itself here -- I am very interested in the possibilities presented by the bitcoin protocol, but I just got an itchy typing finger when I read them responses ;-)

[Renegade]

Interesting... Still not sure about all the cloud stuff though... I glossed over some of the info, and had a look at MaidSafe, but I still don't really get how you're going to store movies and large amounts of data reliably like that. It just seems like it's a massive amount of data to store.

[40hz]

I've never seen anything organised that hasnt degenerated into something comparable to what it's replacing

-tomos (January 22, 2014, 03:04 PM)

Yep! It's been observed by students of human behavior.

But the trick is to catch it on the upswing with the hope of living out one's days in the emergent golden age rather than suffer through the current period of decline.

Maybe it won't be beautiful forever - although you never know.

But at least we can say we tried. I'll leave the slaying of future dragons to future generations. I can only take responsibility for dealing with present wrongs. That's all anybody can be expected to deal with.

 

[Stoic Joker]

It's really to bad that our society as a whole is just to chicken shit to try

what worked last time

So what did they do?

They told us: Whatever you are most afraid of doing vis-a-vis white people, go do it. Go ahead down to city hall and try to register to vote, even if they say no, even if they take your name down. 

Go ahead sit at that lunch counter. Sue the local school board. All things that most black people would have said back then, without exaggeration, were stark raving insane and would get you killed.

If we do it all together, we'll be okay.

-Martin Luther King

[wraith808]

Cynically, I think that one of the reasons it worked before was that they weren't prepared.  Now?  It would be like trying the same sucker punch on the same person.

But... what about bitcloud? 

[40hz]

Cynically, I think that one of the reasons it worked before was that they weren't prepared.  Now?  It would be like trying the same sucker punch on the same person.

But... what about bitcloud?  

-wraith808 (January 22, 2014, 08:20 PM)

Don't try to change the subject!   

[Stoic Joker]

Cynically, I think that one of the reasons it worked before was that they weren't prepared.  Now?  It would be like trying the same sucker punch on the same person.

-wraith808 (January 22, 2014, 08:20 PM)

Granted ... I'm rather cynical as well. But I'm willing to gamble on the arrogance of the ones known as them, especially if enough people stood up at once...and said no to the insanity.

But... what about bitcloud? 

-wraith808 (January 22, 2014, 08:20 PM)

Hay, I was just following 40Hz tangent/mantra of it being a people issue.

With net neutrality dead this would be far too easy for those in power to just casually squeeze to death. Or worse yet Flow Control it into a guaranteed loss - for those not on the approved hierarchy list - by excessively randomizing the pipe size.