/cyb/ - The future of technology

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The future of technology 0x3F 2017/07/30 (Sun) 12:30:17 No.1177

It seems like we are on the crux of a big change in the paradigm of computing; namely distribution is in vogue again. We have so many new technologies trying to be foundational infrastructure for the future, and I'm beginning to wonder what it will look like when/if these technologies mature. To name a few of the things I'm talking about there's cryptocurrencies/blockchain technology, ipfs, matrix, and urbit (to ignore all the decentralized social media platforms that have sprung up). These technologies all tackle different use cases, but all of them promote decentralization, open source, and user responsibility of data, in regards to both security and privacy. I'm not even taking into account other recent trends of AI research, the internet of things, biohacking or "actual" cyber-security, but thats an entirely different ball game.
My question is what happens when/if these technologies get main stream adoption. when we all have urbit accounts across all our devices to identify ourselves, communicate easily and securely over matrix, publish with ipfs and trade with cryptos? what impact will they have on society and technology at large, if any at all? id like to believe it will fundamentally change many things about the way we live and interact with technology, but am i just getting caught up in the hype? being somebody that almost exclusively uses open source (or at least tries to), im excited for open source technology to push boundaries that closed source software cant or wont go near, but will it really have any impact?
being cyberpunks we often pride ourselves on our freedom, rationality, curiosity and cooperation, so what does the world look like when these ideas become the norm? do these technologies realistically portray the ideas they say they do?
looking at it today, cryptos are by far the most mature of these technologies and already have caused a 'significant' disruption to fields historically nearly untouched by technology. we've already seen the effects its had in combination with tor and dark net markets, and now its being adopted by things like open bazaar which feature a combination of these technologies; ipfs and cryptos (which i believe also has insane social implications). however cryptos are also fundamentally the most different of the lot, where as the others seem more like pieces of the same puzzle that enable cryptos to increase their impact on society but are not fundamentally things we weren't able to do before (communication, identity, sharing through cyber-space).

im excited lain, and i dont want to have unrealistic ideas about the future, but the possibilities seem incredible.

Maj. Motoko Kusanagi 2017/07/30 (Sun) 15:08:12 No.1178

>>1177

All the tech you listed will eventually be jewed by some corporation. It's inevitable even if you try to meme some kind of groupthink policy amongst users. Look at how the GPL turned out, just a bunch of people trying to make up laws out of nowhere and applying the freedom(tm) concept to literally everything. Now it's a joke as big data like google/bookfuk can just come along, take all the open source code that's been generously donated and find a way to charge people for it. Maybe you'll get a footnote in the about page nobody looks at but you won't see a cent from their profits.

I want to be optimistic about all the new tech but I feel it's just accelerating the dystopian conditions in society because we are unable to change ourselves first. We have all this advanced tech but are unable to actually use it to it's full potential, much like our own brains, so any sort of "progress" is really just an illusion.

Alice Mizuki 2017/07/30 (Sun) 17:21:35 No.1180

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>>1178
What a sad sack.

Unnamed 2017/07/30 (Sun) 17:41:26 No.1181

>>1178
>All the tech you listed will eventually be jewed by some corporation. It's inevitable even if you try to meme some kind of groupthink policy amongst users.

this line is just so choc full of buzzwords, its difficult to take you seriously.

>>1177
I think, and my hope is, frankly, that nothing gets mainstream adaption ever again. if everyone uses urbit, then one only needs to break, or control urbit, to be able to track everyone. if the web is built on cjdns+ipfs, a vulnerability or a backdoor in either of those puts the entire system at risk.

if on the otherhand, parts of the net use ipfs, parts http, parts some other protocols. if some of it is on cjdns, and some using freenet, and some using various overlay nets on top of any of those. if the system is entirely hacked together, a weird mass of different peices of software cobbled together by various independant teams, maintained by their users, that system is likley far more secure, far more private, and far harder to corrupt.

the image this evokes is a net far different than what we have today, both from a backend and a user perspective. but it avoids what is probably the single largest vulnerability on the net, which is depending too heavily on a single system.

Azuma 2017/07/30 (Sun) 17:51:23 No.1182

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>>1181
Security through obscurity? Really?

Hannibal Chew 2017/07/30 (Sun) 18:18:20 No.1183

>>1182
get your mallet if you want, but I dont think there's any denying that 100 independantly written and maintained systems, constantly being shifted and altered, dropped and added, is a far harder network to totally monitor, than a single network where all you have to do is control one peice of software.

