Social Computation: The Freedom to Compute

The Internet has a rich history of promoting our social interactions, but who is in control? Let's explore the politics that govern even our open source movements and how it affects our networks. Then, let's explore a new distributed system that promotes the freedom to compute and the power of the individual.

Transcript

1. Social Computing
   The Freedom to Compute
   

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2. Goals of this talk
   Learn the history of networks.
   Understand how the Internet is flawed.
   Determine what is missing from current systems to provide
   individual freedoms.
   Design a distributed system that gives individuals control and
   truly gives them the freedom to compute anything.
   

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3. To Free Computation
   We must first understand what computation is.
   

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4. Ada Lovelace
   ...the Analytical Engine might act
   upon other things besides numbers...
   the engine might compose
   elaborate and scientific
   pieces of music of
   any degree of
   complexity
   or extent.
   -- "Notes" Section A, 1842
   

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5. Abuses of Computation?
   Computation produces or replicates non-trivial, creative work
   Digital forms are easily copied and shared.
   Never before has the ability to distribute work been easier.
   However, copying has been seen as antagonistic to both law
   and other artists.
   They wish to control the means of distribution and production
   of derivative works.
   

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6. Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
   Enacted 1984, not used for conviction until 1991.
   United States v. Riggs - 1990 - Against Phrack Magazine's
   publishing of AT&T 911 data. Not guilty.
   United States v. Morris - 1991 - Computer worm that took
   down the Internet. Guilty.
   United States v. Swartz - 2011 - Allegedly downloaded
   documents from JSTOR. Charges dropped after suicide.
   United States v. Manning - 2010 - Allegedly used access to
   publish military information. Longest ongoing case on record.
   

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7. The History of the Internet
   Bulletin Board System (BBS) - A spiritual ancestor
   Local networks (think small-town community)
   

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8. FidoNET
   Ability to converse globally was hampered by telecom costs.
   A wide network of BBSes was created to compensate.
   

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9. Tom Jennings
   We're not going to agree.
   We don't need to agree.
   The protocols have to run, that's all.
   Technically, this stuff works, and
   if you want to spin off your own network,
   that's just fine.
   It just has to follow these
   minimal standards.
   The rest of it... I couldn't give a shit.
   Who. How. What bad thing they did.
   It doesn't matter.
   

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10. ARPANET
    Awwwww. Internet baby pictures.
    

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11. Robert Morris' Folly
    Wide-eyed research activism! How big is the Internet?
    

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12. Robert Morris' Folly
    Wide-eyed research activism! How big is the Internet?
    

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13. Robert Morris' Folly
    Wide-eyed research activism! How big is the Internet?
    

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14. Robert Morris' Folly
    Wide-eyed research activism! How big is the Internet?
    

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15. Robert Morris' Folly
    

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16. Robert Morris' Folly
    A connects to B
    

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17. Robert Morris' Folly
    B connects to C
    

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18. Robert Morris' Folly
    C connects to A ... wait
    

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19. Robert Morris' Folly
    Oh No...
    

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20. What have we learned?
    The Internet is distributed!
    

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21. The Illusion of the Cloud
    Are we gaining more control, or giving it up?
    

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22. Centralization of the Internet
    The illusion of decentralization.
    

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23. Rediscovering Federation
    Tear
    Apart
    The
    Cloud
    

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24. Distributing Identity
    Is your identity replicated or under your control?
    

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25. Webfinger / Persona
    

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26. OStatus: identi.ca / rstat.us
    

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27. identi.ca / rstat.us
    These systems are open source:
    https://github.com/hotsh/rstat.us
    http://gitorious.org/projects/statusnet
    You may extend them, and then easily deploy them.
    

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28. Lotus
    We have generalized federation as a framework:
    https://github.com/hotsh/lotus
    

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29. However...
    Federation is currently built upon Linux, which has a
    centralized development model.
    

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30. How did we get here? UNIX
    1969
    AT&T could not sell
    UNIX due to 1956
    agreement
    Bell Labs
    

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31. The fall of UNIX
    In 1983, the Bells were officially broken, 1956 agreement was
    void.
    AT&T could now, and did, make UNIX into a product.
    However, it was already widely used and prospered under the
    former openness.
    Certain organizational efforts were suddenly motivated:
    ●
    BSD
    ●
    GNU
    

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32. Information Freedom
    Hackers have long strived for open access to information...
    ... open education ...
    ... free modification ...
    Yet. UNIX presented both a desire and conviction to these
    freedoms and an interesting eventual failure to provide them.
    

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33. Richard Stallman
    UNIX was built upon an open
    source model but it betrayed us.
    Richard Stallman set out to
    create a system where the
    freedom of that system was
    ensured.
    

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34. Richard Stallman
    Free software is software that
    respects your freedom and the
    social solidarity of your
    community. So it's free as in
    freedom.
    

