Month: April 2021

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#mainstreaming #openweb standerds to the #EU

I have been working with a group based around the activitypub socialhub to outreach the #fedivers and #activitypub  standard to the #EU in seminars you can see the video recording in this post. Looking like the #EU will trial a few fedivers apps as tools for communication.

ActivityPub For Administrations (with chat) 2021-04-19
This is a recording of the first webinar in the ActivityPub for Administrations series.
This version also displays the live chat during the webinaire.

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/pub/ec-ngi0-liaison-webinars-and-workshop-april-2021

ActivityPub For Administrations 2021-04-26

This is a recording of the second webinar in the ActivityPub for Administrations series.

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/pub/ec-ngi0-liaison-webinars-and-workshop-april-2021

My thought on -Outreaching ActivityPub to the EU

It’s a good fit both strategically, in challenging the big US tech corporations dominance and tactically, in it being simple to implement and open to innovation as it is outside of anyone group control and agendas.

The #EU implementing AP could help to reset the capture of the WWW (which made the internet human) its good to remember was a European project – The birth of the Web | CERN home.cern/science/computing/bi

Let’s look at practical small steps to make this happen.

My thoughts/feelings are pragmatic on a good outcome.

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“governance” in open-source projects

Our current working models of “governance” in open-source projects are Monarchy (the dictator for life), Aristocracy (the devs), oligarchy (the NGO/ funders) and finally way out on the edge Democracy (the users).

If we are to have a positive social impact, we need to consciously shift from these forms of governance to something more based on democratic ideals.

With this in mind we need to recognize and highlight that “governance” it’s a working dysfunctional joke at the movement. To challenge this #geekproblem and the desire for control  is a good and useful first good step to making this social technology work in a more humane way.

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/what-would-a-fediverse-governance-body-look-like/1497/13

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Privacy and security on the fedivers

Had a lot of conversations about privacy and security on the fedivers recently, its an interesting subject that is central to meany people that I tend to leave to one side. Lets take a few moments to look at this.

Mastodon has only a figleaf of hard encrypted security with normal TLS used by meany sites. It is a #openweb app with no internal encryption for any part of its messaging or content. It makes a big play in announcements about security and privacy but if you think of this as hard coded in any way into the system you have been told a “white lie”.

What mastodon has (like all good #openweb apps) is good social security built on intelligent layers of trust and good moderation tools for both users, mods and admins. This soft security is actually mostly real were the hard-security is in the end brittle theatre as the networks and devices it runs on are inherently insecure.

In this we find the opposite of what most people push in technology, real security comes from social trust, with simple strong KISS tools to build this trust. The current #mainstreaming of trust nobody is a dangerous and stupid idea.

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To understand the social/tech #hashtags

To understand the social/tech #hashtags I have been using for the last 10 years you need to use a tool from political science called ideology. It’s a simple idea, widely excepted for the last 200 years. How it works, by looking at powerful social groups thinkers have “distilled” generalizations that hold these groups together and are thus useful for deciding where emerging groups fit into this social historical definitions. Right/left socialist/capitalist are examples.

You can use these tools to look at coding projects it’s a useful thing to understand the world and the power politics at play that shape it.

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If we close everything down we are left with the evil, a bad outcome

Q. What do you think *should* be closed? Or at least is ok to be closed?

A. Let’s start from a traditional liberal view: The majority of social interactions should be done in the OPEN and some private interactions should be done in CLOSED.

We can discuss from this.

What the current dogma misses is that just about all good social power comes from OPEN

And meany social evils come from CLOSED

If we close everything down we are left with the evil, a bad outcome.

Update

There are world view gaps that make this a hard bridge to hold in place.

Example Diaspora and RSS based networks – the young Turks did a CLOSED network and shouted down the existing OPEN networks… 10 years go by, and we have to reinvent RSS+ as #activertpub to launch open networks – talking about examples like this when I talk about the #geekproblem and #encrypinists

The 10 years that is missing is the problem.

Its mostly a view of human nature thus sociology and politics applied to social groups who make and use #openweb technology.

So maybe start with some basic wikipedia though the quarterly has become well muddy over the last 5 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_ideologies

The #geekproblem has assumptions, good start:

Conservatism

Liberalism

Anarchism

Then ask questions with ideology in mind as motivations and course.

 

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A talk goes off topic – what is an #ecryptionist is illustrated.

Q. Grumpy old geeks have a valid point of view http://scripting.com/2021/04/02/145549.html?title=pleadingForStallman
Pleading for Stallman

A. but no TLS.

Q. this is a valid point of view too http://scripting.com/2014/08/08/myBlogDoesntNeedHttps.html
My blog doesn’t need HTTPS

A. It’s a valid point that Google and Amazon have monopolist interests and are trying to enforce them. Nevertheless, TLS is an open standard and the owner of that blog would have many other possibilities implementing it. Not having transport encryption is nowadays highly deprecated for good reasons and I don’t see any valid point in not adopting it. Not saying you have to use Google’s or Amazon’s infrastructure for that.

