Imagine! An ‘alternative internet’ not ‘completely in the hands of Facebook & Google’

[DFighter]

Kim Dotcom © Nigel Marple / Reuters

Having a more alternative internet that is more controlled by its users offers better options to protect ourselves, says Dmytri Kleiner a privacy activist and software developer.

Telecom giants in the US are set for a significant victory if Washington goes ahead with its plan to repeal so-called 'net neutrality' rules. The Obama-era legislation was enacted to prevent internet service providers from potentially cornering parts of the digital market and charging extra fees. As a result, it's likely to have a direct impact on internet speeds in the US and cause a lot of inconvenience for users.

 

Meanwhile, Google has just been caught secretly collecting location data from Android phone users, even after they turned off location settings and had no SIM card in their devices.

 

So is there a way to escape from the increasing arbitrariness of the ‘regular internet’?

 

Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload, who is wanted in America for alleged illegal file sharing, has pledged to create an ‘alternative internet’ to defend rights to privacy and freedom online.

 

 

RT:  What are your thoughts on Kim Dotcom's idea? How is it possible to build an alternative internet?

 

Dmytri Kleiner: The current internet as it exists right now suffers from a lot of privacy concerns. A lot of those privacy concerns – some of them are inherent to the architecture of the platforms, but a lot of them are related more to the business models of a lot of the kind of companies that make money on the internet. Companies like Google and Facebook make their money by targeting advertising. And targeting advertising requires to know a lot more about you than untargeted advertising. So the more they know about you, the more they can sell these ads for.

 

Kim Dotcom's proposal is not something that I’ve seen too many details about, although he has been mentioning MegaNet for a few years now I think, as early as 2015. And there are a lot of things that sound pretty good about what he is proposing.
Especially the idea of using mobile devices more actively. It is not clear what he means by that – whether he means there will be an overlay network on top of the kind of IP internet that adds anonymity along the lines of something like Tor or Tox; or whether he plans to use Bluetooth, or NFC (Near Field Communication,) or direct Wi-Fi capabilities of the mobile phones themselves to create a so-called mesh network along the lines of Briar or several other applications.
But in any case, more development in this area would certainly be good – the better platforms that consumers have that deliver privacy and anonymity – the more we have – the better. But that won’t necessarily affect the actual concerns of data being collected by the likes of Google and Facebook.

RT:  What about the speed at which people can use the internet. With these net neutrality rules being rolled back is Kim Dotcom's idea a way of circumventing those alternative rules that are going to come into force?

 

DK: We need to know more about the architecture to make a claim either way. If it is planning to use the kind of radio capabilities of mobile phones themselves, and the Bluetooth and NFC and Wi-Fi capabilities those phones have to create another mesh network, then you could have an advantage that it is much more difficult to block than centralized things. So net neutrality wouldn’t affect it directly. However, it is still may be a slower service to what people used to right now, given a neutral internet.

 

RT:  What would be the drawbacks be to an alternative internet? Some people might say there is too much anonymity, and perhaps there would be sort of fair game for criminals and the like? What’s your response to that argument?

 

DK: It seems to me the criminals aren’t having a terrible amount of difficulty operating on the internet as it is today. Having a more alternative internet that is more controlled by its users, gives us better options in order to protect ourselves. We can have collaborative moderation, and collaborative block lists and stuff like that that could make user-driven ways to defend against this stuff more effective, rather than being completely in the hands of Facebook and Google and Twitter, and only being able to access the protections that they provide.

RT:  Can you see the public taking to this alternative internet quickly, or would there be problems for them to connect? What are your thoughts on its accessibility?

DK: There are a lot of questions need to be looked at there. One is how user-friendly and usable this kind of stuff is. We know without a clear business model, like advertising that Facebook and Google have, you have to question where the investments are going to come from to create the kind of rich user experience that users are used to; to market it, to promote it, to support it – and all that kind of stuff. I mean given the right support I definitely think that an alternative could be made and it could be very popular.

