Alternative Tech

[Dafuqisdis?]

There's a new Youtube alternative out there called Odysee that built on top of Lbry blockchain tech, and it looks really promising.

www.odysee.com

I don't know a lot about blockchain tech or how decentralized it actually is but it doesn't have some of the downsides of Bitchute and Rumble. I support Bitchute but it's based out of the UK and they're not decentralized(althought their trying to change that) and the video quality is not high. With Rumble you get high quality video but you have to give them your phone number to post and it's kinda questionable how dedicated the platform is to free speech.

It looks like it's pretty easy to mirror Youtube video libraries on Odysee. A number of big name Youtubers like the Quartering have already put all of their videos up.

Techcrunch did an interview with the CEO:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/odysee-launch/

Definitely worth checking out.

 

[AmazingEagle]

There's a new Youtube alternative out there called Odysee that built on top of Lbry blockchain tech, and it looks really promising.

www.odysee.com

I don't know a lot about blockchain tech or how decentralized it actually is but it doesn't have some of the downsides of Bitchute and Rumble. I support Bitchute but it's based out of the UK and they're not decentralized(althought their trying to change that) and the video quality is not high. With Rumble you get high quality video but you have to give them your phone number to post and it's kinda questionable how dedicated the platform is to free speech.

It looks like it's pretty easy to mirror Youtube video libraries on Odysee. A number of big name Youtubers like the Quartering have already put all of their videos up.

Techcrunch did an interview with the CEO:

https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/odysee-launch/

Definitely worth checking out.

I've heard about Odysee before and to be honest, it doesn't look that bad.

 

[Someone Awful]

All of this is good information, but the question is, will this even matter in the long run when it comes to the surface and deep web?

Section 230 removal or being amended to crack down on "hate speech" is coming. Trump was idiotic enough to support revoking it because he forgets that there is an Internet outside of social media and corporation websites. Biden, the dementia-in-chief, also support its removal and Democrats are making moves against it. There is also bipartisan support by both Republicans and Democrats to remove or at least amend it. If the latter happens, it will not implement the one change that would do any good, making it easier to sue the bank. When this happens, troons, SJWs, and opportunistic will see this as an opportunity to sue every website that challenges their narrative into oblivion. It will decimate smaller websites. Null is currently trying to find a country in Europe that will accept hosting Kiwifarms because he believes - rightfully so - that it cannot survive a Section 230 repeal or amending if he continues to host it in the United States.

I have been trying to find a long-term solution to deal with the tightening censorship when it comes to my online friend circles. Sooner or later, the censorship hammers will come out for them like they are with the right. I want to believe that decentralization - even if it takes effort - is the solution to our problem here since it focuses on smaller websites and is much harder to deplatform, but will that even be spared in light of the inevitable change or removal of Section 230? I don't want to lose my friends I've come to know for many years because social media companies decides they and their voice should not exist.

I want to have a smaller website ecosystems with my friends where we can chat, have fun, watch videos, maybe even stream and not feel like we have to censor every offensive word without risking a ban when this happens. Null talked about on the Kiwifarms Pleroma that if he can take care of legal expenses and can put forth enough money, he wants to have a Pleroma/Matrix/PeerTube for the website (granted the former two are ran by Crunk Lord while the other does not exist to my knowledge). But he's also trying to move the forum's hosting to an European country and I don't want to have to leave America just to do the same if possible.

So I'll ask, is decentralization an actual long-term solution to a post-Section 230 world or am I truly looking at either moving to another country or migrating my friend circles to the Dark Web?

 

[seri0us]

So I'll ask, is decentralization an actual long-term solution to a post-Section 230 world or am I truly looking at either moving to another country or migrating my friend circles to the Dark Web?

Both...?

 

[Someone Awful]

Both...?

I'll try the decentralization route for now and see how that works out.

 

[moocow]

There's a new Youtube alternative out there called Odysee that built on top of Lbry blockchain tech, and it looks really promising.

I feel like a bit of a boomer for asking, but what exactly does a cryptographically self-signed distributed ledger have to do with video hosting? It stinks of the ongoing trend of "it's just like [popular thing], but BLOCKCHAIN(tm)!" ... just bolting "blockchain technology" onto whatever thing is fashionable whether it's useful or not.

 

[Kosher Dill]

what exactly does a cryptographically self-signed distributed ledger have to do with video hosting?

