Saturday, January 5, 2013

My Internet

I've been accustomed to the Internet as we know it: fire up a browser, read email, feeds, visit FB/G+/Twitter, buy something on Amazon with a Visa card. It is indeed convenient, especially if you don't care to look under the hood, or explore the limits of your freedom. And the fact is: there are big companies there (providers of "free" services) that gather all information about you.

One of the ways to use that information is to chose the advertising that you'll see. Honestly, I don't care about ads too much. Most of the time I block them anyway, and when I see them - I'll appreciate a featured anime figure more than some silly pills. But ads are just the tip of the iceberg, the only part of it we actually see. The real problem is the power you give them, the power that limits your potential, because no one cares about your weird habits until you become big.

In an ideal society, everyone can know everything about everyone. But we, as a species, are not ideal, thus making it a matter of protection to choose what information to share, and what to hide. Once your information can be bought, you never know who and when may turn it against you. Imagine a robber aware of your vacation schedule. The security question stands right near the privacy one. Your information is stored in a centralized manner: it could be denied of service, or it could be stolen - it's vulnerabile.

Now, how do we work around that, while still keeping it simple and convenient? There are several solutions for different sub-issues:

DNS. Generally provided by your ISP, thus may have some areas blocked (i.e. Wikileaks). They know wherever you go, and also redirect the "address not found" queries.
Solution: OpenNIC, any neutral DNS like Google DNS

File sharing. Exchanging music, books, and movies is prosecuted by RIAA & MPAA, even if you give it to your friend and delete it locally. They want you to rent things for an undefined period instead of owning them.
Solution: Torrent, private hosting if you can afford it.

Social network. This is where you expose the most of yourself. You need to preserve the rights to the content you create, and to share it only with those you care.
Solution: Disapora*.

Money transfer. Your Visa/AMEX/Mastercard knows everything you buy, everywhere you travel, and steals around 3% for each transaction. Also, you never know when your government decides to print more money, making whatever you have less valuable instantly.
Solution: Bitcoin.

Those solutions will only become valid once they gain a critical mass of users. I hope that my post aids this goal a little, making Internet a better place in the nearest future.

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