[ih] Internet History Lives on the Internet?

Sun Feb 24 13:28:53 PST 2019

This government will not last forever, but it will be replaced by another and another…but yes, sometimes governments do burn all the books and paper certainly doesn’t last all that long. Only typewriter fonts and ASCII art are permanent. 

> On Feb 24, 2019, at 2:15 PM, John Day <jeanjour at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> For the timescales we need, we need something that lasts longer than even governments. In some of my other research, I am handling documents that are 400-800 years old. (Some work with even older stuff.) We can’t assume even governments will last that long.
> 
> John
> 
>> On Feb 24, 2019, at 15:09, Richard Bennett <richard at bennett.com <mailto:richard at bennett.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> It’s probably most reliable to pass a bill appropriating some money to the Lib. of Congress to host something like the Internet Archive database. Volunteer efforts always have a limited lifespan but government is forever.
>> 
>> RB
>> 
>>> On Feb 24, 2019, at 12:36 PM, Miles Fidelman <mfidelman at meetinghouse.net <mailto:mfidelman at meetinghouse.net>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> The whole question of persistent storage remains an unsolved problem.
>>> 
>>> There have been models of distributed publication - like oceanstore and 
>>> publius (huge, distributed hash tables) - but they tend to fall down if 
>>> lots of people don't keep maintaining disk space.
>>> 
>>> I keep thinking of the notion of a federation of storage providers where 
>>> one pays once for either a block of replicated storage, or for 
>>> publication of a file/document.  These days, a 1TB disk costs $100 
>>> (retail) - so 10cents/GB.  Multiply by 5 for replicated copies, and 
>>> assume a 2-year disk life, and we're talking 25cents/year for a Gig of 
>>> reliable storage (leaving out networking costs).  $25, at 1% interest, 
>>> would "endow" a Gig of reliable storage, "forever" (think about how we 
>>> pay for perpetual care of a gravesite.
>>> 
>>> What's missing is a legal & accounting mechanism for handling the 
>>> money.  Folks pay to self-publish an e-book - it sure would be nice to 
>>> be able pay, say $50, once, to make a document available for the life of 
>>> the Internet.
>>> 
>>> Miles
>>> 
>>> On 2/24/19 1:39 PM, Jack Haverty wrote:
>>>> [Changed the subject line]
>>>> 
>>>> I read the recent messages on the forum just before going to sleep, and
>>>> then I had a dream....literally.
>>>> 
>>>> There's a whole different perspective on Internet History that might be
>>>> very revealing.  Instead of questions like "Who built the Internet?",
>>>> perhaps also ask "Who paid for the Internet?"  If historians "followed
>>>> the money" like many other investigators, they might find some
>>>> interesting insights.  I didn't realize until today that the IETF is
>>>> funded by ... Me!   Through my payments for my .org domain, maybe by now
>>>> I've paid for an urn or two of coffee at an IETF meeting.
>>>> 
>>>> But my dream was of how to fund some kind of Internet repository of
>>>> historical materials, not subject to the management whims or financial
>>>> success of an "institution".   My dream reminded me that such mechanisms
>>>> already exist, have been running at scale for years, are self-funded,
>>>> and seem essentially impossible to excise even when governments or
>>>> industry giants try to do so.
>>>> 
>>>> My dream is of a Benevolent BotNet (apologies to my alma mater, BBN).
>>>> Instead of hosting and propagating malware and viruses, or stealing
>>>> computer cycle to mine cryptocurrency, the BBN would simply store,
>>>> replicate, and distribute historical materials on demand.  No doubt
>>>> Richard's comment on Pirate Bay triggered this part of the dream.
>>>> 
>>>> Such technology obviously exists, and survives despite serious efforts
>>>> to eradicate it.  Where the Internet was coopted for evil, perhaps the
>>>> evil could be coopted for good?
>>>> 
>>>> Maybe even better would be a mechanism that didn't rely on theft and
>>>> subterfuge at all.  Perhaps something akin to the SETI mechanisms, where
>>>> people voluntarily donate their computer resources to analyze radio
>>>> signals, by simply downloading a piece of code and allowing it to run on
>>>> their computers.
>>>> 
>>>> So, my dream was that some new software appears, which is freely
>>>> downloaded by thousands or millions of people around the world, which
>>>> uses a few GB of the disk on their machines, and stores historical
>>>> material in a redundant, highly survivable, persistent, distrubuted
>>>> historical warehouse.   One, or many, search engines (go Google!, Bing!,
>>>> DuckDuckGo!) would allow people to find material in the warehouse.
>>>> Anyone could contribute material to the historical archive by simply
>>>> placing a copy into the disk area of their machine that they've shared,
