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    <p>Jack,</p>
    <p>There have been attempts at this, before - Oceanstore and Publius
      come to mind.  The problem is that people come and go, and the
      Federations disappear.  There's also a scaling problem.  <br>
    </p>
    <p>My take is that, at some point, things have to become
      institutionalized, and maybe money has to change hands.</p>
    <p>Miles<br>
    </p>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/24/19 9:33 PM, Jack Haverty wrote:<br>
    </div>
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      cite="mid:2f40c61a-8957-959d-19d9-80ff5a2bfbb3@3kitty.org">
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      <p>True, but I think a first step is a persistent crowd-sourced
        public store, which is what I described.    Perhaps "restricted"
        material could be simply stored encrypted, and thus visible in
        search engines and accessible only to people with the
        appropriate key, or maybe "permission" credentials.  Volunteers
        might be reluctant to participate if that became too common.  <br>
      </p>
      <p>There's also other considerations, e.g., tracking the
        provenance of an item, so you can tell whether or not something
        is authentic, where it came from, when it was created, etc.  
        Probably many more such things to ponder.  <br>
      </p>
      <p>IMHO those kinds of capabilities could be add-ons to a
        persistent store as meta-data mechanisms, possibly many of them
        all independent, associating their metadata with items in the
        warehouse by some kind of unique ID - perhaps just a
        large-enough hash of each of the contents.   They could be added
        as someone gets interested in doing so.<br>
      </p>
      <p>Anybody could build a metadata mechanism "on top of" the
        persistent store.   Some might be built by volunteers and free,
        others by corporations and for sale.  This is almost what the
        Web is, except that the Web store isn't persistent - things on
        the Web disappear without warning.   Someone might put a web
        site "in front of" the persistent store and use today's web
        tools pretty much as is to access materials stored there.<br>
      </p>
      <p>/Jack<br>
      </p>
      <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/24/19 4:07 PM, Vint Cerf wrote:<br>
      </div>
      <blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAHxHggcJFdtjU6WisdPz9arEbGRdO13=J6uAvPbEuSrSRt8cug@mail.gmail.com">
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        <div dir="ltr">not all data that we might want to preserve needs
          to be publicly accessible.
          <div><br>
          </div>
          <div>v</div>
          <div><br>
          </div>
        </div>
        <br>
        <div class="gmail_quote">
          <div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Feb 24, 2019 at 6:23
            PM Jack Haverty <<a href="mailto:jack@3kitty.org"
              moz-do-not-send="true">jack@3kitty.org</a>> wrote:<br>
          </div>
          <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
            0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
            rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
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              <p>I don't know much about SOLID, but it appears to be
                addressing the problem of handling individuals' personal
                private data, and controlling who can access it.   What
                I described was somewhat of the inverse - making data
                public, survivable, and accessible to everyone.  But
                maybe there's overlap in any implementation.  Certainly
                there are lots of pieces already in place somewhere, as
                evidenced by the success of viruses, pirated videos, and
                the like.<br>
              </p>
              <p>The Internet has made possible new sorts of social
                mechanisms.  What I'm imagining is more like applying
                Internet-style "crowd-funding" to the problem of a
                historical archive, where people contribute cycles and
                bytes rather than euros and dollars.   <br>
              </p>
              <p>That wasn't possible pre-Internet, but it is now.  
                Thinking "outside the box" is a lot easier.  The
                Internet made the box much bigger....</p>
              <p>/Jack<br>
              </p>
              <p><br>
              </p>
              <div class="gmail-m_-5922535944441398686moz-cite-prefix">On
                2/24/19 2:45 PM, Vint Cerf wrote:<br>
              </div>
              <blockquote type="cite">
                <div dir="ltr">isn't that what SOLID is supposed to do?
