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free as in water

free as in water

Posted Mar 5, 2019 20:23 UTC (Tue) by Garak (guest, #99377)
In reply to: Rosenzweig: The federation fallacy by Cyberax
Parent article: Rosenzweig: The federation fallacy

and in the modern age, all of those things ought to be as accessible to the penniless as a glass of water, daily bread, a cot, and some kind of reasonable shelter. Giving people access to Free Speech on the Global Information Superhighway is not more expensive to society than providing a free glass of tap water at any restaurant. I.e. a razpi, the electricity to run it, and the added cost to the local cable modem utility corporation are as justifiable in the modern age as the cost of all those free glasses of water.


to post comments

free as in water

Posted Mar 5, 2019 20:43 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (34 responses)

The cost of one RPi would be enough to run a small VPS for a year. It will get even worse once cloud ARM64 servers become more prevalent.

apples and oranges

Posted Mar 5, 2019 21:09 UTC (Tue) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (33 responses)

A server in the hand is better than a flock of them in a cloud owned and operated by someone else for their profit instead of yours.

apples and oranges

Posted Mar 5, 2019 21:20 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (31 responses)

Why is it better? I don't generate my own electricity, grow my food, purify my water or mine oil and distill gasoline. Why is server hosting any different?

censorship

Posted Mar 5, 2019 22:28 UTC (Tue) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (26 responses)

fewer third parties that get veto power over your Free Speech.

Again, the important thing isn't that everyone is saying things that require them to have extreme lack of communication channel censors. The important thing is that everyone *COULD IF THEY WANTED TO*. It may just be my USA democracy/freespeech propaganda upbringing talking here, but I think it's critically important to the health of democracy to hold a hard-line on free speech issues. And messily complicated as it is to draw the whole of modern internet technology into the equation, I think it's necessary to do so. And from my understanding of things, the ability to host your own server facilitating such minimization of external censorship opportunities, is a necessary part of that equation.

censorship

Posted Mar 5, 2019 23:28 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (25 responses)

> fewer third parties that get veto power over your Free Speech.
TLDR; version - it'll be slightly less convenient to spew neo-Nazi or far-right propaganda.

When somebody starts moaning about the freedom of speech it's always that.

naked troll alert

Posted Mar 6, 2019 0:34 UTC (Wed) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (3 responses)

> fewer third parties that get veto power over your Free Speech.
TLDR; version - it'll be slightly less convenient to spew neo-Nazi or far-right propaganda.

When somebody starts moaning about the freedom of speech it's always that.
It is certainly true that Free Speech, and Freedom more generally are often used in the service of double plus ungoodness. Such is the price we all pay to enjoy their benefits. But I'll take that tradeoff any day of my life.

naked troll alert

Posted Mar 6, 2019 5:49 UTC (Wed) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

And so how home servers are going to help the Freedom of Speech?

read the plentiful lines

Posted Mar 7, 2019 3:08 UTC (Thu) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link]

see my other comments

naked troll alert

Posted Mar 6, 2019 16:28 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> But I'll take that tradeoff any day of my life.

That's your choice, but you don't have the *right* to *force* that trade-off on to me.

"fast, cheap, good. Pick any two ..." There's a whole bunch of things people desire that fall in to this category - choosing one inevitably means you lose another. Just because YOU value freedom of speech above other things, doesn't mean I do.

And, quite frankly, it seems to me all too often that "freedom of speech" is equivalent to "forcing your views down my throat". The American constitutional right "to pursue happiness" all too often means *REDUCING* the total happiness (happiness is not zero-sum...). There's plenty more I could come up with if I thought about it ... :-)

A lot of non-USians see the US as a greedy self-centred bully, and that sort of attitude re-inforces that view. Yes we may not have been any better in our heyday, but I hope some of us have learnt. I'm not sure, though, given the Little England mentality of "let's put the 'Great' back in to Great Britain".

Cheers,
Wol

censorship

Posted Mar 6, 2019 16:15 UTC (Wed) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (1 responses)

TLDR; version - it'll be slightly less convenient to spew neo-Nazi or far-right propaganda.

When somebody starts moaning about the freedom of speech it's always that.

That's totally unfair. Sometimes when they moan about freedom of speech it's about attempts to block spam, false advertising, and other forms of commercial fraud.

censorship

Posted Mar 7, 2019 18:43 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

Ha! You pampered, spoiled first-worlders...