The ledger acts as the "tracker" where you can look up the data file or torrents or whatever. The idea is that you store enough information in the ledger for someone to be able to go out on the P2P network and say "Does anyone have this file", and hopefully get back a "yes".

 

[Shoggoth]

All of this is good information, but the question is, will this even matter in the long run when it comes to the surface and deep web?

Section 230 removal or being amended to crack down on "hate speech" is coming. Trump was idiotic enough to support revoking it because he forgets that there is an Internet outside of social media and corporation websites. Biden, the dementia-in-chief, also support its removal and Democrats are making moves against it. There is also bipartisan support by both Republicans and Democrats to remove or at least amend it. If the latter happens, it will not implement the one change that would do any good, making it easier to sue the bank. When this happens, troons, SJWs, and opportunistic will see this as an opportunity to sue every website that challenges their narrative into oblivion. It will decimate smaller websites. Null is currently trying to find a country in Europe that will accept hosting Kiwifarms because he believes - rightfully so - that it cannot survive a Section 230 repeal or amending if he continues to host it in the United States.

I have been trying to find a long-term solution to deal with the tightening censorship when it comes to my online friend circles. Sooner or later, the censorship hammers will come out for them like they are with the right. I want to believe that decentralization - even if it takes effort - is the solution to our problem here since it focuses on smaller websites and is much harder to deplatform, but will that even be spared in light of the inevitable change or removal of Section 230? I don't want to lose my friends I've come to know for many years because social media companies decides they and their voice should not exist.

I want to have a smaller website ecosystems with my friends where we can chat, have fun, watch videos, maybe even stream and not feel like we have to censor every offensive word without risking a ban when this happens. Null talked about on the Kiwifarms Pleroma that if he can take care of legal expenses and can put forth enough money, he wants to have a Pleroma/Matrix/PeerTube for the website (granted the former two are ran by Crunk Lord while the other does not exist to my knowledge). But he's also trying to move the forum's hosting to an European country and I don't want to have to leave America just to do the same if possible.

So I'll ask, is decentralization an actual long-term solution to a post-Section 230 world or am I truly looking at either moving to another country or migrating my friend circles to the Dark Web?

I think decentralization is the way to go. I don't think the Fediverse is the solution because your hosting can be fucked with just as every other platform. It's just that you're smaller, so it will take longer to get to you. Please wait your turn and lube up in the meanwhile.
I think in the long run, a workable solution will have to be peer to peer, self hosted and with no client-server relationship. That leaves either self hosting a Fedi instance or Urbit. Running an Urbit is easier and gives you more features, so buy a planet.

 

[moocow]

The ledger acts as the "tracker" where you can look up the data file or torrents or whatever. The idea is that you store enough information in the ledger for someone to be able to go out on the P2P network and say "Does anyone have this file", and hopefully get back a "yes".

Ah, I see. Okay, so it's essentially a distributed metadata database. That actually makes some sense.

It's a bit risky though, especially since the ledger is immutable. Even if the service is really good about pruning legitimately illegal material (child pr0n comes to mind), there's always going to be a record of its existence in the ledger. Most of us would probably agree that removing that sort of stuff from the service is acceptable and reasonable (and is enough to exonerate it from accusations of hosting illegal material) but I think we all know the "usual suspects" would happily trawl through that ledger looking for "proof" that it's hosting, linking to or directly hosting the naughty stuff to try to get it shut down or made illegal somehow.

I guess that's one major benefit of it being decentralized, though. Fuck I hate people sometimes. This is a problem we wouldn't have to be solving if it weren't for nosy, power-hungry snowflake fuckwits who can't stand the slightest bit of criticism or mockery.

I think decentralization is the way to go. I don't think the Fediverse is the solution because your hosting can be fucked with just as every other platform. It's just that you're smaller, so it will take longer to get to you. Please wait your turn and lube up in the meanwhile.
I think in the long run, a workable solution will have to be peer to peer, self hosted and with no client-server relationship. That leaves either self hosting a Fedi instance or Urbit. Running an Urbit is easier and gives you more features, so buy a planet.

Self-hosting isn't really any different from "regular" hosting. You can be shut down, too. I'd wager your ISP is even more sensitive to random idiots complaining about your online activities than a hosting company. Keep in mind that plenty of ISPs out there actively screw with bittorrent activity even though it's a completely content-neutral protocol with loads of legitimate uses.

I do still agree that a peer-to-peer design is the way to go, though. Honestly there's no real workable alternative to it (yet) because it's seemingly so trivial to get a hosting company to shut down a customer.

