PeerPoint (building-a-distributed-decentralized-internet@googlegroups.com)

[Poor Richard (Google Docs)]

I've shared PeerPoint

Message from poor.r...@gmail.com:

Next Net group members: I've shared a Google Doc called "PeerPoint" with the group. Members have edit permission but please follow the two simple procedures mentioned at the top of the document.

Click to open:

• PeerPoint

Google Docs makes it easy to create, store and share online documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

[Patrick Anderson]

Hi PR,

What would you say is missing from this document?

I think people see my approach as too large/unrealistic because I want
to bring food and shelter into the picture so we can stop using tokens
altogether.

And so I feel very alone in my quest to merge the permaculture
movements with the free network groups - as it seems they both want to
stay in their own domain.

Let's combine user-owned housing and agriculture and basic health-care
with a user-owned network so that we can pay workers by
cross-committing skills with each other without the need to use money
within that production arena.

What say ye?

[Poor Richard]

On 5/13/11 Curtis Faith wrote:
 

Efficiency is going to dictate that some peers are going to serve different distribution roles in the network. How and why they do this is critical to acceptance of any system.

Several people agreed with Curtis then and I have come to agree with him, too. The whole thread BitTorrent as distributed social network is worth reading, if you have the time, as context for what follows:

A network consisting entirely of equal and identically configured peers is not suitable for a number of the applications in the social networking and collaboration suite that I describe in the PeerPoint specification. Some peers need to have special characteristics and special distribution roles as Curtis suggested. For example, some peers need to have high-availability (always on, at least) and high-capacity (lots of storage and processing capacity), and these special peers must be widely trusted by other peers to provide various services--table look-ups, data replication, etc.

I suggest (just to get the discussion started) three general categories or classes of peers:

Peer Classes (one machine might serve any combination, but typically the classes require different levels of hardware capacity and availability)

• personal peers
  
• community peers (serving special roles for a defined group of personal peers)
  
• public or global peers (providing global services available to all peers)

Each peer class might have several sub-classifications:

• trust class

explicit: classified by personal/community/public blacklists, whitelists, etc.
implicit: automatically determined by community and/or public poling or reputation metrics

• replication class: manually rated by owner as open, public, community, closed, private, by invitation, limited, unlimited, etc.
  

• availability class: configurable options might include 1) manually owner-rated as high, medium, low, average, etc. or 2) statistically measured/benchmarked
  

On another topic, I suggest that all the PeerPoint applications (email, social chat, project spaces, wiki pages, etc.) need to have common elements in the user interfaces to set and override default privacy and security settings at a fine level of granularity (e.g. individual emails, files, documents, comments, links, etc.).

User-configured Security settings (by content categories and by individual data items) might include:

• encryption on/off
• anonymity level (strong, weak, none, etc.)
• data auto-purge conditions (under what conditions should a personal peer wipe some or all of its own data clean, or should other peers wipe all replicas of some or all content types belonging to a particular peer)
  

Finally, the extreme nature of some of the privacy and security options mentioned above raises the danger of 1) provoking government reaction against otherwise legal and benign private network activity and 2) potentially attracting the use/exploitation of PeerPoint technology by anti-social actors, which would exacerbate danger #1. For these reasons PeerPoint networks would need mechanisms for policing themselves against anti-social uses, perhaps including methods for segregating high and low risk activity on separate networks, and perhaps some way of trying to satisfy the minimum national security requirements of liberal democratic states as far as possible.

PR

On Wednesday, June 6, 2012 9:33:24 PM UTC-5, Poor Richard wrote:

I've shared PeerPoint

Next Net group members: I've shared a Google Doc called "PeerPoint" with the group. Members have edit permission but please follow the two simple procedures mentioned at the top of the document.

[Poor Richard]

Patrick,

I'm very supportive of hybrid money- and resource-based economic models, but don't like "pure" models of either. Strategies for merging various digital and eco-commons communities is what the discussion of the David Brolier articles is about. You are not at all alone in that quest.

Let's combine user-owned housing and agriculture and basic health-care
with a user-owned network so that we can pay workers by
cross-committing skills with each other without the need to use money
within that production arena.

I'm all for it. The PeerPoint project would provide many tools to support that kind of organization.

PR

[Poor Richard]

96 words on the future of the internet

by Geert Lovink, founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, June 6, 2012  

I was asked by an Italian newspaper to submit 96 words on the future of internet. Here they are:

Instead of further going down the corporate lane of Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook, I propose to go back to the original architecture of Internet as public infrastructure with decentralized nodes. It may be romantic to insist on the distributed nature of networks but it is a necessary political demand. Net criticism is a toothless project without a utopian dimension. Even if internet itself had a military origin in the Cold War, and is now dominated by equally destructive force of greedy venture capitalists, backed up by libertarian gurus. Let’s rethink the public sphere: another internet is possible!

