Re: [Social-discuss] Control own privacy, posted by _others_

[Matija Šuklje]

Dne sreda 7. aprila 2010 ob 12:43:43 je Story Henry napisal(a):
> On 7 Apr 2010, at 09:19, Matija Šuklje wrote:
> > Dne torek 6. aprila 2010 ob 12:22:52 je Story Henry napisal(a):
> >> On 6 Apr 2010, at 10:53, Rob Myers wrote:
> >>> On Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:05:32 -0400, Ian Denhardt
> > From what I understand (note: IANAC IAAL[1]) it'd be possible to have 
a
> > trust-bases tag system by using FOAF for user2user trust, and GPG for
> > server2server (and user2user?) trust. The more trust a tag (or user)
> > would have, the more present it would be and vice versa.
> 
> note, with foaf+ssl you get a p2p trust based system. There is no need 
to
> distinguish clients and servers in any essential manner.
> 
>  http://esw.w3.org/Foaf+ssl/FAQ
> 
> I have added a few pictures there now that make it clearer how
> foaf+ssl goes beyond gpg.

OK, that explains a lot. Thank you :)

Indeed it does look like a great solution.

> That is simple. The person who wrote and published it is legally liable,
> under whatever the rules that end up being worked out for international
> communication are.

I'm cool with that. It does complicate things a bit legally if anything 
happens, but if anything happens it should be solved a per case basis.

> > The question is how do we handle it. Of course a possibility
> > would be to state in the ToS[2] that each user is legally responsible 
for
> > his/her own postings, but we'd have to check how far the host (e.g.
> > Aaron) can waive such responsibility in diverse legal systems.
> 
> That is something for lawyers to work out. It's not really an 
> engineering problem.

I agree. All I'm saying here is that although some legal stuff can be 
worked out later, we shouldn't just ignore it beforehand. I'm not saying 
we should limit ourselves by being scared of the law; but thinking about a 
possible problems beforehand could save us the problems later on.

> What we do need a bit further down the road is an RDF vocabulary for
> propositional attitudes, so that people can if they publish something
> make some claims about what their relation to the proposition is: 
serious
> affirmation, joke, reporting what someone else said, .... That could 
help
> reduce issues such as the Robin Hood airport case

Great idea!

> There is no centralised system here with a centralised algorithm to 
break.
> There is no one reputation system in this p2p system that is being
> proposed, IMHO. There are just claimed relations. How each node 
evaluates
> the claims of other nodes will be a subjective thing. Welcome to the
> postmodern database.
> 
>   http://blogs.sun.com/bblfish/entry/the_coming_postmodern_era
> 
> ( a bit tongue in cheek )
> 
> Who you trust is completely up to you. If you trust mafia people, then
> you will end up with a lot of mafia type problems. If you trust entirely
> what big corporations tell you, you may end up massively obese with only
>  one muscle in your channel changing finger.

That makes sense. Especially if the FOAF+SSL-based trust system can span 
several servers.

> We have Reference on the web: the URL.
> We have a way to tie users to statements they make: public/private key
>  crypto We have a reputation system to allow us to tie documents to 
people,
>  and link people: foaf
> 
> But we keep it free for each user to decide which community he wants to 
be
> part of, and whome he trusts. At that level we are following simple
>  economics: allow each person to decide as much as possible, and allow
>  global decisions to emerge based on micro decisions by many people.

That could work, yes.

> Here I disagree. They don't need to be tackled beforehand. If you were
>  right, then they should have been tackled before the web was created, 
and
>  timbl would still be there debating why hyperlinks were important ...

Touché ;)
But as I said above, my primary intention was to provoke some thought 
about it, so when building GNU Social we're looking at the bigger picture 
and not just at how it can be done on the code level.

That being said, my first post of this thread was intentionally spanning 
both extremes, so a debate could start.

> > ...even if they have only limited connection to open source, they have 
a
> > huge connection with and influence on freedom on the internet!
> 
> The internet/web is already here, and functioning. We just need to add 
the
>  pieces as we find both an audience to use them and as they become
>  practical. Logicall the Web is extremely well architected. So I don't 
have
>  any doubt it will be easy to add this when we need it.

Here I have to disagree slightly. It's true that the internet as we know 
it so far has been architected to suit freedom very well, but as rumours 
are being confirmed about "Internet v2" being invented by the US military, 
the global trend towards censuring and even ACTA, I doubt that the 
internet will preserve its freedom if we don't do something about it — its 
architecture, its implementation (e.g. Google, FaceBook) and laws 
governing it!


Cheers,
Matija
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