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35. GNU
    Richard Stallman created GNU (GNU is
    Not Unix) to provide a full UNIX
    replacement.
    Through the use of a software license the software
    would be forced to remain open
    by some means for access
    and modification.
    The GNU Public License
    ensured that openness is
    passed off to derivative
    works (copyleft)
    

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36. Four Software Freedoms
    0 - The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
    1 - The freedom to study how the program works, and change
    it to make it do what you wish.
    2 - The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your
    neighbor.
    3 - The freedom to improve the program, and release your
    improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public,
    so that the whole community benefits.
    

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37. Linux
    

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38. GNU/Linux
    

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39. Linux and the Bazaar
    

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40. Network Federation is not Sufficient
    Federation built upon Linux will be meaningless to freedom of
    computation / information.
    Linux is not a federated design. The project has centralized
    arbitration.
    Linux's foundation is rooted in information freedom, and thus
    software freedom.
    Which may suggest that the four tenets of software freedom
    are not good enough.
    

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41. Git is distributed
    

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42. GitHub is not
    

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43. Can we distribute distribution?
    ?
    

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44. Let's create a new system
    For a federated network to work, we must federate the process
    of creating software.
    

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45. Let's create a new system
    Design distributed systems
    not to reflect what society
    currently is or the wants of
    the few, but what an ideal
    society should be: inclusive.
    

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46. Goals
    Federated system where every device is
    equal.
    Individuals have influence on the system.
    Propagate good ideas, inhibit bad ideas.
    

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47. Defining the foundation
    We need a way to access hardware.
    Traditionally that's done through a kernel and operating
    system.
    

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48. Unix and the Unified Abstraction
    UNIX uses a unified abstraction called a file.
    

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49. Monolithic Kernel
    Linux/Windows/OSX are all monolithic.
    All code used to access hardware
    and arbitrate access to resources
    is located in a single location.
    How such access is determined has
    been decided by a small group of
    developers for the application
    developer.
    It is disguised as "ease of use" using the term abstractions.
    

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50. Exokernel
    Exokernels strive to be small.
    No abstractions in the kernel.
    Applications can bypass the
    kernel and speak directly to
    hardware.
    This gives the power of the
    hardware directly to the application
    developers bypassing the kernel
    developers' control.
    

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51. Kernel Design
    We need to have an exokernel.
    

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52. XOmB
    We are developing an exokernel!
    https://github.com/xomboverlord/xomb
    

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53. How do we build applications?
    We need to move away from the location centric model
    Programs should be built from pieces. They should be a list of
    required functionalities !
    I need a sorting algorithm!
    I need the capability to view PNG graphics!
    I need an HTML parser!
    

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54. Interfaces ... How we invoke
    Example!
    Let's teach a computer how to sort:
    We describe an interface
    You start with a name: "sort"
    You tell it what information it needs: "a list"
    You tell it what information it represents: "a list"
    sort(list) -> list
    

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55. Playing the game... (specifications)
    Well, it could... give us any list.
    So, let's tell it what the result should look like.
    Give it rules that describe its behavior:
    ● Every item should be at least as large as the item that
    precedes it
    Computer now knows: Ascending order!
    

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56. The rules of the game...
    Specifications can be written in code:
    describe Sort do
    it "should yield a list in ascending order" do
    input = [5,1,3,6,3,7,4]
    output = sort(input)
    assert output == [1,3,3,4,5,6,7]
    end
    end
    

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57. Open ended implementations
    Implementations are just code that fulfills the interface and
    the specification:
    sort(list A) -> list {
    for i ← 1 to i ← length(A)-1 {
    valueToInsert ← A[i]
    A[i]=A[holePos] is now empty
    holePos ← i
    while holePos > 0 and valueToInsert < A[holePos - 1] {
    A[holePos] ← A[holePos - 1]
    holePos ← holePos - 1
    }
    A[holePos] ← valueToInsert
    }
    return A
    }
    

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58. Choosing Implementations
    

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59. Building an application...
    Programs are a set of functions and a list of instructions!
    I need a sorting algorithm!
    I need the capability to view PNG graphics!
    I need an HTML parser!
    

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60. Bootstrapping!
    Start breaking existing things down!
    

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61. Redefining Operating System
    

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62. Changing the rules...
    Since rules are propagated freely, absolutely anybody could
    come along and add a new rule:
    ● Items of equal value maintain their original position
    This limits what implementations are deemed acceptable.
    This change may propagate if it is advantageous.
    

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63. A System of Sharing
    Any node can contribute interfaces, specifications,
    implementations.
    

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64. Attribution?
    Does attribution exist in a content-centric code distribution
    model?
    ?
    

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65. Can an implementation of code ever be suppressed?
    Sharing Code
    ?
    

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66. Sharing problems...
    Does this system open opportunity to a more diverse set of
    people?
    ?
    

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67. Re-explore Trust
    How can we trust others to not act maliciously?
    ?
    

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