The Imminent Decentralized Computing Revolution

[heisenburrr]

http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2...-imminent-decentralized-computing-revolution/

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

- Lord Acton, 1887

A mega-trend is brewing that could make bureaucratic hierarchies, middlemen and gatekeepers everywhere obsolete including social networks, banks, stock exchanges, electronic voting systems and even governments. It’s called decentralized computing, and it could fundamentally transform the way we connect to and exchange value on the Internet.

Most services today are centralized — sharing photos via social networks, uploading files to the cloud, sending and receiving money. In fact it’s how the world has been organized for hundreds of years. But history has proven that the centralized model is flawed and inefficient. Power concentrated in the hands of a few has always been at risk of corruption, greed and chaos.

Decentralization transfers that power from individuals and corporations totechnology and immutable math, leading to reduced overheads, improved security, more resiliency and higher efficiency.

There are three technologies that will form the foundation of the decentralized computing stack — mesh networks (decentralized networking), block chain (decentralized transactions) and autonomous agents (decentralized decision making).

Mesh networks. The traditional network architecture of the Internet is vulnerable. There is risk of accidental damage or deliberate disruption (e.g. 70 million J.P. Morgan Chase accounts got hacked last week). We’re at the mercy and whims of telecom providers (e.g. the net neutrality debate). And there is a risk of corporations wielding too much power and governments tracking and spying on users (e.g. the NSA).

Over the last few days, hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters have been thronging the streets of Hong Kong. Many of them have been turning to a new kind of app to message each other through a network that doesn’t require Wi-Fi nodes or cell towers. The app, FireChat by OpenGarden, got over 100,000 signups in 24 hours and is underpinned by something called mesh networks.

Mesh networks are peer-to-peer networks created by daisy-chaining your phone (which becomes a router) to nearby phones using Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Everyone joining the mesh network creates an extension of the Internet. The more devices or nodes, the stronger it becomes. They cannot be controlled by any central organization. There is no single IP to block. And governments can’t shut them down. They are decentralized, self-healing and remarkably resilient.

Mesh networks started taking off with the proliferation of smartphones (no additional hardware is required) and the introduction of Multipeer Connectivity (iOS 7.0 and onwards) and Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer (Android 4.0 onwards). They’ve since been used in protests in Taiwan, Iran and Iraq, the annual Burning Man Festival in Black Rock Desert and even in Red Hook, a remote neighborhood in Brooklyn that had no mobile phone or Internet access when Hurricane Sandy struck.

Block chain. You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin, the global, decentralized crypto-currency, which incidentally has also become the largest supercomputing network in the world. But Bitcoin is really an app built on top of a revolutionary bit of technology called the block chain, the first practical solution to an age-old problem in computing, theByzantine Generals Problem (establishing trust between unrelated parties over an untrusted network like the Internet).

The block chain is essentially a giant distributed cryptographic ledger shared amongst all nodes participating in the network, and keeps a record of every single successful transaction. This allows for trustless transactional activity. It facilitates ownership, storage, transfer and processing of information without the need for a middleman or identity information clearinghouse.

What this really means is that transactions, identity verification, trust, reputation and payments become quantifiable and programmable.

And it opens up a whole range of possibilities:

Decentralized voting (e.g. Agora), where voters pay using a crypto-currency into an account representing their choice, with the winning candidate being one with highest balance.

Decentralized Domain Name Registration (DNS) (e.g. Namecoin) would be based on a crypto-currency model, and operate independently of ICANN (so technically immune from Internet censorship). Namecoin uses the .bit top-level domain.

Decentralized storage (e.g. Maidsafe and Storj), where trustless nodes would work together (using crypto-currencies as means of payment) to exchange storage space and bandwidth.

Smart self-validating contracts for real-time revenue sharing (e.g. Secure Asset Exchange); helping artists secure and verify their digital artwork by logging it in the block chain (e.g. Monegraph); and even decentralized Twitter-like P2P asynchronous messaging platforms (e.g. BitMessage and Twister).

Document certification (e.g. Proof of Existence) is a clever use of the block chain as a publicly visible and authenticated timestamp.

