Re: [GNUnet-developers] Review of the new GNUnet website

[Christian Grothoff]

On 6/30/19 6:22 PM, sva wrote:
>> Regarding https://gnunet.org/ , 3rd section "The Internet of tomorrow needs 
>> GNUnet today", "Imagine..." sub section:
>> 8 - Keep the hole analogy, and replace the theft analogy with a surveillance 
>> camera analogy. Suggestion:
>> "The conventional Internet is currently like a system of roads with deep 
>> potholes and surveillance cameras all over the place. Even if you still can 
>> use the roads (e.g. send emails, or browse websites) your vehicle might gets 
>> damaged. And the surveillance cameras will create a movement profile about 
>> your life: They recognize your car license plate, track you everywhere you 
>> drive, and save this information in a central data base."
>> By replacing the incorrect theft analogy (copying is not theft) with an 
>> analogy, which is not only correct but also practically more invasive for 
>> every day people (it affects directly everyone using the infrastructure, no 
>> matter if normal person or person of special interest like whistleblowers), 
>> this section becomes more correct and striking.
> 
> => this one we need to discuss.
> I added it as a html-comment in the according section on the site.
> 
> My 2cents: The database is (usually) not central, and the thief is
> something much more "dangerous" than "just being tracked", esp for a
> "normal" person.
> 
> Other opinions?

Copying your personal data and using it is called "identity theft", and
while we may dislike the "theft" terminology in the general domain of
copyright, I think here it is appropriate as it is about private data.
Also, I agree with Sva that using the "central data base" here would
just make us sound clueless.

>> Regarding https://gnunet.org/ , 3rd section "The Internet of tomorrow needs 
>> GNUnet today", "The Internet is broken" sub section:
>> 9 - change text " Protocols from Ethernet and IP to BGP and X.509 PKI are 
>> insecure by default: protecting against address forgery, routers learning 
>> metadata, or choosing trustworthy CAs is nontrivial and sometimes impossible.
>>
>> GNUnet provides privacy by design, improving addressing, routing, naming and 
>> content distribution in a technically robust manner - as opposed to ad-hoc 
>> designs in place today."
>> as follows:
>> "The Internet is not designed with security in mind: The network generally 
>> learns too much about users; it has insecure defaults and high complexity; 
>> and it is centralized. That makes it very vulnerable for multiple attacks 
>> massively threatening our freedom.
>>
>> GNUnet is built "privacy by design" and "distributed by design". This 
>> improves addressing, routing, naming and content distribution in a 
>> technically robust manner."
>> By this change the explanation in what way the internet is broken becomes 
>> more convincing and generally understandable.
> 
> First part: Not sure if the new text makes it better - at this stage we
> are still aiming at techies that should know what IP and BGP is, and
> therefore get a clearer picture, I believe.

Right, we cannot simply claim "it's all broken" without at least giving
a rough idea of what we mean by that. Even people who don't know IP or
BGP can at least take away the message that we have _specific_ concerns,
which is important. After all, not understanding those specifics doesn't
harm understanding the rest of the text.

> Second part: Is "distributed by design" any existing term? Then I'd add
> your change.

Not really, but I'd not mind establishing that term, it rings nicely
with "privacy by design" ;-).

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