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Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave an interview with radio station WBUR about the state of the Web and its future:
Berners-Lee initially imagined the web as a beautiful platform that could help us overcome national and cultural boundaries. He envisioned it would break down silos, but many people today believe the web has created silos.
And he still largely sees the potential of the web, but the web has not turned out to be the complete cyber Utopian dream he had hoped. He's particularly worried about the dark side of social media — places where he says anonymity is being used by "misogynist bullies, by nasty people who just get a kick out of being nasty."
He also identified personal data privacy, the spread of misinformation, and a lack of transparency in online political advertising as major problems with the current Web in a letter marking the World Wide Web's 28th birthday last month.
Previously: World Wide Web Turns 25 years Old
Tim Berners-Lee Proposes an Online Magna Carta
Berners-Lee on HTML 5: If It's Not on the Web, It Doesn't Exist
The First Website Went Online 25 Years Ago
Berners-Lee: World Wide Web is Spy Net
Tim Berners-Lee Just Gave us an Opening to Stop DRM in Web Standards
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:43PM (5 children)
Come on. Berners-Lee initially imagined the web as a directory of information for CERN. That's it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:08PM (2 children)
Come on. Berners-Lee initially imagined the web as a directory of information for CERN. That's it.
No, surely it was invented as a means for him to avoid having to do any real physics work but still appearing to 'contribute'...or so I was told.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:28PM (1 child)
Haven't you heard? Excess salt can be bad for your health.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:42PM
But my doctor said my bloodwork indicates I need more salt in my diet. :(
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:47PM
Going out on a limb here, but if he called it "hypertext transport protocol" he maybe wanted to create a hypertext network. A Xanadu [wikipedia.org] implementation basically, and we know that radically simplified versions of visionary projects (smalltalk -> modern GUI, Lisa -> McIntosh, MULTICS -> Unix) can yield better commercial results than the originals.
This means he should be looking at gnunet and ipfs with interest, and abhor all web 2.0 related, instead of blabbering about the problems of darknets. Where do leaks come from, google news? CNN? sheesh.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:22PM
Come on. Berners-Lee initially imagined the web as a directory of information for CERN. That's it.
But it's soooo much more now. Like my wife ... I imagined her has a fine young thing but there is so much more of her now.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @02:53PM (16 children)
Yeah, it has mostly turned into a rat's nest of proprietary javascript. Maybe, the first thing he should do, is stop actively making the problems worse by pushing for proprietary DRM in web standards, too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:24PM (12 children)
Perhaps WWW should have HTML replaced with SGML which it tries to emulate anyway. Then the need for PDF and abused tables etc is lessened and techniques to do typesetting where there's no real support for that. Another approach is to go LaTeX over http.
A script language is useful to eliminate server-client loading for everything. But Javascript should be replaced with something like Perl/Python or any other scripting language with clear definitions. Security provisions should be builtin from start and allow the user to deny everything.
Leave room for platform agnostic extensions, be it mpeg4 decoder or DRM. But it shall in no way interfere with free and open implementations. Nor be allowed any a bargain-you-can't-deny.
The most basic flaw is however that the whole system is built upon the model that a page is loaded from a specific server and downloaded to a client. This lets bad governments target [telegraph.co.uk] any server containing information they don't happen to fancy and hire former Stasi [eurocanadian.ca] agents like Anetta Kahane to censor you right now just like she did with DDR [berliner-zeitung.de] citizens in 1974-1982. The second issue is that this dissemination model allows servers to register who takes part of the information.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:30PM
Yes, but for online retail controlling the webserver is kinda important.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:51PM (2 children)
Browsers are open source. It is possible to restrict what javascript can access. We just have to grow the balls to compile our own browsers again.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:13PM
Yes it's pointing in that direction..
That privacy features seems to disappear in free and open webbrowsers seems to be more than a coincident..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:53PM
Sure, it is technically possible to disable this antifeature. Most of the web then ceases to work.
First is the problem that almost all Javascript programs on the web are proprietary software. So running a free browser just so you can download and execute proprietary software kind of defeats the point...
Second is the fact that Javascript programs are automatically downloaded and executed by the browser. Browsers have so far failed to really restrict the damage caused by this. It's no fluke that almost every remote code execution exploit these days starts with "First, the user's browser downloads and runs the malicious software supplied by an attacker. Then, ...".
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:55PM (2 children)
Apparently from ~HTML 2.0 - 4.01, HTML was SGML [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:39PM (1 child)
Codify existing practice.
The C++ committee has learned this the hard way, especially after the `export' keyword debacle. Most real-world things have to exist before they can be standardized.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 07 2017, @11:01PM
The alternative is to do things right from the start by thinking it through. And then write a really good standard from that.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday April 05 2017, @08:38PM (2 children)
How can you mitigate the 2nd issue? I don't see how myself. The server is ALWAYS going to know the identity of who requested what. Not just in HTTP either, but with other services as well. The real issue is that the owners of the servers collaborate with government and use such information against the users on a routine basis. That is not a technology problem though, but a social one. To truly surmount it all requests would need to be anonymous, and I'm not sure how that could work unless we had a truly anonymous payment options as well.