[Devin Balkind]

Patrick, you're not alone.  I work on bringing permaculture, free/libre/opensource + p2p networks and the occupy movement together everyday. 

I agree with your words.  What's next  What projects are you involved with? 

One opportunity where we could collaborate is through Occupy Farms, which is placing dozens of occupiers on farms in the northeast this season.  We're building direct, non-monetary relationships between farms and urban communities and beginning to manage transportation/logistics for the network.  I have way too much work to do. 

How can we collaborate?  What do you want to do?

--
Devin Balkind
@devinbalkind
vitamindwb.com

[Mark Janssen-Rosenbluth]

On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Devin Balkind <devinb...@gmail.com> wrote:

Patrick, you're not alone.  I work on bringing permaculture, free/libre/opensource + p2p networks and the occupy movement together everyday. 

  

Yes, this is also what I was bringing about with the Santa Fe Complex also.  Unfortunately, the Complex has lost its building and now the whole vision is in awash in the unknown....

mark

Gothenburg, Nebr.

[Mark Janssen-Rosenbluth]

On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Devin Balkind <devinb...@gmail.com> wrote:

Patrick, you're not alone.  I work on bringing permaculture, free/libre/opensource + p2p networks and the occupy movement together everyday.   

How can we collaborate?  What do you want to do?

Hi David, I remember your work with the Serapis Foundation in upstate New York.  Now that the Santa Fe Complex (per my last message to this list) probably won't be viable to create this movement, perhaps I should move up there and we could join forces....:)

Mark J

pangaia.sf.net

[Poor Richard]

With all due respect, Patrick and others turned this thread in an off-topic direction. Getting back to the original topic, I would like to know if there is (or is not) still any interest in this group in discussing p2p application architecture.

Either way, I encourage all Next Net group members to discuss and to mention in your blogs, presentations, training, etc. the difference between real p2p application software (still fairly uncommon and under-developed) and the useful but corporate-controlled client-server applications like Google Docs and Google Groups. Most open source/free software also still uses a client-server architecture. Until end-users learn the difference between client-server and p2p software architecture it will be hard to pull the software designers and developers further in the p2p direction.

"Peer-to-peer (abbreviated to P2P) refers to a computer network in which each computer in the network can act as a client or server for the other computers in the network, allowing shared access to files and peripherals without the need for a central server [emphasis added]." (Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer 

What is less often understood is that the individual applications (such as email or shared document editing) must also have the p2p architecture built into each one. So far that is seldom the case. Somehow we must create greater awareness to drive greater demand for these kinds of p2p software products.

BTW as far as I can tell, there is no online forum dedicated to the general topic of p2p application software architecture for free/open source software designers, developers, engineers, etc. Discussions of p2p architecture tend to be found mostly in the discussions of specific p2p networking projects like freenet and FreedomBox and they tend to apply to the lower-level network routing and file-sharing issues instead of the higher application software level for real-time, interactive collaboration. If anyone knows of a general p2p application architecture group or forum, please let me know.

Thanks, PR

On Wednesday, June 6, 2012 9:33:24 PM UTC-5, Poor Richard wrote:

I've shared PeerPoint

[Mark Janssen-Rosenbluth]

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Poor Richard <poor.r...@gmail.com> wrote:

BTW as far as I can tell, there is no online forum dedicated to the general topic of p2p application software architecture for free/open source software designers, developers, engineers, etc. Discussions of p2p architecture tend to be found mostly in the discussions of specific p2p networking projects like freenet and FreedomBox and they tend to apply to the lower-level network routing and file-sharing issues instead of the higher application software level for real-time, interactive collaboration. If anyone knows of a general p2p application architecture group or forum, please let me know.

(In case you don't know,) you might want to check out the P2P-Foundation (which has a long-standing discussion on these topics) and theglobalsquare which is trying to implement same. 

mark

[Miles Fidelman]

Mark Janssen-Rosenbluth wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Poor Richard <poor.r...@gmail.com
> <mailto:poor.r...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> BTW as far as I can tell, there is no online forum dedicated to
> the general topic of p2p application software architecture for
> free/open source software designers, developers, engineers, etc.
> Discussions of p2p architecture tend to be found mostly in the
> discussions of specific p2p networking projects like freenet and
> FreedomBox and they tend to apply to the lower-level network
> routing and file-sharing issues instead of the higher application
> software level for real-time, interactive collaboration. If anyone

> knows of a general p2p *application* architecture group or forum,

> please let me know.
>
> (In case you don't know,) you might want to check out the
> P2P-Foundation (which has a long-standing discussion on these topics)
> and theglobalsquare which is trying to implement same.
>
>

The W3C has some work going on regarding p2p extensions to HTML5, HTTP,
and browser support thereof. There's a lot of activity on several of
their lists - along with new capabilities that seem to be showing up in
browsers (Chrome seems to be leading in this area).

