
Introducing the Dweb - twapi
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/07/introducing-the-d-web/
======
madethemcry
Seems to be a teaser for more articles about dweb yet to come. So here two
links for people interested in this topic:

1\. "Decentralized Web Summit 2018" is happening just now (July 31 - August 02
[https://decentralizedweb.net/](https://decentralizedweb.net/). I'm looking
forward watching the talks once released.

2\. This year at JSConf EU 2018 Tara Vancil talked about Beaker
([https://beakerbrowser.com](https://beakerbrowser.com)) an experimental peer-
to-peer browser. This was really fascinating to listen to.

Here is Tara's talk:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ_WvfF3FN8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ_WvfF3FN8)

~~~
mattlondon
Thanks for the link to beaker - this is really interesting.

I was curious what the difference with IPFS (that I had heard of) and Dat
(that I had not heard of) - they have a FAQ entry on this on their page:
[https://docs.datproject.org/faq#dat-vs](https://docs.datproject.org/faq#dat-
vs)

~~~
mattlondon
Just looking into this a bit more, the video briefly skims over their
"Fritter" demo without going into detail. I didn't grok what it was doing from
the video so dug deeper.

This is basically a twitter clone
([https://github.com/beakerbrowser/fritter/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/beakerbrowser/fritter/blob/master/README.md)),
but the difference is that your profile and your posts (i.e. all your data) is
stored in your own "archive" stored on Dat, and the APIs they have written
simply load up that archive over Dat to get all your details (and cache it to
provide some performance) WebDB source here that explains it:
[https://github.com/beakerbrowser/webdb](https://github.com/beakerbrowser/webdb)

So you can go and edit/delete your posts and profile from the data on your
computer, and it is updated in the Fritter application instantly. Posts you
make from the app automatically appear in the files in your local archive too.

That is pretty cool!

In light of GDPR this is really interesting and potentially huge - you could
imagine a lot of use cases for this where you are _really_ in control of your
data. I believe that only _you_ can edit your own archive since only you have
the private key - posts from Fritter made by you are writing to your own
archive so that is how they handle auth I think.

Question for anyone familiar with Dat: how do I properly secure access to my
data? E.g. instead of the Fritter application, what if there was an ecommerce
application? I put my home address, paypal/credit card etc data in my own
archive that the ecommerce site uses.

How can I make sure that only the ecommerce site can access that? I know in
the FAQ it is basically relying on security by obscurity, but is there
anything more concrete than that?

It would be nice if asymmetric keys were somehow pinned to a Dat archive so
that I could still edit my archive in plain text still and then have the
application transparently encrypt it with the ecommerce site's public key so
that I could be sure that only those with the ecommerce site's private key
could unencrypt it.

Also, are there common "micro-formats" for common applications? E.g. looks
like Fritter has its particular format that it uses - is there a defined
format for this that would allow me to reuse the same archive on another
service? You can imagine the ecommerce one being very useful - no more
entering your name, address and credit card over and over!

~~~
zaarn
It's not that easy with GDPR, the dat protocol to my knowledge knows how to
update but not how to delete. A delete is essentially a soft-delete in that
case.

~~~
mattlondon
Yeah I guess there are questions how delete works in a distributed system like
this.

E.g. if I have the archive on my computer/server I control and delete it then
bingo - the data is gone and the app cant access my data any more. However,
what happens to nodes that are seeding my data? Presumably they'll hang onto
it for as long as they want, and there would not be a way to "force delete"
the shared data since that would break a lot of the other benefits. Same goes
for any hypothetical "prevent seeding" type options.

~~~
zaarn
There is no sensible way to force delete tbh. Once someone has made a copy,
you can't delete it.

But I'd rather have social networks of the future have a DELETE call that
atleast honest nodes will follow and delete the stuff.

------
birracerveza
I am actually really happy to see that Mozilla actually acknowledged
decentralization as a possibility. Too many people in the tech industry (and
outside) got scared by cryptocurrencies that they now immediately associate
decentralization to pyramid schemes and dismiss it immediately, disregarding
the possibilities it might open up.

Here I hope that Mozilla's "Dweb" will bring something new to the table. I'll
be following.

------
stakhanov
What is this article even about? Sounds to me like simply someone making up a
word, "Dweb", in the hope that it'll go into common usage, so they can later
claim they invented it.

~~~
hardwaresofton
It seems to be the first in a series of blog posts about the distributed web
as it sits now.

> This is the first post in a series. We’ll introduce projects that cover
> social communication, online identity, file sharing, new economic models, as
> well as high-level application platforms. All of this work is either
> decentralized or distributed, minimizing or entirely removing centralized
> control.