The 1st issue can be mitigated with HTML5/Websockets. AFAIK, single pages are just target points to load bootstrap code that upgrades it to a websocket connection. From there, all the content can be consumed across a single connection originating from a single page load. That's where I'm going towards in my own designs and I hope to suspend a session and resume it if you reload the page, and hijack the back and forward buttons for my own purposes. At that point the web browser is just acting like a thin client which is my overall goal.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @09:42AM
The second issue can be mitigated by network flooding (broadcast/multicast), but it is not a very practical solution.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 07 2017, @11:10PM
Distribute the pages using peer-to-peer. I suspect these applications are on that path, but not a full solution:
GNUnet [wikipedia.org]decentralized, peer-to-peer networking
InterPlanetary File System [wikipedia.org] permanent and decentralized method of storing and sharing files. It is a content-addressable, peer-to-peer hypermedia distribution protocol.
The onion method is also a partial solution, ie TOR.
The thing is to store multiple copies of the web page in many network nodes such that there's always a copy somewhere and the source won't need to be bothered or up and running. Pages that are frequently used is stored in the cloud of nodes. While the purged ones has to be fetched again from some or many repositories. Pages can of course also be objects that contains many pages or images. Or one could chop it into several pieces to lessen the burden on a specific node.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday April 06 2017, @12:31PM (1 child)
HTML is SGML [wikipedia.org] (but SGML isn't HTML)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 07 2017, @11:24PM
Is there any alternative to HTML/SGML that would be even better for a networked interactive hypertext system?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:48PM (2 children)
I think HTML 5 is even more insidious than that: The did away with versioning.
That means there is no series of tests you can run on your browser to say it is fully HTML 5 compliant: the "standard" my change next week.
In practice, Google Chrome seems to be defining the standard. That may explain why Mozilla is looking more and more like a Chrome clone.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:09PM
That may explain why Mozilla is looking more and more like a Chrome clone.
Given that Internet Explorer and Safari aren't as bad as Firefox when it comes to blindly following Chrome, I don't think this excuse works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @06:12PM
This is not the reason why Mozilla turns itself into a Chrome clone.
They just want to gather Chrome users. Ask a Chrome user if they would use a feature rich program like Firefox 22 was? The answer is a clear no, because of "bloat"
So what was the solution? Mozilla removed all what Chrome users or simple users would stop from using Firefox.
Rather simple.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @03:47PM (4 children)
Arguably the fact that he won a Turing award is more worthy of a story.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:24PM (1 child)
Bot, is that you?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:10PM
If you can't tell, the bot has won.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:43PM (1 child)
I don't know about "more worthy" but worth mentioning:
Tim Berners-Lee wins $1 million Turing Award [mit.edu]
CSAIL researcher honored for inventing the web and developing the protocols that spurred its global use.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Thursday April 06 2017, @03:13AM
The WBUR article does mention it, in the second paragraph.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:21PM (5 children)
The good news about people being jackasses online: If they're busy being jackasses online, they aren't busy being jackasses offline. And while online harassment is a problem, it's less of a problem than real-world people-get-physically-hurt harassment.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @04:28PM (3 children)
I agree and disagree, online harassment can easily take a serious mental toll on many people. I doubt you're the type to mock someone who might get pushed over the edge of mental illness by people online, but with social media online harassment can easily be worse than in-person harassment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:35PM (1 child)
Your Father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries!
Online harassment often comes with real world consequences get rid of things like facebork and we can go back to simple trolling but a lot of this stuff is being integrated into things that result in real physical violence and consequences in meat space, see the recent passwords please at the border
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 05 2017, @06:19PM
Yeah, back in the day geeks could vent their frustrations and get some kicks trolling people and it was kind of just the expected culture. Horrific name-calling was (and still is) common with online gaming, and lots of older geeks don't understand why some of the more horrific insults / smack talk gets a pissed off reaction. To them that was the expected behavior when gaming!
Anyway, facecrap and other social media platforms aren't going away so we should all just grow up a bit and stop treating the web like our personal playground. It is, but it now encompasses a huge percentage of society so common decency and all that now has greater importance.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:42PM
However, realistically, the ceiling for potential damage and trauma is much greater in person. Have you ever had someone threaten to kill you, being completely serious about it? If you haven't, consider yourself lucky, and realize that it is probably scarier to be told "I'm going to kill you" by someone with a weapon in their hand, than it is to read "I'm going to kill you." on your computer screen.
If we can just be completely honest about things for two seconds here, I would think things should be very clear to you.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 05 2017, @05:39PM
I have a feeling the online jackasses are too cowardly to be offline jackasses.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:50PM
People being offended is the problem. Pay no attention to ISIS-recruitment occuring on the clearnet over social media (and now, in person) in fucking Sweden. Those are not extremists.