Down here in our small corner of Latin America, some of us still value free speech because some of us have seen (as recently as the 1980s and 1990s) our relatives being tortured and killed for investigating government corruption...

Cría cuervos, e te bicarán los ojos...

censorship

Posted Mar 8, 2019 1:33 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (15 responses)

My friends in Nicaragua beg to differ. They live in a civil war and they would very much like to have the freedom of speech that you write about so derogatory.

Many years ago, I had acquaintances in China who ended up in prison because they exercised their ideal of "freedom of speech". I think they see it different than you, too.

Please note: Neither the USA nor other 1st world countries are the whole world.

Cheers,
Joachim

PS: I'm from a country where neo-Nazi propaganda is illegal even on your own server, and I think that's OK. We learned the hard way that there are limits to freedom of speech *because* it is so valuable.

censorship

Posted Mar 8, 2019 1:39 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (14 responses)

> My friends in Nicaragua beg to differ. They live in a civil war and they would very much like to have the freedom of speech that you write about so derogatory.
And how a box at home will help it? It's even worse - your home box can easily be confiscated.

Sidenote, in Russia cloud services advertised that they are police-proof. It's very typical for corrupt local government to confiscate physical servers as a "material evidence" in a drummed-up criminal case. Even if there's no crime committed and the company is cleared in the court, its work can be paralyzed for months.

And on a bigger note, if your government has no freedom of speech then work to fix THAT problem.

censorship

Posted Mar 8, 2019 1:56 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (13 responses)

> > My friends in Nicaragua beg to differ. They live in a civil war and they would very much like to have the freedom of speech that you write about so derogatory.
> And how a box at home will help it?

This is not about running services *at home* but about running services *under one's control*.
Don't move the goal posts.

> And on a bigger note, if your government has no freedom of speech then work to fix THAT problem.

Two days ago, I received the notice that the brother of one of my friends in Nicaragua was killed by government forces. Thanks a lot, but I see in real life what it means "to fix THAT problem" and I don't need your complacant comment about that -- and, btw, independently operated communication services help with the fight for fixing, even if you don't recognize that.

censorship

Posted Mar 8, 2019 1:58 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (12 responses)

> This is not about running services *at home* but about running services *under one's control*.
> Don't move the goal posts.
I'm not moving ANYTHING. The whole thread is "running services AT HOME". With the impediment being an FCC rule somewhere.

Don't move your excuses.

> Two days ago, I received the notice that the brother of one of my friends in Nicaragua was killed by government forces. Thanks a lot, but I see in real life what it means "to fix THAT problem" and I don't need your complacant comment about that -- and, btw, independently operated communication services help with the fight for fixing, even if you don't recognize that.
No it's not. It's at best a distraction. At worst it's a diversion.

censorship

Posted Mar 8, 2019 2:35 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link] (1 responses)

> > This is not about running services *at home* but about running services *under one's control*.
> > Don't move the goal posts.
> I'm not moving ANYTHING. The whole thread is "running services AT HOME".

This thread started with

> A server in the hand is better than a flock of them in a cloud owned and operated by someone else for their profit instead of yours.

I.e., this is about not running servers *in a cloud owned and operated by someone else for their profit*.

I read *in the hand* as *under one's control*, as cited above. Physical location in one's house (a.k.a "at home") doesn't matter. In fact, you're right that running a server at home is usually not desirable in repressive situations.

> Don't move your excuses.

I don't move my excuses. My reaction was to your comment where you wrote

> > fewer third parties that get veto power over your Free Speech.
> TLDR; version - it'll be slightly less convenient to spew neo-Nazi or far-right propaganda.
> When somebody starts moaning about the freedom of speech it's always that.

and equated "moaning about freedom of speech" with "spewing neo-Nazi propaganda". This bold equation was the one that I reacted to.

I'm from Germany, I live in Germany, and I have probably more experience fighting against with "Nazi propaganda" than you, being politically active here since 4 decades. Equating "Nazi propaganda" to "moaning about free speech" (your words!) is a disservice to the quest for an open and inclusive society.

> > Two days ago, I received the notice that the brother of one of my friends in Nicaragua was killed by government forces. Thanks a lot, but I see in real life what it means "to fix THAT problem" and I don't need your complacant comment about that -- and, btw, independently operated communication services help with the fight for fixing, even if you don't recognize that.
> No it's not. It's at best a distraction. At worst it's a diversion.

