💾 Archived View for tilde.team › ~bh › gemlog › 009_2022-05-09.gmi captured on 2023-05-24 at 18:32:53. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-03-20)
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"The HTTP Internet is domed", "I cannot cope with the Internet these days". those are the titles I intended to name this article in my first drafts, but I guess I have found a better one.
My first contact with the Internet was in its early stage, when there were only a few young people were using it and none of the friendly neighborhood paid any attention. The Internet was a kid's toy to them and people using it were seen as having nothing to do. People around me used to think I am wasting my time on my phone.
But the face has changed. The emergence of touchable device and social networks have rapidly transformed the landscape. Everyone is hooked up to the grid, even my mom is now constantly scrolling her smartphone, and that is terrible.
When eveyone can get to the Internet, it is not the regular Internet but the Internet created by big corps. When they have the whole society on a media, they create an Internet that is not for the techies but a everyone to use it, and there are so many thing going on, lies and conspiracies.
Firstly, everyone is categorized, labeled, and getting content tailored to them. There are nothing one can do about this. Even if one doesn't use the Internet, they're labeled. Even if they try to blend in the most popular kind of internet user, they're labeled. If one care about their privacy and use the tools, such as the Do Not Track header, clear the cookies, disable Javascript, or any fancy mitigation technology like Firefox's Total Cookie Protection or Brave's farbling, Tor Browser, whatever, THEY ARE LABELED! One cannot escape it, one is always belong to some category and that's how they're label. The Internet has elevate the privilege of the fed agents and corporations to monitor the society as a whole.
Secondly, the privacy and security of desktop and mobile user are the most vague and ambiguous threat model ever defined. A security expert can somehow define a rigorous threat model for a high performance computer in South Africa, but it's impossible to define a threat model for every end user connect to the Internet. And here's the terrible part: they start to give nastiest advices using the most effective propaganda - word of mouth. Anyone can go out and convince you that Chrome is secure, fast, lightweight, whatever. Anyone can tell you Google is evil corp and their evil scheme. And Anyone can allege any other opinions are conspiracies and try to foul the contradict opinions. Because it's a fucking society, the cyberculture is dead!
Thirdly, Javascript engines in every browser are terrible. I remember how Javascript is used as a client-side scripting language in the 2000s, and as a server-side language as in NodeJS. But "modern" browser these days rapidly come up with crazy drafts every year that allow unimaginably invasive and aggressive tracking. Browser has become an omniscient tracker that can track eveything you do and report it to big corps who want the information. They invent all of those new tools and convince you that they will protect your privacy are in fact a tool to put you into a more refined subcategory. What users will need is not counterattach but more control. How about giving the users the ability to report any information by their will? How about I will set my custom screen resolution and the API will report exactly that? Indeed, "it is too hard for the layperson", "it is not optimal for content delivery", bullshit!
So I actually end up with a few options: (1) hidden services and eepsite without having to register my identity with a company to rent a VPS, and never have to agree to any bullshit agreement with the company and the state, or (2) gemini where it is default to no scripting and no putting appearance into people eyes, just pure content and leave the formating to readers. Option (1) seems to be a broken tin foil hat. The protocols deemed OK, but unless I leverage the gemini protocol over Tor and I2P, otherwise I'm still using HTTP and need to disable Javascript. Option (2) reveals the actually essential thing - a protocol where the client ("browser") does not have inflated ability to track users and most importanly - there still be a cyberculture and not a society.