The Once and Future 'Net, Redux

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|                      The Once and Future 'Net, Redux                        |
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|                               by D!99y Dud3                                 |
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Good evening,  my precious  little ass candies,  and welcome to another utterly
absorbing episode of the D!99y Philes!

Well, I'm feeling a little vindicated by the recent work of no less a venerable
personage than the inventor of the World Wide Web himself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
Please indulge me, if you will, as I proceed to pontificate on the matter.

Last week,  I watched  a YouTube  video  produce by a  member  of the  "muh new
platform" crowd.  This enterprising  fellow  wants to build  yet another large,
centralized  social media  platform  governed by  complex  algorithms  that  he
believes  will ensure fair and consistent  enforcement of community  guidelines
and data privacy where other such platforms  have  failed  miserably. I  wanted
to run a few ideas about a  decentralized peer-to-peer social network past him,
but  he would have none.  He insisted  a centralized  platform  was the  *only*
solution, and that anything else would constitute  Internet users "being forced
into ghettos."  Not only was the guy not amenable to suggestions,  he ended the
brief  exchange by  accusing me  of  contacting  him  for the  sole purpose  of
poo-pooing his idea.

Way to prove my point.  Another  centralized  platform  operated by a  butthurt
phaggot  with a  persecution  complex and a "my way or the highway" attitude is
exactly what  the Web does *not* need.  He doesn't  even  recognize he's acting
like a nazi sysop before the site is even built. Phuck him and his site.

Anyway, back to Dr. Berners-Lee.

Sir Tim has launched  this thing called Solid,  which stands for  Social Linked
Data.  It's implemented in much the same way I and others have been  advocating
all along.  Each user  has this thing  called a Pod that  stores  all of  their
personal data.  Your Pod can be hosted on a Pod  server you  personally operate
either at home or on your own Web hosting account,  or on a Pod server owned by
some trusted person or organization.  You can log into  other sites  using your
Pod in the  same way some  sites let you log  in using  your Facebook or Google
account. App developers, which presumably includes anyone operating any website
or application anywhere on the Web, will have to get your permission to read or
write to your Pod.  You can have  multiple Pods for  use in different contexts,
e.g.,  one for  work,  one for  your  private  life,  and so  forth.  With this
arrangement,  a private joke you told to friends presumably wouldn't have  dire
repercussions in your professional life.

I haven't studied Solid in great detail yet,  but it sounds promising from what
I've read so far.  And I'd be much more  inclined to trust Tim Berners-Lee than
some anonymous butthurt nazi mod.

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  While you consider your moves and deserve the reward, please re-upload this
  phile to as many BBSes as you can. Danke schoen! Oh, and tell them you stole
  it from one of these fine boreds:

    Agency BBS                        Borderline BBS
    Sysop: Avon                       Sysop: Balzabaar
    telnet://agency.bbs.nz            telnet://borderlinebbs.dyndns.org:6400

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