In fact, asset registries/keys that could theoretically be implemented in a block chain model are endless — land titles, private equities, mortgages, vehicle registries, passports, birth certificates, voter ids, gun permits, wills, escrows, degrees, car keys, house keys, patents, trademarks, coupons, genome data and even nuclear launch codes!

Companies like Ethereum and BitShares are now building their own, new block chains, platform and programming language to help developers build next-gen decentralized apps.

And just last week, a couple at Disney World had the first block chain marriage, recorded forever within the block chain!

Autonomous agents. Theseare entities that make their own choices regarding how to act in their environment without influence of a central authority.

With decentralization, autonomous agents will play an increasingly important role in how things get done. They will be the brains and logic residing inside everything from driverless cars to delivery drones, from your bank accounts to your thermostats. They will operate individually or in a swarm. They will buy and sell services using crypto-currencies, pay their own costs to maintain and upgrade themselves and even replicate as they become profitable. They will be self-sustaining economic units — almost like mini-corporations, but without the bureaucracy.

Of course, as the decentralized computing revolution spreads, there will be legal, technical and social challenges. Anonymity, a key component of the system, could encourage illegal activities. With rise of autonomous agents, questions regarding liability and accountability will be raised. And we have to be careful we don’t exchange the tyranny of gatekeepers for the tyranny of code.

But the transition to a global system that is decentralized, distributed, anonymous, efficient, secure, permission-less, trustless, resilient, frictionless, almost free, with no single point of control and no single point of failure… seems inevitable.

As the Internet of Things slowly takes shape, an estimated 50 billion devices are expected to come online by 2020. They will be powered by autonomous agents, transact on top of the block chain and connect to each other via mesh networks. As more of the decision-making moves from the application layer down to the agent layer, the global system will start becoming more intelligent.

And that is when things should get really interesting.

More proof that software is eating the world.

Do you welcome your new nerds overlord?

 

[theworldismine13]

hmmmmmm no

a better way to think about a mesh network is that its a mini internet, the internet itself is highly decentralized (compared to other communication systems), in fact the internet originated because the Pentagon wanted a system that could survive a nuclear attack, by having a decentralized network it would allow parts of the network to survive even if a central location was destroyed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

the mesh network is just a mini version of the the decentralized network we call the internet, in other words as it starts maturing all the strengths and weaknesses we see in the internet will start to pop up in these mini networks, there is nothing inherently safe about a decentralized system, the decentralization just makes it robust, not safer

 

[heisenburrr]

hmmmmmm no

a better way to think about a mesh network is that its a mini internet, the internet itself is highly decentralized (compared to other communication systems), in fact the internet originated because the Pentagon wanted a system that could survive a nuclear attack, by having a decentralized network it would allow parts of the network to survive even if a central location was destroyed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

the mesh network is just a mini version of the the decentralized network we call the internet, in other words as it starts maturing all the strengths and weaknesses we see in the internet will start to pop up in these mini networks, there is nothing inherently safe about a decentralized system, the decentralization just makes it robust, not safer

What do you mean safer?

The whole point is that mesh network are more resilient than the current internet structure. The current internet relays on huge server farms and other centralized infrastructures that are vulnerable to attacks or censorship.

 

[theworldismine13]

What do you mean safer?

The whole point is that mesh network are more resilient than the current internet structure. The current internet relays on huge server farms and other centralized infrastructures that are vulnerable to attacks or censorship.

the internet itself is a decentralized network, particular websites rely on huge server farms, but the internet IS a bunch of decentralized networks, for example google and facebook's servers can go down and the internet would continue running just fine, the us could shut down the internet but it would be back in other countries in a few days, the internet is designed to survive a nuclear attack

By safer I mean safe from hackers, there is nothing about a mesh network that makes it safer from hacking than the regular internet, mesh networks are newer but it's only a matter of time before somebody exploits a bug to access your phone that is a part of a mesh network

I'm not knocking mesh networks, I think it's a great idea but all it is is a mini internet, that means it has all the strengths and weaknesses of the internet

 

[heisenburrr]

the internet itself is a decentralized network, particular websites rely on huge server farms, but the internet IS a bunch of decentralized networks, for example google and facebook's servers can go down and the internet would continue running just fine, the us could shut down the internet but it would be back in other countries in a few days, the internet is designed to survive a nuclear attack

Of course.