                  <div><br>
                  </div>
                  <div>v</div>
                  <div><br>
                  </div>
                </div>
                <br>
                <div class="gmail_quote">
                  <div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Feb 24, 2019
                    at 1:47 PM Jack Haverty <<a
                      href="mailto:jack@3kitty.org" target="_blank"
                      moz-do-not-send="true">jack@3kitty.org</a>>
                    wrote:<br>
                  </div>
                  <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px
                    0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
                    rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">[Changed the
                    subject line]<br>
                    <br>
                    I read the recent messages on the forum just before
                    going to sleep, and<br>
                    then I had a dream....literally.<br>
                    <br>
                    There's a whole different perspective on Internet
                    History that might be<br>
                    very revealing.  Instead of questions like "Who
                    built the Internet?",<br>
                    perhaps also ask "Who paid for the Internet?"  If
                    historians "followed<br>
                    the money" like many other investigators, they might
                    find some<br>
                    interesting insights.  I didn't realize until today
                    that the IETF is<br>
                    funded by ... Me!   Through my payments for my .org
                    domain, maybe by now<br>
                    I've paid for an urn or two of coffee at an IETF
                    meeting.<br>
                    <br>
                    But my dream was of how to fund some kind of
                    Internet repository of<br>
                    historical materials, not subject to the management
                    whims or financial<br>
                    success of an "institution".   My dream reminded me
                    that such mechanisms<br>
                    already exist, have been running at scale for years,
                    are self-funded,<br>
                    and seem essentially impossible to excise even when
                    governments or<br>
                    industry giants try to do so.<br>
                    <br>
                    My dream is of a Benevolent BotNet (apologies to my
                    alma mater, BBN). <br>
                    Instead of hosting and propagating malware and
                    viruses, or stealing<br>
                    computer cycle to mine cryptocurrency, the BBN would
                    simply store,<br>
                    replicate, and distribute historical materials on
                    demand.  No doubt<br>
                    Richard's comment on Pirate Bay triggered this part
                    of the dream.<br>
                    <br>
                    Such technology obviously exists, and survives
                    despite serious efforts<br>
                    to eradicate it.  Where the Internet was coopted for
                    evil, perhaps the<br>
                    evil could be coopted for good?<br>
                    <br>
                    Maybe even better would be a mechanism that didn't
                    rely on theft and<br>
                    subterfuge at all.  Perhaps something akin to the
                    SETI mechanisms, where<br>
                    people voluntarily donate their computer resources
                    to analyze radio<br>
                    signals, by simply downloading a piece of code and
                    allowing it to run on<br>
                    their computers.<br>
                    <br>
                    So, my dream was that some new software appears,
                    which is freely<br>
                    downloaded by thousands or millions of people around
                    the world, which<br>
                    uses a few GB of the disk on their machines, and
                    stores historical<br>
                    material in a redundant, highly survivable,
                    persistent, distrubuted<br>
                    historical warehouse.   One, or many, search engines
                    (go Google!, Bing!,<br>
                    DuckDuckGo!) would allow people to find material in
                    the warehouse.  <br>
                    Anyone could contribute material to the historical
                    archive by simply<br>
                    placing a copy into the disk area of their machine
                    that they've shared,<br>
                    from where it would be automatically distributed and
                    replicated.<br>
                    <br>
                    Perhaps this is one or more apps that can be
                    downloaded.  Or perhaps a<br>
                    plug in or extension to popular browsers.  Or maybe
                    an addition to<br>
                    existing mechanisms like BitTorrent.  Much of the
                    code already exists,<br>
                    as evidenced by the millions of computers
                    unwittingly participating in a<br>
                    Botnet, or willingly running code like SETI.<br>
                    <br>
                    Dave's offer of disk space is just the start.  I
                    suspect many people<br>
                    would contribute some unused chunk of their
                    computers and network<br>
                    capacity.  I have a few Terabytes on my NAS that are
                    empty...you<br>
                    probably do too.   With enough participants, the BBN
                    becomes<br>
                    self-suficient even as people come and go.<br>
                    <br>
                    All it would seem to take is for someone to sit down
                    and write the<br>
                    code....in the classic Internet spirit of Rough
                    Consensus and Running Code.<br>
                    <br>
                    Dave....?<br>
                    <br>
                    /Jack Haverty<br>
                    <br>
                    <br>
                    <br>
                    On 2/24/19 7:42 AM, Dave Taht wrote:<br>
                    > Joe Touch <<a
                      href="mailto:touch@strayalpha.com" target="_blank"
                      moz-do-not-send="true">touch@strayalpha.com</a>>
                    writes:<br>
                    ><br>