Facebook isnt bad because it tracks its users. its bad because it has several billion users to track. if all facebook had was 300 users who could easily leave at any time to any number of alternate sites, it wouldnt be able to do very much damage to the privacy of peope overall.

Borma 2017/07/30 (Sun) 18:35:43 No.1184

Even the most secure and private personal system means nothing if every time you leave your house you are tracked by millions of cameras and sensors in the "smart" cities of our future.

Nameless 2017/07/30 (Sun) 23:49:12 No.1189

You say they will fundamentally change many things about how we live and interact with tech but you don't mention anything that you envision. They are all just different ways of doing the same thing and the users and the culture matter a lot more than just the tech in the background.

>when we all have urbit accounts across all our devices to identify ourselves
What happens when it's just another form of mandatory ID everyone you interact with wants to use it to track you and no one will hire you unless you give them your "urbit" info so they can do a background check ? What happens when crypto currency lobby groups form and try to pay off vendors to only accept one type of coin at their shops ? What use is an anonymous internet when most sites refuse to allow you to view them without providing a legit urbit or something ? What happens when employers and everyone else track how you spend your money by inspecting the blockchain and ostracize people who wash their money for being suspicious ?

Even though there is a certain set of ideals and culture surrounding the development/developers/early adopters of this tech; that does not mean that those principals will carry over into the mainstream even if the tech does. All I think this means is that those who wish to be anonymous and private will have an easier time of it and won't stick out as much. Even if the tech to let identity become ephemeral was mainstream that is no reason to think that society would be ok with it.

Tetsuo 2017/07/31 (Mon) 09:12:58 No.1191

>>1189
Completely agree with this, there is no point in talk about decentralised and anonymous networks while we live in a global society where you aren't entitled to neither decentralised living, anonymity nor privacy of information.

The government will always want control and they will do anything to keep it, whether it's secretly cracking the system and watching whom ever they want, or failing that just straight up outlawing systems they struggle to crack.
In Europe some governments want to ban the encryption of computer communications even despite the harm it can easily do to its citizens.

Theoretically if you managed to create the perfect unbreakable and anonymous system the government would sooner outlaw computers able of accessing them (like outlawing PCs and only allowing Android machines where rooting is also a criminal offence) than allow people their privacy.

Not suggesting it should happen, but a political and cultural revolution would have to occur first before a digital revolution. Because digital 'freedom' will always be in the realm of government and corporate surveillance and data collection, the basic means of freedom and privacy simply do not exist today.

Laughing Man 2017/07/31 (Mon) 22:39:01 No.1196

>>1178
>All the tech you listed will eventually be jewed by some corporation.
I'll be that guy and say fork it.

>it's just accelerating the dystopian conditions in society because we are unable to change ourselves first.
I think it can be true in that people might want to "switch allegiances" to a different piece of software and that would really be an illussion of progress because the new normal would become the de facto standard. Like what happened with bitcoin in the area of cryptocurrencies.
I think that the right way would be to make software that helps users make use of the different alternatives. An close example is searx.me, it's a "second level" search engine; you give it your search term and it looks it up in wikipedia, goo, bing, and some more and shows you the results. I think that programs like that, but for foss/decentralized software is where it's at.

>>1181
What needs mainstream adoption is the idea, not a particular program, device or protocol. Are we right?

>>1184
Move to a dumb city.

>>1189
>that is no reason to think that society would be ok with it.
A thing about the tech being decentralized is that you can pack up and leave, you're not tied to your ISP, bank account, etc. It's a very different paradigm.

>What happens when crypto currency lobby groups form
It's already happening, I think it was in the EU. Look up "bitcoin regulation" and you'll surely find something. It's in the "put the idea out there phase" IIRC.

>pay off vendors to only accept one type of coin at their shops?
Visa has a "go cashless" thing for stores, that's their thing. But if you're talking cryptocoins, the thing is that not only should the currency itself be decentralized, but the whole cryptocoin environment should use different coins.

Masami Eiri 2017/08/01 (Tue) 01:49:50 No.1198

>>1196
>A thing about the tech being decentralized is that you can pack up and leave, you're not tied to your ISP, bank account, etc. It's a very different paradigm.

The whole point of that post was that without society accepting people who pack up and leave you won't be able to live a normal life and not have a breadcrumb trail. Decentralization means nothing if people still want breadcrumb trails. Most of the tech you listed still leaves a trail of what the person is up to even if it's decentralized. Unless it becomes normal for people to put effort into not getting tracked the tracking will continue. It would also not be surprising if employers and landlords didn't want anything to do with someone who does not have a history they could look at.