But some concepts of mesh networks are absolutely safer from hackers than current internet structure.

Examples are Maidsafe or Storj mentioned in the article. Data is encrypted and stored in a redundant way throughout the network eliminating central points of failure.

 

[heisenburrr]

here is an extremely interesting comment from reddit that expands on the idea

Hong Kong Protesters are using mesh-net on a widescale right now. Meshnets grow stronger with more users. The Old-School Traditional Internet is connected at the core through "BackBones" which are owned and operated by corporate, government, military interests. These backbones are centralized points of failure that can be exploited or manipulated. In addition, the cables and frequencies that the internet is transmitted over are owned by corporate/government interests, taking another point of control away from the people.

The Meshnet is a concept embodied by many technologies and services. The main idea is to use overlapping WiFi signals on cellphones, routers, laptops, etc to create a new Internet that cannot be censored or controlled. You may be saying to yourself "But there will be many connectivity gaps and at some point the meshnet will need to connect to the traditional Internet" This is where Bitcoin and the Cryptographic revolution come in.

Some Protocols for the Meshnet are now maturing, things like BitCloud, and MaidSafe.

These Protocols incentivize people to provide bandwidth, storage, and servers to the meshnet. The protocols use cryptographic techniques that allow people to a) Prove that they something of value, harddrive space for instance, and b) Receive payment for providing the service.

The data on the meshnet is orders of magnitude more secure, both in privacy and in reliability. Data is encrypted and broken in millions or billions of bits and those bits are copied and spread throughout the meshnet like grains of sand. No one place stores a full copy of your data, yet many, many copies of your data exist.

The more traffic your facilitate on your network, the more Bitcoins (or "local" crypto) you are paid. The more space your provide for storage, the more cloud computing power, the more you are paid.

Just like Bitcoin mining, we will see an arms race to provide network connectivity, storage space, computing power, at cheaper and cheaper prices. The charts below are the amount of computing power invested into the Bitcoin network in the:

1) Past Year https://blockchain.info/charts/hash-rate 2) Past 2 Years https://blockchain.info/charts/hash...ageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

3) Past 5 Years https://blockchain.info/charts/hash...ageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

This is the kind of accelerated growth we will see when the Meshnet is given the proper incentives.

This is a real chance for meaningful revolution without any kind of war. I say it is a revolution because it overturns the control of information and financial systems.

It also empowers individuals to be paid by a non-human entity. You work for the protocol and the protocol rewards everyone fairly without taking a cut for itself. Yes, its still funded by humans paying into the system, but its a different kind of control system.

Information, Coinage, Employment. These systems are ripe for inversion. The traditional systems will simply become less relevant and the new systems more profitable, more relevant. It will be analogous to the industrial revolution. Agricultural and traditional jobs simply became less relevant compared to industrial jobs.

You might think to yourself "The powers that be wont take this sitting down" and I say to that; they are certainly running out of time to do anything about stopping it. The nature of these programs is that there is no single point of failure. In order to stop it they must stop everyone who is using these programs. And as they stop people, it becomes more and more profitable for those who keep running, just further incentivizing it. These programs are all open-source, which allows anyone to review the code at anytime. This results in secure code devoid of "backdoors."

At this point there are only 3 options I envision that will keep the Cryptographic revolution from occurring.

1) Solar Flare/Gamma Ray Burst/International Pandemic (Rare Life Ending Events; Non human based) 2) Outright War on Cryptography which ends in full Dark Age; Possible WW3 3) Quantum Computers developed in the future are able to decrypt classical encryption. However Quantum Computers would also be able to create unbreakable encryption, which could lead the way to a new Cryptographic revolution.

I see #3 as the most probable of these scenarios, but practical Quantum Computing is still decades out and even then we may be able to anticipate developments in Quantum Cryptography that allow a transition to the new system before opportunists. It would seem that if the first Cryptographic revolution is successful then Quantum Computers would be developed for the express purpose of aiding the Protocol rather than destroying it.

