[Arm-netbook] Free software possibly abusing network effect

[Jean Flamelle]

On 12/21/17, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl at lkcl.net> wrote:
>  (1) they're setting themselves up as a sole exclusive gateway.
> *they* are in control... thus it's no different from the USA
> controlling DNS by controlling the root-level DNS servers.
>
>  (2) ticket touts (aka "cyber squatting").  the problem with DNS is:
> once someone's registered a domain that's it, they can charge you
> whatever they like.  in this case it's EVEN WORSE than the DNS
> registration system as there's no authority you can appeal to to
> reclaim a name... thus your ENTIRE BUSINESS can be phished by a cyber
> squatter.
>
>  does that sound like a reasonable summary?  (1) cartel (2) ticket tout.

In the case of urbit, I'm afraid they will eventually get mainstream
appeal, as a network which deters spam. The issue is much much worse
than DNS, not because there is no appeal body (there is, kindof).
Their "name" system is hierarchal so at the top is the dev team which
assigns 0000 0000 through 1111 1111 those then can assign the portion
of 00 through FF which is prefixed by their name. So if I literally
purchase from the dev team 0101 0101 in their name space, they will
write my public key into the source code and I can literally start
selling addresses 0101 0101 0000 0000 through 0101 0101 1111 1111.
Continuing in this pattern until FFFF FFFF. The problem I see is
prefix competition.


>> I outline my chief problem with this in the issue which was closed
>> literally within minutes.
>
>  that should tell you everything you need to know.
[it was an hour to be exact; I exaggerated]

>  it looks similar to blockstack, where, bless 'em, that team clearly
> have their hearts in the right place... designing something that is
> entirely libre, they've even set themselves up as a Benefit
> Corporation...


They even suggest in their docs, when it comes to spam filtering some
prefixes will be like bad neighborhoods. There is no rule stopping a
prefix owner from demanding (in addition to money) social media
passwords, government issued ID, travel records, an test of aquity, or
pretty much any of the numerous things that can be done wrong with
immigration checks. Why would anyone subject themselves to any of
this?
To be able to get around a website's spam filter that's why.

This fixes captcha, but breaks freedom of information at it's core as
well as freedom of speech at its core.

I'd like to point out the underlining OS looks like a masterwork they
literally described in their whitepaper as something you might find on
an alien spaceship.
https://media.urbit.org/whitepaper.pdf

I'm very afraid they might gain real traction if someone doesn't fork
them and create some sort of PKI-linked captcha system. Maybe then
they'll fix the error of their ways..


>  .... aand they're recommending that in order to discuss how to free
> yourself from data privacy invasions and design apps that allow users
> control of their data... you should REGISTER ON SLACK!!!!
>
> gaah :)
>
> more fundamentally than that, their entire protocol yet again sets
> themselves up as "my gateway or the highway".  they've not realised
> that they've set themselves up as a cartel.  sure, the source code is
> available!!  but that's absolutely no good WHATSOEVER if, when you set
> up your OWN network, you are FORCED out: YOUR users cannot interact
> with THEIR users.
>
>  so they *talk* of it being decentralised peer-to-peer but have
> fundamentally failed to understand the concept.
>
> oy, oy, what can you do, ehn? :)
>
> l.
>
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