I'm a little concerned about their security model though:
As of a very recent conversation, they seem to be ok with password being known by POD providers, which would make your data owned by the POD, not you.
I was trying to encourage them to use E2EE with our security tool that several other big dApps in the industry have adopted: (d.tube, notabug.io, Internet Archive, etc.)
The only person who seemed interested was Tim Berners-Lee himself when I talked to him, and Ruben.
If either of you, or anyone else in the team see this, PLEASE please contact me urgently, I'm still willing to contribute, but when I tried nobody else seemed to care.
They should look into whether they can base it on object capabilities, if they haven't already done that. I think things like sandstorm.io (and others, see: https://github.com/dckc/awesome-ocap ) are the future of distributed systems.
I think they got funded by someone and now Tim has left MIT and works for the funded version of this. Forgot what it’s called. I was in touch w the team in the past. Tried to join forces with https://qbix.com/platform because I felt we were much further ahead but needed more standards compliance. It never led to anything so I haven’t really been following them. But Melvin Carvalho and the team are still activeon github.
Big Projects don't always live or die on their public visibility, but this one feels like it failed at launch in terms of subsequent coverage and news.
Data ownership doesn't imply agency and control. In the future I own my data, so what? Does every company simply just demand access to all of it so I can use their services?
For data ownership to really matter users/consumers need to be able to bargain on equal terms with companies, probably collectively.
The EU certainly wouldn't allow such demands of its citizens - the GDPR non-compliance fines are starting and will hopefully make people stop collecting and holding data they don't need.
Only glanced at this but is this like Urbit without the weird homesteading politics? It seems like a revival of the semantic web with RDF and all.
I just don't think this is ever going to work, because this form of decentralisation just doesn't scale. The complexity that comes with separating data and computation and the standards and protocols that need to be invented to get everyone to talk to each other just don't provide enough utility.
We've put data into companies and silos becaues there's actually value to this division of labour. The hierarchies that Solid and others try to combat emerge naturally.
A very broad dismissal of a useful concept, with no real substance. Just because it is easier and cheaper to keep data in company silos doesn't mean that will always be kept there. People are trying to make a difference.
I don't think that the dismissal has no substance. If it's cheaper and easier to hand the storage and management of data over to a third party, that's a pretty big reason to do it. If there's two fundamental things people care about, it's price and convenience.
And I'm sorry, but these semantic web ideas are 30 years old. Adoption is practically non-existent. Do you really think the burden of proof where the value is really is on me?
Most people don't care... Until they realise some random company knows their address, name, DOB, favourite food, browsing habits, friends and family, personality.........
This is all data, not furnitures. You owning it and storing it on your homeserver doesn't prevent a third party from knowing where you live and what you ate for breakfast.
There are various ways it could be nice. For example, only having one location to back up, if you want backups, rather than having to find the download-my-data link for every single service you use.
I'm a little concerned about their security model though:
As of a very recent conversation, they seem to be ok with password being known by POD providers, which would make your data owned by the POD, not you.
I was trying to encourage them to use E2EE with our security tool that several other big dApps in the industry have adopted: (d.tube, notabug.io, Internet Archive, etc.)
https://gun.eco/docs/SEA
The only person who seemed interested was Tim Berners-Lee himself when I talked to him, and Ruben.
If either of you, or anyone else in the team see this, PLEASE please contact me urgently, I'm still willing to contribute, but when I tried nobody else seemed to care.