And then there's the whole XMPP world.



--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra

[Eugen Leitl]

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 07:45:55PM -0500, Mark Janssen-Rosenbluth wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Poor Richard <poor.r...@gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> > BTW as far as I can tell, there is no online forum dedicated to the
> > general topic of p2p application software architecture for free/open source
> > software designers, developers, engineers, etc. Discussions of p2p
> > architecture tend to be found mostly in the discussions of specific
> > p2p networking projects like freenet and FreedomBox and they tend to apply
> > to the lower-level network routing and file-sharing issues instead of
> > the higher application software level for real-time, interactive

> > collaboration. If anyone knows of a general p2p *application*architecture group or forum, please let me know.

Have you tried the p2p-hackers list?

> >
> > (In case you don't know,) you might want to check out the P2P-Foundation
> (which has a long-standing discussion on these topics) and theglobalsquare
> which is trying to implement same.
>
> mark

--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

[Poor Richard]

Thanks, Eugen. I didn't know about the p2p-hackers list, but I'll sign up now.

PR

On Thursday, June 14, 2012 3:45:26 AM UTC-5, Eugen Leitl wrote:

On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 07:45:55PM -0500, Mark Janssen-Rosenbluth wrote:

[Devin Balkind]

Hi Mark.

I was just at arc 38(.org) where a core team of 6 and an extended group of 30+ occupiers are rehabbing the barns, building camps on the 100+ acre mountain, putting gardens together, and collaborating with other farms in the area.  It's the only farms composed almost entirely of occupiers.  There are other activist run farms in our network that I'll be visiting in the next few days. What are you up to?  What are you looking for? Want to get on the phone/skype/mumble and discuss opportunities?

.  They are our primary land project. I'll be  touring a few other farms where

[Poor Richard]

Miles, thanks for the suggestions.

But W3C doesn't exactly seem to be a hotbed of p2p activity, except for the occasional discussion related to mobile or real-time communication (RTC). No working group or even a community group about p2p applications. Of course the W3C focus is on technology, not applications.

And XMPP doesn't seem to go much beyond some routing and instant messaging applications yet.

I don't remember application development being one of your big interests, but please do let me know if you run across anything relevant to PeerPoint.

PR

On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 8:36:03 PM UTC-5, Miles Fidelman wrote:

Mark Janssen-Rosenbluth wrote:

[Poor Richard]

Thanks for the suggestions, Mark. I'll try to hook up with theglobalsquare folks. As for the P2P Foundation, they seem more interested in the movement and culture than the technology at the moment. I'm on their mail list and I'm curating a facebook group for the p2p peeps there.

PR

On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 7:45:55 PM UTC-5, Mark Janssen-Rosenbluth wrote:

[Isaac Wilder]

Zooko Wilcox O'Hearn runs a mailing list called p2p-hackers, but it's more for protocol/network design.
There's SecuShare, GNUnet, Tonika, and Sneer. All of which are existing projects in the space that could certainly use your help. I still do not understand the need for another separate project. Why not work with what's out there?

imw

[Poor Richard]

Hi Isaac.

I've just subscribed to the p2p-hackers list and I'm reaching out to all the other groups and projects that have been mentioned. I've also been invited to post the PeerPoint proposal on the P2P Foundation Blog.

The idea is to invite a wider community to crowdsource further evolution of the specs. I added an intro to the specs that I and others can easily email with the link to the full doc:

Greets, p2p peeps!

PeerPoint is an evolving crowdsourced design specification for a suite of integrated peer-to-peer applications to include (but not limited to) social networking, real-time project collaboration, content management, database management, voting, trust/reputation metrics, complementary currency, crowd funding, etc. This specification overlaps with many existing p2p infrastructure and social networking projects but also goes substantially beyond anything yet existing. Members of other projects are encouraged to participate in further developing the open PeerPoint specs and to adopt any part of the specs that they can use.

To participate in developing this specification, please join the Next Net Google Group and read the PeerPoint topic.

 I am not actually trying to start another development project. PeerPoint is an open, high-level functional specification for where I think all the open p2p projects are eventually heading as a group. I want to get as many of those current projects as I can to participate in evolving the PeerPoint spec further and adding increasing levels of detail that are beyond my competence.

Any suggestions?

PR