I do agree they're making up a term, but naming/phrasing can change/shift
dialogs and the default perspective and _is_ actually important. Whether it's
a good use of their time is another thing.

~~~
simen
It's a terrible name. Many of these projects have nothing to do with the web
(the three concrete examples cited were two filesharing protocols and one
cryptocurrency, none of which are about serving websites). And it's awkward to
say.

~~~
rapnie
It's hard to come up with a well-sounding name that both conveys the concept
of 'web' as well as 'distributed / decentralized'.

Distrinet? Meshweb? Hmm..

~~~
err4nt
What about "the mesh". Can be used interchangeably with "the cloud".

------
hardwaresofton
Glad mozilla is tackling this -- I think this is the next step. Forget trying
to fight SOPA/net neutrality, whatever else where it comes up, let's just
abandon the "traditional" internet all together where it makes sense and make
something that's correct-by-construction in so far as we can make it (like an
"internet" that does as much as it can to prevent centralization).

Note that this isn't some random position they've taken, they also funded
stuff like the Wireless Innovation for a Networked Society (WINS) challenge[0]

[0]:
[https://wirelesschallenge.mozilla.org/#winners](https://wirelesschallenge.mozilla.org/#winners)

~~~
arnoooooo
> Forget trying to fight SOPA/net neutrality

Please don't. Political discussion is needed to determine how we live
together.

Techonological solutions are just that. They are neutral and can be used for
good or bad. If we don't discuss things, they will be used for bad.

Attacks against net neutrality are just a symptom of people who want too much
power. If they can't have it through the net, they will try by other means.
These people need to be fought.

------
legostormtroopr
How do you stop both hate speech and censorship?

If you stop hate speech you are effectively censoring ideas. And then you have
the challenge of who defines “hate speech”.

If you prevent censorship, you’re allowing hate speech because there will
always be people who abuse a free speech environment.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
This is a false dichtomy. We should spend time building an inclusive, diverse
and fair society that reduces the amount of hate speech overall and the net
impact of hate speech. Then you don't need to censor anyway.

~~~
Eridrus
Sure, but this article is about technical solutions, not social solutions, and
technical solutions face this trade-off.

~~~
Sir_Substance
This thing that you see as a problem that desperately needs a solution, I do
not see as a problem. So I don't see the trade-off.

There are lots of incredibly racist people out there using email. Email does
not need a solution to prevent racist people using it.

------
Comevius
Decentralization is never going to solve our hate speech, net neutrality or
data exploitation problems.

You either have the majority performing their civic duties, holding each other
responsible or you don't.

These are not technological, rather civic, political, even educational issues,
but if you only have a hammer...

~~~
LukeB42
> Decentralization is never going to solve our hate speech

Now I know what IP addresses concepts are originating from.

> net neutrality

I can nowretrieve ostensibly blocked resources via my peers, instead.

> data exploitation

Use a DNS whitelist for this one.

------
smadge
DNS is a distributed system, basically a giant distributed database. I don't
know why the article calls it a centralized system.

~~~
peterwwillis
The records themselves are centralized. You can't get an authoritative name
from anywhere except the authoritative name server. Everything else is just
caching and proxying. If a domain's authoritative name server is down, you
can't get records for that domain.

In a decentralized protocol, other name servers that had nothing to do with
that domain could give you the records for the downed nodes. But how do we
know it's authentic, or up to date? And now we go down the decentralization
rabbit hole...

~~~
smadge
Thanks!

------
vntok
That "decentralized" image makes no sense at all. It's essentially the same
one as the "centralized" one. What a joke.

~~~
lucideer
The difference is not all nodes are connected to a single central node, some
are connected through 2 or more hops.

One might argue this is the same as the current web where we have proxies,
load balancers, etc. but the difference is the intermediate nodes are users.

One could also argue this is the same as tor, but the difference is the
technology is more at an application level then at a network level, and
additionally that every user is effectively equivalent to someone running an
exit node.

~~~
jwilk
But they give DNS as an example of a centralized system. Huh?

~~~
falcolas
One company is in control of the TLDs, and of the root name servers.

That we've had DNS names blacklisted from being served (no matter how
distasteful the services provided by those DNS names may be) shows that there
is insufficient decentralization of authority over DNS.

------
cimmanom
I’m immensely skeptical of the ability of a decentralized or distributed web
to solve any of the problems mentioned in the article.

It reminds me of a checklist that used to circulate on Slashdot in response to
any suggestion to curb email spam. One of the items was: “you’re proposing a
technical solution to a social problem”.

~~~
teddyh
> _It reminds me of a checklist that used to circulate on Slashdot in response
> to any suggestion to curb email spam._

It think you mean this one, but it does not contain that phrase:
[https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt](https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt)

~~~
cimmanom
Yeah, I think it was a bit shorter, so probably an earlier version of that.
And maybe not the exact phrase, but the concept.