You changed context by deleting your snarky comment that this replied to. FTR:

> > And on a bigger note, if your government has no freedom of speech then work to fix THAT problem.

I.e., you cannot see the value of own-controlled communication services in a repressive society when one is on the opposition side.

Well, since that's the case: I retract my expressed opinion that you wrote a complacant comment. That is not a fitting term, and here's not the proper place to express what I think about this. It seems that we live in different worlds, and since that is the case, I'll stop participating in this thread.

censorship

Posted Mar 8, 2019 8:57 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

> I.e., this is about not running servers *in a cloud owned and operated by someone else for their profit*.
Maybe not this branch of the thread, but its peer is about home servers explicitly.

> I'm from Germany, I live in Germany, and I have probably more experience fighting against with "Nazi propaganda" than you, being politically active here since 4 decades. Equating "Nazi propaganda" to "moaning about free speech" (your words!) is a disservice to the quest for an open and inclusive society.
In the US right now the "free speech advocates" almost invariably turn out to be Nazis/racists or crazies.

> I.e., you cannot see the value of own-controlled communication services in a repressive society when one is on the opposition side.
Nope. I saw that the value of self-controlled communication services is pretty much zero. GMail or Facebook turned out to be more helpful.

And if you want to compete about who lived through more civil disturbance then you'll probably lose.

network neutrality is related to the issues in this discussion

Posted Mar 8, 2019 2:45 UTC (Fri) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (9 responses)

> This is not about running services *at home* but about running services *under one's control*.
> Don't move the goal posts.
I'm not moving ANYTHING. The whole thread is "running services AT HOME". With the impediment being an FCC rule somewhere.

Don't move your excuses.
Cyberax is a troll or a bot or something and perhaps ought to know better. The two of us have gone over the issue in as much depth in multiple prior LWN comment threads. The FCC angle was something I added to the article's discussion comment thread. Cyberax steadfastly holds the position that my angle does not represent good thinking on the subject. I have come to the conclusion that Cyberax is a troll or has some personal stake that isn't clear to me yet explaining their opposition to my FCC issue.

While I mocked the mocking/hyberbolic reference to unrealistic dreams in the beginning of the article in another comment, it happens to be true that one of my longer term dreams is to see a better federated client/browser for these creativecommons lwn comments that facilitates tagging, tracking, and minimizing troll impact in the reading of these lwn discussions. Using a federated reputation system solving basically the same fundamental issue as brought up by spam-fighting in the federated email universe. We should have the freedom to architect our own 'echo chambers' :) (one of the first domains I registered was 'filteredperception.org'. Empowering people to more efficiently filter their own perception of the internet is worth doing I think)

You might just try ignoring Cyberax until then, or perhaps theorize the account holder has deployed an annoying chatbot. Whatever works...

network neutrality is related to the issues in this discussion

Posted Mar 8, 2019 2:52 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

> Cyberax is a troll or a bot or something and perhaps ought to know better.
- I'm an FCC bot and I approve this message.

filtered/richlycontextualized perception

Posted Mar 8, 2019 4:06 UTC (Fri) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link]

[me]> Cyberax is a troll or a bot or something and perhaps ought to know better.
[Cyberax]- I'm an FCC bot and I approve this message.
On the subject of
one of my longer term dreams is to see a better federated client/browser for these creativecommons lwn comments that facilitates tagging, tracking, and minimizing troll impact in the reading of these lwn discussions. Using a federated reputation system solving basically the same fundamental issue as brought up by spam-fighting in the federated email universe.
A quick hack that comes to mind would be adding a link to every comment which goes to a page of links to prior comments of that commenter responding to the same individual. Or a generated list of search results based on a search of the commenter's past comments using the current comment as the search terms. Not quite a federated next generation slashdot frenemy reputation filtering, but perhaps facilitating easier gleaming of long term conversational insights.

network neutrality is related to the issues in this discussion

Posted Mar 8, 2019 15:25 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

> Cyberax is a troll or a bot or something and perhaps ought to know better. The two of us have gone over the issue in as much depth in multiple prior LWN comment threads. The FCC angle was something I added to the article's discussion comment thread.

I'd be careful there ... I've had my differences with Cyberax, but I see *you* as closer to a troll than him...

Remember my "cheap, fast, good" comment? Free speech is no use when you're dying from an easily-cured illness because you're too poor to afford the treatment. Value systems differ, and yours seems badly out-of-kilter with mine, and probably Cyberax's. Free Speech is worthless, if you lack the resources to make yourself heard.

