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Comment by soygem | Hacker News Reader

Already today, people share the hot stuff on decentralized services (matrix, torrents, ipfs). There was recently a hn submission about a decentralized github. Of course this has tradeoffs, for example matrix doesn't have the fast cdn's discord has, but many people are ready to pay that price.

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Those systems are trivial to shut down by any central authority. I would not classify those as decentralized.

Did you tell Hollywood your secret? They're dying to know how to "trivially shut down" all the decentral media sharing going on for decades. Even China's Great Firewall has its hole-punchers (https://github.com/barry-far/V2ray-Configs). Maybe they have an opening for Grand Master of Reality position you can apply to.

What do you think how much % of internet users are capable of using the tool you linked?

Do you think a p50 user goes for such measures to get to a service?

That was a nice change of direction from "it's trivial to shut down" to "how many users are capable". And the answer is - basically every single one of them is capable, it's just a matter of motivation. The right tools exist, the learning curve is somewhat steep, but this is irrelevant.

No it is not. Those are interchangeable.

> basically every single one of them is capable

Absolutely not. My mother is not capable of doing that.

What is interchangeable, your lie about "it's trivial to shut down" and your bs about "oh but that's too difficult"? Those are two different things, even though both of them are not true. And sure, you missed my point about motivation, probably on purpose. If (for example) for your mother using these tools was the only way to contact her close relatives I'm sure she would have found the way. Mine would.

How do you imagine they could shut down torrents and ipfs?

Like making it illegal and fining it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/2hxy4j/help_me_ger...

Or blocking the bootstrapping?

https://www.reddit.com/r/ipfs/comments/tzrkoc/is_ipfs_blocke...

There are plenty of options.

Making something illegal isn't "shutting it down".

Your IPFS link is a screenshot of someone failing to access docs.ipfs.io in a standard webbrowser over HTTP.

Are you aware how many people use VPNs? Also take a look at how Tor Project hand out unlisted entry points into their network - IPFS could take a similar approach if it really came to it.

I think they're saying the actual Internet that underlies all those peer-to-peer protocols needs to itself become a decentralized network ("a true peer-to-peer network").

Yep that is exactly what I was saying. People live in a illusion that the current internet is somehow decentralized and content cannot be blocked.

There are several examples of how content that is not illegal was blocked even in the last couple of years.

Internet is decentralized as in - it's divided into multiple autonomous systems under local control of the owners. Your examples are most likely about some github repo or a steam app blocked, but the thing is - that's not Internet, that's corporations that apply strict rules to their content. This is a completely different story.

The internet has tier 1 network providers that have to obey the law in every country they operate. It is not decentralized at all. Meaning, if I filter your internet at your local provider level you do not have another mean to get to the internet without filtering.

It is possible to block pretty much anything that the country wants to block. It would be impossible to bloack content with a truly decentralized (meaning only peer-to-peer network access) system.

As of today the only thing that comes to close to this is something like Meshstatic. Obviously it is only good for messaging and nothing more at this stage.

https://meshtastic.org/

I'd recommend you to read on what exactly these tier 1s are doing. Hint: they provide transport. It's technically impossible for them to control L7 for the most of the apps traffic. But that actually doesn't matter in the context of decentralization. Internet networks are decentralized by design. That doesn't mean though there's no control and regulations, but that's irrelevant - something you don't seem to realize.

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