I wish Freenet wasn't 1) written in Java, 2) rife with child pr0n, 3) slow as shit, 4) cumbersome, 5) almost dead and 6) a complete pain in the arse to use ... it's got some interesting ideas and could have some merit if not for its flaws.

 

[Shoggoth]

Self-hosting isn't really any different from "regular" hosting. You can be shut down, too. I'd wager your ISP is even more sensitive to random idiots complaining about your online activities than a hosting company. Keep in mind that plenty of ISPs out there actively screw with bittorrent activity even though it's a completely content-neutral protocol with loads of legitimate uses.

You mean that the ISP can fuck with me for running a server process in my home office? If so, that's fucked. Won't a VPN help mitigate it, though?

I do still agree that a peer-to-peer design is the way to go, though. Honestly there's no real workable alternative to it (yet) because it's seemingly so trivial to get a hosting company to shut down a customer.

Urbit solves this. You can host it on a RPi.
Mind, I think the solution will have to include self-hosting and p2p, or it won't succeed in solving the problem. Location independence is also critical. It means you aren't affected by DNS or other fuckery.

 

[moocow]

You mean that the ISP can fuck with me for running a server process in my home office? If so, that's fucked. Won't a VPN help mitigate it, though?

Yup, ISPs are notorious for getting pissy about servers being run on "consumer"-grade broadband links. Some even port scan you periodically to see if you've got anything listening on commonly used ports. They want you to upgrade to their business service, which is typically slower and shittier and (of course) more expensive.

Granted, some ISPs don't give a shit (mine doesn't, [knocks wood]), but it's always something to keep in mind when you're considering hosting something at home. Or just run stuff on non-standard ports, because the ISPs that care about home servers usually employ total fucking idiots to do the actual checking and they don't really know what they're doing

A VPN could help, I guess, but then you're dependent on the VPN provider not getting pissy about you running servers on their service. Can't win for losing.

 

[Kosher Dill]

Yup, ISPs are notorious for getting pissy about servers being run on "consumer"-grade broadband links. Some even port scan you periodically to see if you've got anything listening on commonly used ports.

On top of that, my ISP claims they'll give you the boot if you run an IRC server on any port whatsoever, because they're so commonly used by malware. I don't know precisely how they check that, not inclined to test it myself.

 

[Shoggoth]

Yup, ISPs are notorious for getting pissy about servers being run on "consumer"-grade broadband links. Some even port scan you periodically to see if you've got anything listening on commonly used ports. They want you to upgrade to their business service, which is typically slower and shittier and (of course) more expensive.

Granted, some ISPs don't give a shit (mine doesn't, [knocks wood]), but it's always something to keep in mind when you're considering hosting something at home. Or just run stuff on non-standard ports, because the ISPs that care about home servers usually employ total fucking idiots to do the actual checking and they don't really know what they're doing

A VPN could help, I guess, but then you're dependent on the VPN provider not getting pissy about you running servers on their service. Can't win for losing.

This is surprising to learn and slightly annoying.
I haven't heard from anyone running Urbit at home about trouble with their ISP yet, but I'd be interested if someone had had a run-in.
Generally, with hosting getting cheaper and easier to handle, I think we should start viewing it more like a basic utility (for us, not on a moral ground) if we don't want to live like animals online. Still not sure if it's better to run in a data center or at home.
Also thought of an interesting business model for low-grade consumer hosting, how about a Pi server farm? They're dirt cheap, you just let someone rent a Pi and manage it remotely.

 

[Shoggoth]

An interesting technology I came across recently:

https://radicle.xyz/

The idea is a fully peer-to-peer git with no central authority or hosting,
There are also a few crypto/blockchain aspects to it which I've yet to grok

The overview of their new protocol:
Radicle Link is a peer-to-peer gossip protocol with a generic distributed version control backend. It aims to be general enough to be used on top of systems such as pijul or mercurial, though it's initial implementation is focused on supporting Git.
The protocol disseminates Git repositories via gossip-based replication, enabling the hosting and sharing of repositories without reliance on central servers. Repositories on the Radicle network are called 'projects', which are gossiped by 'peers'.
In Radicle:

• Peers track other peers
• Peers track projects they are interested in
• Peers gossip about projects. This means replicating updates from the peers they track and the projects they are interested in

---

Seems interesting, Not sure how a canonical state of a project can be established like that, though.