Cheers,
Wol

our conversation ends at the point of implied threats to my Free Speech

Posted Mar 8, 2019 17:52 UTC (Fri) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (5 responses)

[Wol]: I've had my differences with Cyberax, but I see *you* as closer to a troll than him

[Also Wol elsewhere]: And, quite frankly, it seems to me all too often that "freedom of speech" is equivalent to "forcing your views down my throat".
I do remeber your words. I'm wise enough to know when to end a conversation permanently. Please refrain from replying directly to any comments of mine in the future, I will make the same effort.

A wise troll once said "The line between trollness and non-trollness is not a line drawn on a map or in the sand between people. It is a line drawn down the heart of each and every one of us."

our conversation ends at the point of implied threats to my Free Speech

Posted Mar 8, 2019 19:03 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (4 responses)

> I do remeber your words. I'm wise enough to know when to end a conversation permanently. Please refrain from replying directly to any comments of mine in the future, I will make the same effort.
Sounds especially ironic from a free-speech advocate.

magic words

Posted Mar 8, 2019 19:28 UTC (Fri) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (3 responses)

please cease and desist

magic words

Posted Mar 18, 2019 16:06 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

So... you think everyone should be free to respond to whatever comments they like and have unbridled free speech except when *you* disagree with them? You're even using inappropriate legal terminology ("cease and desist") to try to cast a pall of theoretical legalese over the thread-branch you dislike.

This seems like a rather inconsistent worldview (though a common one). Freedom, freedom for everyone who agrees with me! But everyone else can go hang.

magic words

Posted Mar 23, 2019 22:07 UTC (Sat) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link] (1 responses)

please don't overlook the subject

magic words

Posted Mar 27, 2019 15:15 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

The subject? You're now doing this on every thread where people have the temerity to disagree with you. The subject appears to be 'all subjects'.

censorship

Posted Mar 8, 2019 22:31 UTC (Fri) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (2 responses)

Nice godwin. I'll be sure to remind you of it if I ever see you complaining that Recaptcha has unpersoned you from the bulk of the internet for not generating enough capital via free labour.

censorship

Posted Mar 9, 2019 1:07 UTC (Sat) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

??
What does reCaptcha has to do with right-wing whiners?

censorship

Posted Mar 22, 2019 7:44 UTC (Fri) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link]

Don't act like one of those whiners. I was very obviously responding to a thread in which you vocally advocate for individuals relinquishing their ability to host content on the internet to cloud service gatekeepers. Have you never been slapped in the face by cloudflare telling you you're not human and demanding you submit proof to google before you're permitted to read J. Random's blog? Lucky you.

apples and oranges

Posted Mar 7, 2019 8:59 UTC (Thu) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] (3 responses)

Cloud VPSs that are so cheap (at least in my experience) have a tendency to disappear abruptly when the company offering them closes, rebrands, etc.

Even in the lucky case that to migrate away is your own decision or that the VPS provider tells you with sufficient advance that they are shutting down your service, even on a fast internet connection moving away many tens GBs of email from the VPS can be painful and may lead you to exceed the allowed rate/month.

Furthermore, why saving your chats/posts/email at a cheap VPS provider should give you better privacy guarantees than doing it with google, amazon, facebook, etc.?

apples and oranges

Posted Mar 7, 2019 9:44 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

> Cloud VPSs that are so cheap (at least in my experience) have a tendency to disappear abruptly when the company offering them closes, rebrands, etc.
So does your home server hard drive...

backup copies and choosing where to physically store important data

Posted Mar 7, 2019 17:20 UTC (Thu) by Garak (guest, #99377) [Link]

offline and offsite backups matter. I'm not sure if that task can be simplified enough for toddlers and grandmothers to handle it, but maybe somebody will rise to that challenge someday.

apples and oranges

Posted Mar 11, 2019 10:49 UTC (Mon) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]

I think this is why you need a 3rd party encrypted backup solution to go with the service you buy.

apples and oranges

Posted Mar 11, 2019 10:36 UTC (Mon) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]

I think their is a huge difference between:

mom-and-pop hosting provider in the same city or regional large city of which you know where the datacenter is compared to storing your stuff with Microsoft or Google.

One thing that makes life a lot easier in that case is: same jurisdiction.


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