Q. Good to rethink this view. Have a look at his thinking. This is the difference between closed/open as a world view that #encryptionists blow smoke over to push an agender that does not challenge the #deathcult we all live and breath…

A. Sry, but what? 🤔 Encryption is one of the central tools for a free and open internet, as it enables a much better level of privacy, or in fact even is a hard precondition to it.

Q. if you say so… I have been working for more than 20 years on this and always say clearly that we need 90% open and 10% closed – the #encryptionists are dangerously wrong in their view of 90% closed and 10% open. Its a problem we need to overcome and in no way a solution. Take note you are posting this on mastodon that is 90% open and 10% closed. We are not having this conversation on diaspora (the #encryptionists network) very few people are.

A. 1) What the hack is an “encryptionist”??

2) My friend, all Mastodon instances I know use TLS.

3) What is your definition of “open” and “closed”? Encrypted vs. unencrypted? 🤔 I think YOU should really rethink this kind of definition. A blog for instance can be openly available to everyone and still offer secure transport encryption to protect the privacy of its readers.

4) You are mistaken, almost everyone I met on Mastodon is a huge proponent of encryption. And no, I’m not for 90% encrypted and 10% unencrypted. I am for 100% encrypted.

Q. Nuttiness is good in moderation. You are talking to me on a #openweb project, there are some #closedweb one’s, but they tend to be full of nutters, so can understand why you are here 😉

A. You are calling me nuts? Well, thanks… So please define to me, what “openweb” and “closedweb” have to do with encryption per se.

Q. if you are interested you could start looking here http://hamishcampbell.com/tag/encryptionists/

A. Our current dogmas are a mess… good to take a step away.

Q. Uhm… there is nothing written about why encryption is supposed to be bad… It just uses “encryptionists” as some weird swear word. In general, I don’t really get the text. Sounds very confused to be honest. That being said, I am also against neo-liberalism, individualism and esoterics and for an open web. What this does have to do with encryption remains obscure to me…

And it’s not a dogma. It is a scientific fact, that eavesdropping on well encrypted communication is close to impossible.

A. This is an interesting point:

2) all Mastodon instances I know use TLS.

The dev of mastodon told “white” lies about privacy and security as few #fashernistas would go with a #openweb project that did not pedal this dogma.

#TLS is a fig leaf, everything on the server is in plain text and the admins can read most of what you post and the sysadmin can read and change anything. it’s a trust based #openweb project and works well Because of this building of trust.

Maybe this gives you ideas of what #openweb and #closedweb are about?

“Trust nobody” is the rallying cry of conservatism and an easy-to-understand worship of the #deathcult we need to stop pushing this shit.

It would be an #ecryptionst #geekproblem to call any online project secure in any real senses as the operating steam it runs on for 99.9% of users is insecure and likely backdoored for the state and corporate spy. And even if you are in the 0.1% who run something that just might be secure then the firmware is all  insecure with issues that CANNOT be fixed in contempery devices…

The mind set is the problem am talking about – you can blow smoke over conversations by not looking at the big picture.

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outreaching ActivityPub to the EU – draft

This was an interesting process playing a role to do the document – outreaching ActivityPub to the EU https://pad.public.cat/p/ngi0-ec-activitypub-liaison-presentation-2021-04-19#/13

Good to get an outcome from this:

  1. #activertypub as a cross-platform standard for #dotcons who operate in EU
  2. funding to further this – we would need democratic structures in the #fedivers style to make this real rather than a Eurocratic/power politics dead-end structures.
  3. Is the path with a good outcome – I have been involved in a number of groups/projects that have received Eurocratic money and the outcome has always been sub optional not to say a compleat disaster. I have seen no/little thinking to mediate this outcome.

So on balance good to do this BUT we do need not to go down unrealistic paths.

Am trying to shift the focus so that the story is more “interesting” and “representative” ActivityPub in the EU sense is a movement as much as a standard – standards by themselves have little/no value. If the story comes from the standard it is easy to ignore, and it will be ignored. A movement, with a bit of jingoism (the ActivityPub speck is maybe largely a European thing?) is an easer story to tell/hear.

Good points, the #fedivers while having a good community, as individuals we do tend to act like cats.

Prepping the presentation is going to be a “herding cats” so best to concentrate on #KISS and focus on the ordnance – what do they need to hear.

The second day we can reveal the all to human delight (and worry this brings)

securaty modeal for mastodon

securaty modeal for mastodon712×478 66 KB

 

Like the focus on European as this is true – the #Fediverse mirrors the federated European dream and clearly moves away the US tech imperialism (soft power) of the #dotcons something that is a #EU agender.