------
z3t4
What we together can do for the decentralized Internet is to adapt the new IP
protocol so everyone can participate bi-directional (p2p) without the need of
a server middle-ware. And also make devices and applications secure by default
eg. not leave them wide open on the Internet unless necessary.

------
jakobegger
I think a ready-to-use peer-to-peer network component for service discovery
would help a lot. Something like Bonjour/Zeroconf on the LAN, only for the
whole internet.

A lot of apps and services don't really need to be centralized, eg. messaging,
file sharing, online games...

But the problem is that writing peer-to-peer networking code is difficult, so
people just set up a central server.

If there was a ready-to-use library that people could just use, a lot of devs
would probably consider that. Would make scaling a lot cheaper...

(unfortunately everyone just talks about blockchains nowadays, and isn't
interested in solving old problems)

------
giancarlostoro
Makes me think of the scenes in Cowboy Bebop where Ed is 'browsing the web' or
'cyberspace' it is so cool looking, Ed is like a fish swimming through and
seeing every single website by moving through them in some sort of 3
Dimensional interface. If such a web existed I would buy those fancy goggles
just to be able to discover sites without google, just 'browse' the web
literally and discover new types of sites that Google would of never have
found otherwise (deep web they call it?).

~~~
caseyw
I remember discovering new sites from people who hosted on geocities, lycos,
angelfire etc. (I feel old)

Things don't seem so wild anymore :D

~~~
giancarlostoro
I remember those days too. Geocities had a directory full of sites they
hosted, also I remember Maxpages, some magazines I subscribed to (Anime /
Gundam) had a maxpages website, no domain, just a maxpages URL. Amazing how
times have changed where you gotta have a domain. In Japan this is not so, you
can be under a hosting provider's domain and it's still acceptable.

The only remaining equivalent now is probably Neocities? Would love to hear of
others.

------
jokoon
The problem with decentralization is the optimization and security. Plan 9
seemed to get it right at the core, but I don't know what it could be used
for.

With slow upload speed between peers, you have to change your networking model
to have a high level of fault tolerance.

There are many possible ideas to have about a decentralised internet, but
should one integrate a software, make it better and wait to make a protocol
later?

The problem is that you have to change almost everything if you want it to
work well.

~~~
swiley
Plan9 is very much centralized, that’s really its big selling point coming
from Unix; you can centralize your distributed Unix machines.

------
patkai
Ten years late, but hopefully not too late. In 2007 I worked in a project that
promised a distributed IoT platform. Unfortunately I don't remember what it
was called.

------
ken
"Have you ever ... Had a website or app you love get updated to a new version,
and you wished to go back to the old version?"

I've wished this about web _browsers_ as much as about web _sites_ , but
Mozilla seems to be moving in the opposite direction there. I feel that this
is not, in fact, a goal of the project at all, but merely an incidental
feature of its current architecture.

------
tw1010
Cool! But I'm not sure I can buy into it will all my heart unless I know
filters against "hate speech, harassment and other attacks on social networks"
won't have a high false-positive rate motivated by idea that it's worth
trading away opinions at the tail by non-agreeables, for the upside of civil
obedience and consensus.

------
gglitch
This thread is making me realize that proponents of the "dweb" for
conventional, popular use will probably want to figure out messaging for it
that doesn't activate someone's strongly-held opinions on [hate|free] speech.

------
StreamBright
I am wondering how can you achieve this with the current network layout where
most of the core elements of the network is owned by big corporations.

~~~
LukeB42
You could have a private web on something like CJDNS.

Sounds a bit sad though.

------
owens99
Was excited for this and then the, "have you ever" section totally lost me. Am
I the only one whom none of these ever?

------
jlebrech
something similar to [https://zeronet.io/](https://zeronet.io/)

------
desireco42
BeakerBrowser is the way to go. They already figured everything out, we just
need to support them.

------
hessenwolf
Having worked a bunch of years in finance, Excel has more impact than any
other single tool.

------
paultopia
Are they... making Pied Piper?!

------
billpg
Freenet?

------
dtx1
sounds a lot like zeroweb to me

------
ldng
So, centralized is greener ?

------
gcb0
Starting the count down to mozilla currency token ICO...

:(

~~~
mtaksrud
Decentralised or distributed does not necessarily imply blockchain just
because the blockchain has these features it could also be other things such
as activitypub etc...

~~~
Yoric
Or distributed hashtables.

------
yCloser
pied piper ?

~~~
LeonM
You are being downvoted, but I had the exact same thought. This sounds like
'the new internet'

