Uncentered

Decentralized Randomness and the League of Entropy

tomo — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0700

When I heard of drand, a distributed randomness beacon daemon, my nerd-o-meter lit up. What is it, why do we need it, how random is it, and why is it distributed or decentralized?

A Comparison of Blockchain-based Decentralized DNS Solutions

tomo — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0700

Previously, we looked at centralization in DNS and some democratic DNS alternatives. Coming up with a decentralized DNS solution is much easier than getting everybody to adopt it. Many of these still unadopted (fostered?) DNS projects are based on blockchain technology. Many cryptocurrency "coins" have implemented a DNS resolving feature, some existing solely for that purpose. There are also companies that merely want to tie themselves to the word "blockchain", or otherwise not actually running a blockchain.

Mobile App Store Monopolies and Decentralized Alternatives

tomo — Sat, 15 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0700

"He who controls the warez, controls the world." This is the digital world we live in. In the year 2020, man is almost always clutching one object in his hand. A mobile device. If you flipped a coin four times to decide what operating system was powering this mobile device, it would be an Apple device once and an Android device the other 3 out of 4 times. Anything else would be a rounding error.

Democratic DNS Alternatives: The Story of AlterNIC and OpenNIC

tomo — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0700

What if the US government decided to shut down Twitter by making twitter.com redirect your browser to whitehouse.gov? No way? The year 2020 has made us believe more than 6 impossible things before breakfast. The Internet is more authoritarian than you think and it starts with domain names (DNS).

NSD: DNS is Not Sufficiently Decentralized

tomo — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0700

DNS, the domain name system, is one of the most critical parts of how our Internet works, yet few of the billions of people using it every day actually understand what it is.

Data on Ice - Decentralize Your Damn Data in a Norwegian Mine

tomo — Sun, 02 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0700

Let's say you have a LOT of data, really important data, and you need to maintain the information for generations to come, and you can't trust Google or Apple or even Amazon to provide that for you, given their track record. In the first three parts of this blog post I talked about storing data on hard drives, burning data to optical discs, and going long-term with LTO. There's a fourth option if those aren't hardcore enough.

Bitcoin Files Protocol - Storage on Blockchain

tomo — Sat, 01 Aug 2020 12:00:00 +0700

A decentralized internet needs decentralized file storage. IPFS is the leading solution and previously we discussed BitTorrent as decentralized file storage too. What other decentralized networks can we piggy back on?

Decentralize Your Damn Data - Part 3 - Tapes

tomo — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0700

This is part 3 in a 4 part article about long term storage solutions for personal data. Since the beginning of time, storage media has been a locked battle between tapes - loooong thin strips reeled around a core - and flat discs that rotate below a read head. And for backups, tapes have long been respected for their capacity and long term stability without needing the random access agility that the layout of a disc provides. And like discs, there have been many generations of formats which have improved in speed and capacity while breaking backwards compatibility.

Decentralize Your Damn Data - Part 2

tomo — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0700

This is part 2 in a 4 part article about long term storage solutions for personal data. Before we talked about hard drives as a way to store private data off the cloud. Hard drives last a relatively long while, don't need any special equipment to load and read, but each drive itself is an investment of at least $100, but probably more, making it an expensive option to just have many spares on hand. Floppies (remember those?)

Decentralize Your Damn Data

tomo — Sun, 26 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0700

You and me, we're all generating data at a faster rate than a previous generation would've imagined possible. Some of it is even worth savin. This article got a bit long so I've broken it up into 4 parts. This is part 1.

twtxt: Primitive Social Networking and unstoppable free speech platforms

tomo — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0700

In exploring potential decentralized social media platforms, I recently discovered something called TWTXT: decentralised, minimalist microblogging service for hackers. That's right up this blog's alley! But how is twtxt even pronounced? I say "twi-text", and think of the protocol like an extremely reduced (minimalism!) Twitter implemented as textfiles (nostalgia!). And being a simple textfile is key. There's really no need for a server to process requests beyond serving static files. This does mean it's not a full featured social network though, and probably never can be.

BitTorrent (BTFS) vs IPFS, brothers from another mother

tomo — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0700

Following up from the last post about BitTorrent which mentioned IPFS (Interplanetary File System). There I framed BitTorrent as a distributed or decentralized filesystem or storage layer of the internet, and not just a pirate's den. That would make it a lot like IPFS.

Beyond BitTorrent - A Decentralized Internet Filesystem

tomo — Sat, 11 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0700

Remember BitTorrent? Yeah, the pirate protocol. Actually, it's not specifically designed for breaking laws, but rather to be an efficient way to distribute files to many people - making files available to others in a way that takes advantage of each person downloading to speed up the downloads of other people thus reducing the required bandwidth and resources of the uploader (usually resource-constricted relative to the many downloaders) while then removing the uploader or any other single point of failure - it's decentralized! So, unlike normal file download sites, the original uploader can go offline and a file can still be accessible, all without relying on a server. Compare: If a non-torrent file download website goes down, that file can no longer be downloaded. BitTorrent solves this.

What can boycotting Facebook accomplish

tomo — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 12:00:00 +0700

I feel a disturbance in the Face - "a shift in the dynamics of power: from totalitarian with all power in the hands of a few at FB, to a new configuration..."