However, it is not clear where that support could come from short of public institutions because as a private entrepreneur Kim Dotcom can only spend money that he can earn back. And it is not clear how he would earn money on such a thing, given that advertising and surveillance would not be used.

Source + tweets in source: https://www.rt.com/news/410846-google-alternative-internet-dotcom/

 

[Flible]

*Shrug*. It might sound boring, but I'm neutral towards net neutrality and I don't really care much about what companies can find out about me through google and facebook. I have nothing to hide. Besides, nobody has the manpower to check on individual internet users manually. As for net neutrality and what not, if things get too expensive because of price discrimination for specific services, then simply don't buy them. It's going to suck for a month or two if you're a frequent youtuber or netflixer, but you won't value life less because you can't watch Game of Thrones anymore.

 

One might even argue that it will improve your social life, if anything.

[exe]

I see the internet as a library, it has an infinite potential of human knowledge but also some weird ass shit. The thing is that humans are curious, its in our nature, and just like in real life when you read a controversial book in private, you don't want everyone else to know you are reading it and to spread that info to everyone else ( looking at you google ). Net neutrality is not only about privacy, but it exists to ensure that all information on the internet is accessible to anyone, no pay gates no nothing. Our timeline is one of the most important in the history: we have access to all knowledge just by looking it up and we can communicate and see each others on forums like these where we create communities and bonds between people. We got to defend this human knowledge at all price, this is from where we will evolve.

[RedBaird]

Whatever happened to the "Internet 2.0" that was talked about a few years ago?  Is it only for Universities ATM?    (Like the original Internet).

[Kooki]

The internet was never intented to be what its turned into today. Originally it was for data transfer only.  Now its used for telecomm , games, chats, movies, etc, etc.  If all that were gone and just true data xfer that might be good for that kind of stuff but i believe that eventually anything started to replace internet would eventually end up the same way.

[Platonic]

I have nothing to hide.

http://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Identity-Privacy-and-Trust/Debunking-a-myth-If-you-have-nothing-to-hide-you-have-nothing-to-fear

Or short: big data use is really dangerous in authoritarian states and any state can become an authoritarian one some day.

[Flible]

http://www.computerweekly.com/blog/Identity-Privacy-and-Trust/Debunking-a-myth-If-you-have-nothing-to-hide-you-have-nothing-to-fear

Or short: big data use is really dangerous in authoritarian states and any state can become an authoritarian one some day.

 

We'll cross that bridge when we get there. How isolated would we have to live in the digital age if we want to protect ourselves from "a possible thread in the future"?

Sounds like a method to keep people on edge needlessly. Even if it were, in fact, so.

[Symfony]

*Shrug*. It might sound boring, but I'm neutral towards net neutrality and I don't really care much about what companies can find out about me through google and facebook. I have nothing to hide. Besides, nobody has the manpower to check on individual internet users manually. As for net neutrality and what not, if things get too expensive because of price discrimination for specific services, then simply don't buy them. It's going to suck for a month or two if you're a frequent youtuber or netflixer, but you won't value life less because you can't watch Game of Thrones anymore.

 

One might even argue that it will improve your social life, if anything.

"Not buying" services like that is really bad for people who need a decent internet speed and work from home. 

[Entanglement]

Great ! also Russia is building an alternative Internet for BRICS nation, and China is going all in with quantum super-positioning (entanglement) as new Internet.

[cookiem0nster]

Sounds like another TOR

 

The threat of no net neutrality is big factions splintering off. It's like AOL when people used that crap more - they had their own network. If you wanted access you had to be a member.

 

Can you imagine if google did that, or any of the other giants?

[Flible]

"Not buying" services like that is really bad for people who need a decent internet speed and work from home. 

I was talking about the net neutrality modalities. Obviously you don't subscribe to things like netflix if you work from home and want to save the money.

[Symfony]

I was talking about the net neutrality modalities. Obviously you don't subscribe to things like netflix if you work from home and want to save the money.

No, but imagine needing to pay for certain services or websites, or using a vpn, or even just full internet access. It might not happen but it also is very possible with monopoly companies here in the US.