The Hong Kong Protests may be the ignition to set the revolution off. Meshnets need users, the more users, the stronger and faster they are. Once meshnets break a certain thresh-hold they will be an attractive Internet option.

Instead of paying an ISP, you will load Bitcoin into your Meshnet router. Each packet of data will have a tiny fraction of Bitcoin attached to it. You can offset your internet costs by making some harddrive space available or allowing your router to be used as a node to facilitate other peoples traffic. The future is arriving everyday.

 

[Rice N Beans]

hmmmmmm no

a better way to think about a mesh network is that its a mini internet, the internet itself is highly decentralized (compared to other communication systems), in fact the internet originated because the Pentagon wanted a system that could survive a nuclear attack, by having a decentralized network it would allow parts of the network to survive even if a central location was destroyed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET

the mesh network is just a mini version of the the decentralized network we call the internet, in other words as it starts maturing all the strengths and weaknesses we see in the internet will start to pop up in these mini networks, there is nothing inherently safe about a decentralized system, the decentralization just makes it robust, not safer

Internet in its current state is nowhere near decentralized. Yes, individual services can go down, but all packets ride on the backs of a few corporations.

You take out Level 3 and Congent probably 80-90% of users are fukked because A) The most important global sites are in the USA and B) Those sites are mostly fed pipe by those two providers.

Secondly, yes it IS safer, because there's the opportunity for total encryption using good methods (Perfect Forward Secrecy) that are infinitely easier to implement without bigwig red tape and you do not have to rely on a corporation's bottom line to keep your information safe.

 

[heisenburrr]

Internet in its current state is nowhere near decentralized. Yes, individual services can go down, but all packets ride on the backs of a few corporations.

You take out Level 3 and Congent probably 80-90% of users are fukked because A) The most important global sites are in the USA and B) Those sites are mostly fed pipe by those two providers.

Secondly, yes it IS safer, because there's the opportunity for total encryption using good methods (Perfect Forward Secrecy) that are infinitely easier to implement without bigwig red tape and you do not have to rely on a corporation's bottom line to keep your information safe.

DNS itself being centralized is enough of a concern

 

[theworldismine13]

Internet in its current state is nowhere near decentralized. Yes, individual services can go down, but all packets ride on the backs of a few corporations.

You take out Level 3 and Congent probably 80-90% of users are fukked because A) The most important global sites are in the USA and B) Those sites are mostly fed pipe by those two providers.

Secondly, yes it IS safer, because there's the opportunity for total encryption using good methods (Perfect Forward Secrecy) that are infinitely easier to implement without bigwig red tape and you do not have to rely on a corporation's bottom line to keep your information safe.

its not decentralized in practical terms, but technically it is, and even of level and cogent went down the internet would be back up in a few days or weeks, if countries and people choose to be dependent on a few corporations thats on them, but technically speaking they dont need a corporation to have internet, the reason why traffic goes through a few providers is because its cheap and convenient but the fact is the internet can survive a nuclear attack, you can wipe the united states of the map and the internet would still exist

big websites like google or facebook are not relevant to the point you are trying to make about mesh networks, google and facebook and any large website would not be available in a mesh networks either so its not an argument either way for or against mesh networks, for you to access google from a mesh network you would have to (gulp) go through the major networks aka square one, so in a mesh network the government or corporations can easily block access to any important website

it is correct that mesh networks can provide higher levels of encryption that are now available to a few people, but encryption doesnt prevent hacking per se, lets take hong kong for example, there is nothing preventing the chinese government who see a group of 50 protesters with their cellphone mesh network from bringing in 100 undercover cops with cellphones into the mesh network, then bam all the traffic in the mesh network is going through the chinese government, there is nothing stopping a cop from snatching one of the phones and accessing everything on a phone including encryption keys etc etc etc

its like bitcoin, for all its encryption and safegaurds there have been multiple instances of people stealing bitcoins, bitcoins is not safer than using dollars, its just different than using dollars, in the same way, a mesh network is different than the regular internet but its not inherently safer than the internet

i would agree that a mesh network can democratize encryption technologeis, but, the internet already has "safe" encryption technologies and private networks, they just arent widely used or available

 

[theworldismine13]

Of course.