Nezumi 2017/08/01 (Tue) 05:45:23 No.1199

>>1191
>The government will always want control and they will do anything to keep it, whether it's secretly cracking the system and watching whom ever they want, or failing that just straight up outlawing systems they struggle to crack.

In this case, the technology isn't the problem. It's the negative applications of it. It's better to fight back against negative applications of it, rather than become an absolute hermit, like I've seen many suggest when confronted with the surveillance-rife nightmare of the modern world.

Political/cultural revolutions go hand-in-hand with "digital revolutions." The technology empowers people, which creates more awareness about it, which empowers even more people. It's a gray-area where the two can get hard to tell apart. They feed into each other symbiotically.

0x3F 2017/08/02 (Wed) 01:35:12 No.1206

>>1189
>You say they will fundamentally change many things about how we live and interact with tech but you don't mention anything that you envision.
its hard to envision the culture that will surround decentralized "apps" like these, in the same way it was hard to envision the current crypto epidemic when bitcoin was first launched. i completely agree that it comes down to users and culture, and thats what im asking about. we are yet to see what happens if bitcoin gets mainstream adaption, though its happening slowly, especially in east asian countries.

>What happens when it's just another form of mandatory ID everyone you interact with wants to use it to track you
i take it you didnt read about urbit. youre in control of your data, its entirely open source, and you can run your own instance for you personally. reputation is an important part of identity and being able to prove youre reputable without being tracked is an important part of both online and offline life.

>What happens when crypto currency lobby groups form and try to pay off vendors to only accept one type of coin at their shops
this is an interesting question. what coin would they pick and why? where do these lobby groups come from? who can really say, right?

>What use is an anonymous internet when most sites refuse to allow you to view them without providing a legit urbit or something?
psuedonymity and anonymity are not at arms with each other. being truly anonymous is already a pipedream for the current internet we utilize. if a state nation wanted to expose you theres literally nothing you can do to stop it.

>>1191
>All I think this means is that those who wish to be anonymous and private will have an easier time of it and won't stick out as much.
this is very much a good thing. whether or not mainstream culture adopts it, having the option to utilize such tech is a big benefit.

> you aren't entitled to neither decentralised living, anonymity nor privacy of information.
with the exception of anonymity, both of the others are possible if you try to bring them into your life. its not fool proof, or easy, but it may be worthwhile if you believe it to be. the technology to do these things is also growing both in popularity and in functionality, so it may be possible to a greater degree in the future.

>but a political and cultural revolution would have to occur first before a digital revolution
i agree with >>1199
i think they both go hand in hand. for a while now theres been societal unrest with the current order of power, but we havent come up with any better solution, and that requires the technology to be mature, which it isnt yet. maybe the political anger will fade by the time that happens, but if the technology doesnt exist, there is no way for the politics to be changed. that being said, technology by itself probably isnt enough to stir up this change, and we require serious effort dedicated to the idea that we need a new order to the manner in which power is distributed.

>>1196
>What needs mainstream adoption is the idea, not a particular program, device or protocol. Are we right?
completely agree

>, but the whole cryptocoin environment should use different coins.
we need some form of communication across block chains that allows coins to be accepted for coin, but that is a while away, if ever going to be possible.

>>1198
is it really so surprising that people want accountability? i think this is normal. being anonymous has its time and place, and is a very important factor in society, but always being anonymous is beneficial to nobody, and actively hurts some parties. we need some sort of system that allows both, while still securing users privacy.

Laughing Man 2017/08/03 (Thu) 00:29:03 No.1215

>>177
I ecpect the main benefit of things like IPFS and SAFE Network to be a potential resurgance of designing personal websites rather than relying on blog/social media formats, as well as possibly a reduction in reliance on advertising. These occurances would in turn hopefully bring more focus back to personal, non-commercialized projects. Even some commercial efforts could be taken in a less heavily monitized direction if faced with lower hosting costs via distributed computing wherein visitors help distribute data to other visitors.

Being able to set up a program that does "server-side" stuff even though you can't run your own server seems like it'd open up doors for a lot of things, culturally. Ways of organizing, sorting through, and displaying data specialized to particular uses rather than the one-size-fits all of search engines. Even aside from that, though, I think it'd help give people a greater sense of ownership of their pages compared to with conventional free hosting sites, and could preserve historic sites more reliably since they'd continue being stored in the distributed system as long as people keep visiting.