My thoughts/feelings are pragmatic on a good outcome.

We have a clash of languages and assumptions for example “surveillance capitalism” and the “social dilemma” both come from inside business and Silicon Valley thinking – so they are not good examples to use for an ActivtityPub presentation which itself is COUNTER Silicon Valley thinking and has its own way of expressing these issues. Just use natural descriptive language instead of quoting the terms.

I don’t have an issue with web01 and web02 yes they are not correct, but they do communicate.

 

The first question is why – It’s a good fit both strategically, in challenging the big US tech corporations dominance and tactically, in it being simple to implement and open to innovation as it is outside of anyone group control and agendas.

But we are unready as a community if a big institution like the EU takes up ActivityPub you can see this in what happened to RSS when it was taken up by the NYT.

#activertypub like #RSS and the #www came out of grassroots movements, they bring world views with them its WHY THEY WORK. Yes the world view are in part incompatible with #mainstreaming, so the is a strong burocratic desire to hide these world views and then push them out of view/existence.

Why work with big vertical organizations like the EU – The bridges, allow our careerists and wona get statues crew a way to cross over to the mainstream to feed. By doing this they strengthen the bridge by adding mainstream value to the bridges.

Then the refuges from the mainstream shitpile have an easy path to get to alternatives gardens when the stink becomes too much to live with.

The bridge shifts out “problems” and “brings” in resources, expirence and skills to build real alternatives.

We need bridges to the mainstream to build alternatives.

Though the process will likely not go well. When dealing with power politics/vertical orgs in the end the grassroots is ALWAYS shafted – it’s the normal outcome they can’t help this behaver. So we need to keep the bridges in place no matter how bad there behaver is, keep calm and carry on – their behaver is shit to shovel for compost to plant seeds to grow a better world.

Am thinking we need more structears “from chaos comes order” rather than “order over chaos” its trust or control.

In the internal process. It’s interesting that people coming into non #mainstreaming projects and spaces then push “common sense” #mainstreaming ways of working and outcomes can’t see that they are creating a problem.

You then inevitably get Clouds of smoke to cover up the mess. When it clears everyone is covered in soot. it’s not a good look for anyone.

We need ideas on how to mediate this without going down the #mainstreaming paths.

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/webinar-with-the-european-commission-and-ap-community/1507/179

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/meeting-notes-for-prep-call-ec-webinar-19-april/1567

https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/outreaching-activitypub-to-the-eu-are-we-ready/1589/11

 

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The Fourth Estates

We need to do better. In the battle of open vs closed we failed as much as they won. We have power over OUR own failer we only have liberal wish fulfilment over THEIR control.

Key areas I am thinking and acting on:

* horizontalish “governances” process and coding to make this real.
* openmedia based on “trust” rather than power and scarcity and the coding to make this real.

Worth thinking about this old issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate as it illustrates our current problems.

The clergy, the nobility, the commoners and the press

* Yes do worship the #deathcult, so religion is still a social force and the economists are the priests and “sound money” the offering.

* The nobility are the increasing divide between the rich and the poor, they are rooted to capital and fame – rather than land and titals.

* The “commoners” are us.

UPDATE

We live in oligarchy.

“Democracy arose from the idea that those who are equal in any respect are equal absolutely. All are alike free, therefore they claim that all are free absolutely… The next is when the democrats, on the grounds that they are all equal, claim equal participation in everything.

It is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.”

The “liberal fig leaf” we put in front of our opensource foundations will fall off the first time the wind blows.

Yes it is easy to run down this hill, yes you can force this into place, few people will try and stop you.

But before you do this please think – Do we in the #fedivers want to live in oligarchy or are we actually building something different.

We need to think about this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance

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The techshit churn

Almost all new alt-tech projects are worthless and a waste of attention. This should be obvious if you look back at the hundreds, thousands of dead projects. Yet people keep building them, i know they look shiny and sound new – but they are actually almost all dull and are copies with no linking back to the dozen of the same projects that failed from the same issues.

We HAVE to stop adding to this shit.

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This is a way of stepping away from the post-truth would

Please look at the underlining agender BEFORE pushing “new” ideas please.

* Conservatism/right wing is based on fear and the resulting desire for control.

* Progressive/left wing is based on cooperation and trust with the resulting desire for freedom.

Yes this is muddled by right wing agenders to push their lies. Don’t be a #fashernista on this subject please.

#Ideology matters, is a useful tool, to judge the shit #fashernistas spew. “It is how reactionary politics works, by appealing to sense of injustice and then, instead of focusing anger on the rightful target (capitalism etc) they create a movement to serve their own class interests, in this case far right libertarianism.”

This is a way of stepping away from the post-truth would.