But some concepts of mesh networks are absolutely safer from hackers than current internet structure.

Examples are Maidsafe or Storj mentioned in the article. Data is encrypted and stored in a redundant way throughout the network eliminating central points of failure.

that sounds like a fancy torrent network and its not talking about mesh networks, its talking about using the current internet system

yes it probably can be implemented in a mesh network, but the advantages of scale would be lost

 

[heisenburrr]

its not decentralized in practical terms, but technically it is, and even of level and cogent went down the internet would be back up in a few days or weeks, if countries and people choose to be dependent on a few corporations thats on them, but technically speaking they dont need a corporation to have internet, the reason why traffic goes through a few providers is because its cheap and convenient but the fact is the internet can survive a nuclear attack, you can wipe the united states of the map and the internet would still exist

big websites like google or facebook are not relevant to the point you are trying to make about mesh networks, google and facebook and any large website would not be available in a mesh networks either so its not an argument either way for or against mesh networks, for you to access google from a mesh network you would have to (gulp) go through the major networks aka square one, so in a mesh network the government or corporations can easily block access to any important website

it is correct that mesh networks can provide higher levels of encryption that are not available to a few people, but encryption doesnt prevent hacking per se, lets take hong kong for example, there is nothing preventing the chinese government who see a group of 50 protesters with their cellphone mesh network from bringing in 100 undercover cops with cellphones into the mesh network, then bam all the traffic in the mesh network is going through the chinese government, there is nothing stopping a cop from snatching one of the phones and accessing everything on a phone including encryption keys etc etc etc

its like bitcoin, for all its encryption and safegaurds there have been multiple instances of people stealing bitcoins, bitcoins is not safer than using dollars, its just different than using dollars, in the same way, a mesh network is different than the regular internet but its not inherently safer than the internet

i would agree that a mesh network can democratize encryption technologeis, but, the internet already has "safe" encryption technologies and private networks, they just arent widely used or available

but that is only because of the end users incompetence. the bitcoin network has not been breached per say.

 

[heisenburrr]

its not decentralized in practical terms, but technically it is, and even of level and cogent went down the internet would be back up in a few days or weeks, if countries and people choose to be dependent on a few corporations thats on them, but technically speaking they dont need a corporation to have internet, the reason why traffic goes through a few providers is because its cheap and convenient but the fact is the internet can survive a nuclear attack, you can wipe the united states of the map and the internet would still exist

All the things you are stating are obvious.

The main interest here is protection from censorship of information and access.

You cannot possibly argue that mesh nets are not an improvement on existing infrastructure in that sense

 

[theworldismine13]

but that is only because of the end users incompetence. the bitcoin network has not been breached per say.

yeah exactly and that is why a mesh network is not safer just because it has encryption,

end user incompetence and widespread physical access are the main drawbacks of a mesh network

 

[theworldismine13]

All the things you are stating are obvious.

The main interest here is protection from censorship of information and access.

You cannot possibly argue that mesh nets are not an improvement on existing infrastructure in that sense

like i said, mesh network may democratize encryption schemes,

but im arguing that the the authorities can physically snatch up your phone and they can also embed themselves into the network to monitor the network

so i wouldnt call it safer

it may also increase the existence of local networks, mesh networks make it easier to create local networks......but all it would be doing is making the internet more like it was designed to be, a mesh network is essentially a throwback because since the beginning of the internet, anybody has been able to create their own network, its just a pain in the ass to do

 

[heisenburrr]

like i said, mesh network may democratize encryption schemes,

but im arguing that the the authorities can physically snatch up your phone and they can also embed themselves into the network to monitor the network

so i wouldnt call it safer

it may also increase the existence of local networks, mesh networks make it easier to create local networks......but all it would be doing is making the internet more like it was designed to be, a mesh network is essentially a throwback because but since the beginning of the internet, anybody has been able to create their own network, its just a pain in the ass to do

Looks like we're in agreement afterall.

Indeed, this is all part of realising the true p2p promises of the internet.