Murderers and those who support religiously and culturally motivated murder are not extremists.
The REAL extremists are those who create fake Twitter profiles to call feminists fat.
Repeat:
Murderers and those who support religiously and culturally motivated murder are not extremists.
The REAL extremists are those who hold conservative views and post about them anonymously for their own physical safety, as they will, demonstrably, be physically beaten by the non-extremists if they do not.
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Wednesday April 05 2017, @07:53PM (1 child)
If the web isn't the utopia you dreamed of, don't worry. All you did was create the foundation. It's Al Gore who wants to take credit for "creating the internet". So, if there are any problems with it; if there are "misogynist bullies who just get a kick out of being nasty", just tell everyone to blame Al Gore.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday April 06 2017, @03:32AM
Al Gore did say he created the Internet. He also said he created the economy, the environment, and education.
During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
-- http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp [snopes.com]
He lied. It was really Ted Nelson who did those things.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday April 05 2017, @10:21PM (3 children)
the web has not turned out to be the complete cyber Utopian dream he had hoped
It never ceases to amaze me how intelligent people can be so naive. The mistake they make is to assume everyone else thinks along the same lines as they do themselves; or if they don't then a friendly chat with them will soon make them see the light. Academics are particularly prone to this because everyone in their circle is of similar mind and they never meet any other types.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @05:48AM (2 children)
Read his views instead of taking a line out of context.
He of course did not expect everybody to act as himself. The main difference in vision was one of decentralization as opposed to centralization. E.g. instead of everybody going to Facebook to post inane comments about themselves they would be able to do so on their own page which they would then link in some way rather more streamlined than buying a domain, buying a server or access to one, and going through all the hoops currently involved in setting up a page. Things like Geocities were scratching the surface of the possibility there and was a natural domain for inevitable decentralization. People could connect to and share things however they like. Instead now people use services like Facebook that tries to tell them what they like, fills "their" page with political propaganda / native advertising / etc, and of course heavily constraints what they are or are not allowed to discuss.
These ideas were taking off for quite a while. People would have webs of pages where one person's individual page would link to others and so on. Given time it would have taken off as the standard. Even interconnected BBS type systems were incredibly promising. I think what arguably killed the direction of the internet was AOL. Instead of the smooth and gradual progress the vision was making AOL dumped huge numbers of low information people on the web all at once and companies quickly reacted to milk them for what they were worth. It was like a giant foam party got thrown in a library followed shortly by v-i-a-g-r-a vendors (TIL v-i-a-g-r-a is censored on Soylent) and Girls Gone Wild. There was nothing wrong with the library, but it's not going to survive that. Companies trying to do what AOL did do was predictable, but the magnitude of their success (and thus the internet's downfall) was not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @10:06AM (1 child)
What killed the vision of the internet was commercialization. Businesses doesn't like decentralized systems to which everyone can contribute equally. Business likes centralized systems they control, which they can use for their profit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @01:49PM
Absolutely agreed. And that's the point I was kind of getting at. At the time the internet was blossoming as a decentralized independent entity full of varying opinions, views, and types of people. Suggesting a handful of companies would come in and somehow convince the vast majority of join their little ring fenced and heavily controlled space would have sounded absurd. And I think it never would have happened without the unimaginable success of AOL. You needed a critical mass of people and AOL chummed the waters.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday April 05 2017, @10:25PM (1 child)
As far as misinformation is concerned no technology can fix stupid. If you're going to believe that #Pizzagate happened in the basement of a building that was built on a slab, technology will do nothing more than to exacerbate the issue by allowing others to feed you more stupid, causing you to believe your misinformation even more...rinse, repeat.
The irony is that older technology / media (printed news, radio, TV) was too limited and controlled to allow that level of misinformation to occur. Ironically the current state of web based misinformation has those affected believing that those "mainstream" sources are the only media they can't trust. The end result is information controlled by the likes of cheeto-man's tweets, which reminds me a lot of North Korea frankly.
What a fucking mess. I physically hurt just writing all this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 06 2017, @02:02PM
I think the reason for the backlash against mainstream sources (which I'm going to loosely define as media organizations owned by large corporate entities) is not only because they've been shown repeatedly to be completely dishonest but because they're so ingrained into the political system. So anything that exposes the ills of the political system is assumed true almost by default. And it goes both ways. You have many that disbelieve anything that comes from mainstream sources while naively opening themselves up to independent sources. But you also still have people that believe anything that comes from mainstream sources while naively disregarding everything stated by independent sources. The sad matter of the fact is that companies need to earn money to operate and there's far more money in "taking liberties" with the truth than there is giving plain non-sensationalized reporting of the news.
My only wonder is how far back this goes. I used to fall into the "it's mainstream so it must be true" category, at least to a substantial degree. Here's a video [youtube.com] that never really got much coverage, even though I think it's one of the most telling little accidental open mic conversations I've ever seen and between no less than Larry King and Bill Clinton just prior to his election victory.