                    >> On Feb 23, 2019, at 12:42 PM, Jack Haverty
                    <<a href="mailto:jack@3kitty.org" target="_blank"
                      moz-do-not-send="true">jack@3kitty.org</a>>
                    wrote:<br>
                    >><br>
                    >>     But "<a
                      href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org"
                      target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">internet-history@postel.org</a>",
                    and others like it, even RFC<br>
                    >>     repositories, likely exist at the whim
                    of their sponsor. <br>
                    >><br>
                    >> Indeed - even assuming volunteers run them
                    - they’re’s still the issue<br>
                    >> of hosting and net access.<br>
                    >><br>
                    >> I have old repositories (end2end-interest,
                    for one) that even the ISOC<br>
                    >> has declined to host (even though the
                    E2E-RG originated there).<br>
                    >><br>
                    >> Then again, if you want to see the worst of
                    “free riders”, go attend<br>
                    >> an IETF. Companies send armies there for
                    free training and free<br>
                    >> consulting. <br>
                    >><br>
                    >> PS - speaking as list admin, if anyone
                    wants to offer a place to host<br>
                    >> this list more reliably and archivally,
                    please do let me know (contact<br>
                    >> me directly off-list).<br>
                    > My email list server currently lives on linode
                    in the cloud. The cost is<br>
                    > $5/month for 25GB of SSD storage. ( <a
                      href="https://www.linode.com/pricing"
                      rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
                      moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.linode.com/pricing</a><br>
                    > ). Has IPv6 and IPv4. It's paid for via a
                    patreon donation.<br>
                    ><br>
                    > It's not like I'm using much of that box - or
                    the bandwidth available -<br>
                    > how big are these archives?<br>
                    ><br>
                    > I wouldn't mind sharing that existing list
                    server, but I long ago<br>
                    > switched to violating whatever RFC it was that
                    said starttls was a<br>
                    > "should" - to *mandate* starttls only - which
                    cuts down on spam (and<br>
                    > sigh, about 13% of my measured potential
                    correspondents, still). The<br>
                    > biggest administrative cost I'd had was dealing
                    with spam.<br>
                    ><br>
                    > If that's not an acceptable policy for these
                    lists/archives, well, go<br>
                    > burn the 5 bucks/mo on yer own.<br>
                    ><br>
                    ><br>
                    >> Joe<br>
                    >><br>
                    >><br>
                    >> _______<br>
                    >> internet-history mailing list<br>
                    >> <a
                      href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org"
                      target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">internet-history@postel.org</a><br>
                    >> <a
                      href="http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history"
                      rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
                      moz-do-not-send="true">http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history</a><br>
                    >> Contact <a
                      href="mailto:list-owner@postel.org"
                      target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">list-owner@postel.org</a>
                    for assistance.<br>
                    _______<br>
                    internet-history mailing list<br>
                    <a href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org"
                      target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">internet-history@postel.org</a><br>
                    <a
                      href="http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history"
                      rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
                      moz-do-not-send="true">http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history</a><br>
                    Contact <a href="mailto:list-owner@postel.org"
                      target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">list-owner@postel.org</a>
                    for assistance.<br>
                  </blockquote>
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                </div>
                -- <br>
                <div dir="ltr"
                  class="gmail-m_-5922535944441398686gmail_signature">
                  <div dir="ltr">New postal address:
                    <div>Google<br>
                      <div>1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor</div>
                      <div>Reston, VA 20190</div>
                    </div>
                  </div>
                </div>
              </blockquote>
            </div>
          </blockquote>
        </div>
        <br clear="all">
        <div><br>
        </div>
        -- <br>
        <div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature">
          <div dir="ltr">New postal address:
            <div>Google<br>
              <div>1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor</div>
              <div>Reston, VA 20190</div>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
      </blockquote>
      <br>
      <fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
      <pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______
internet-history mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:internet-history@postel.org">internet-history@postel.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history">http://mailman.postel.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history</a>
Contact <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:list-owner@postel.org">list-owner@postel.org</a> for assistance.
</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra</pre>
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