>>>> from where it would be automatically distributed and replicated.
>>>> 
>>>> Perhaps this is one or more apps that can be downloaded.  Or perhaps a
>>>> plug in or extension to popular browsers.  Or maybe an addition to
>>>> existing mechanisms like BitTorrent.  Much of the code already exists,
>>>> as evidenced by the millions of computers unwittingly participating in a
>>>> Botnet, or willingly running code like SETI.
>>>> 
>>>> Dave's offer of disk space is just the start.  I suspect many people
>>>> would contribute some unused chunk of their computers and network
>>>> capacity.  I have a few Terabytes on my NAS that are empty...you
>>>> probably do too.   With enough participants, the BBN becomes
>>>> self-suficient even as people come and go.
>>>> 
>>>> All it would seem to take is for someone to sit down and write the
>>>> code....in the classic Internet spirit of Rough Consensus and Running Code.
>>>> 
>>>> Dave....?
>>>> 
>>>> /Jack Haverty
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 2/24/19 7:42 AM, Dave Taht wrote:
>>>>> Joe Touch <touch at strayalpha.com <mailto:touch at strayalpha.com>> writes:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Feb 23, 2019, at 12:42 PM, Jack Haverty <jack at 3kitty.org <mailto:jack at 3kitty.org>> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>     But "internet-history at postel.org <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>", and others like it, even RFC
>>>>>>     repositories, likely exist at the whim of their sponsor.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Indeed - even assuming volunteers run them - they’re’s still the issue
>>>>>> of hosting and net access.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I have old repositories (end2end-interest, for one) that even the ISOC
>>>>>> has declined to host (even though the E2E-RG originated there).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Then again, if you want to see the worst of “free riders”, go attend
>>>>>> an IETF. Companies send armies there for free training and free
>>>>>> consulting.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> PS - speaking as list admin, if anyone wants to offer a place to host
>>>>>> this list more reliably and archivally, please do let me know (contact
>>>>>> me directly off-list).
>>>>> My email list server currently lives on linode in the cloud. The cost is
>>>>> $5/month for 25GB of SSD storage. ( https://www.linode.com/pricing <https://www.linode.com/pricing>
>>>>> ). Has IPv6 and IPv4. It's paid for via a patreon donation.
>>>>> 
>>>>> It's not like I'm using much of that box - or the bandwidth available -
>>>>> how big are these archives?
>>>>> 
>>>>> I wouldn't mind sharing that existing list server, but I long ago
>>>>> switched to violating whatever RFC it was that said starttls was a
>>>>> "should" - to *mandate* starttls only - which cuts down on spam (and
>>>>> sigh, about 13% of my measured potential correspondents, still). The
>>>>> biggest administrative cost I'd had was dealing with spam.
>>>>> 
>>>>> If that's not an acceptable policy for these lists/archives, well, go
>>>>> burn the 5 bucks/mo on yer own.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Joe
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> _______
>>>>>> internet-history mailing list
>>>>>> internet-history at postel.org <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>
>>>>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history <http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history>
>>>>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>>>> _______
>>>> internet-history mailing list
>>>> internet-history at postel.org <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>
>>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history <http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history>
>>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
>>> In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra
>>> 
>>> _______
>>> internet-history mailing list
>>> internet-history at postel.org <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>
>>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history <http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history>
>>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
>> 
>> —
>> Richard Bennett
>> High Tech Forum <http://hightechforum.org/> Founder
>> Ethernet & Wi-Fi standards co-creator
>> 
>> Internet Policy Consultant
>> 
>> _______
>> internet-history mailing list
>> internet-history at postel.org <mailto:internet-history at postel.org>
>> http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
>> Contact list-owner at postel.org for assistance.
> 

—
Richard Bennett
High Tech Forum <http://hightechforum.org/> Founder
Ethernet & Wi-Fi standards co-creator

Internet Policy Consultant

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