The US has declared Autistici/Inventati, an Italian anarchist hacker (in the classic sense of the term) collective, a terrorist organization.
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Autistici/Inventati's domains have now been revoked. I updated the link in the above post with a wayback machine copy.
Every now and then someone tells me, "We have a decentralized naming system, it's called DNS!" and I say, no we don't, DNS is extremely centralized? And if that wasn't clear to you before, hopefully it's clear to you today.
@cwebber well, DNS is decentralised….its just that the governance isn’t

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I found this for now? https://www.inventati.org/ Is it real?
edit: their mastodon links this up/down page https://kuma.accol.li/status/aimonitor
CC: @cwebber@social.coop @reiddragon@fedi.catto.garden
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@navi I wanted to fix this but I don't think there was, or still is, much interest. It would be a lot of work to do something different, at this stage.
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Autistici/Inventati's domains have now been revoked. I updated the link in the above post with a wayback machine copy.
Every now and then someone tells me, "We have a decentralized naming system, it's called DNS!" and I say, no we don't, DNS is extremely centralized? And if that wasn't clear to you before, hopefully it's clear to you today.
@cwebber I agree. Someone recently circulated a list of TLDs that didn't have an ICANN connection, and it's like 15-20 country-based domains. I went and looked at dotMeow, which I supported, and they're based in Belgium. But, no, they're going to be an ICANN registered domain. Still a worthy cause, but that's a shame. So much of the Internet has been built on trusting the US. Few people built contingencies for this breach of trust.
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Autistici/Inventati's domains have now been revoked. I updated the link in the above post with a wayback machine copy.
Every now and then someone tells me, "We have a decentralized naming system, it's called DNS!" and I say, no we don't, DNS is extremely centralized? And if that wasn't clear to you before, hopefully it's clear to you today.
@cwebber Yup. “Distributed” != “decentralized.”
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@cwebber USA=1970s USSR, we became the evil empire we opposed.
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@cwebber petnames when?

@skyfaller @cwebber DNS is a degenerate petname system... one where everybody configures their machines to use the same root.
Like having one dominant currency, it has certain efficiencies and economies of scale. It's hard to compete against.
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@ashwin Blockchain? I don't think it's good enough for anything in production...
Sure, cryptography is elegant, but all these blockchains are good only for proof of concept projects that looks good on paper. In reality, I don't want to wait payment transaction to complete in minutes - that will never become widely adopted solution

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@ashwin Blockchain? I don't think it's good enough for anything in production...
Sure, cryptography is elegant, but all these blockchains are good only for proof of concept projects that looks good on paper. In reality, I don't want to wait payment transaction to complete in minutes - that will never become widely adopted solution

@gytisrepecka @ashwin @cwebber y'all why are we talking about fucking currency again. as per my other reply, no.
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Autistici/Inventati's domains have now been revoked. I updated the link in the above post with a wayback machine copy.
Every now and then someone tells me, "We have a decentralized naming system, it's called DNS!" and I say, no we don't, DNS is extremely centralized? And if that wasn't clear to you before, hopefully it's clear to you today.
@cwebber@social.coop what do you propose we use instead of dns?
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@gytisrepecka @ashwin @cwebber y'all why are we talking about fucking currency again. as per my other reply, no.
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@eviloatmeal @navi @cwebber the Americanness of let’s encrypt keeps me up sometimes.
@auxonic @eviloatmeal @navi @cwebber
Canencrypt
. No, it's not about crypto and canes, ugh, forget it. -
@ashwin @gytisrepecka @cwebber the very first use-case is AI shite, amazing
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@agowa338@chaos.social DNS infrastructure is relatively decentralized/redundant (just look at the diversity of root zone operators!), but control is not at all decentralized (though, it is hierarchical, as you say)
most significantly, the root zone is controlled by ICANN alone, and each TLD is controlled by a registry alone. to buy a domain, you have to go through that registry indirectly. that registry can take your domain away. and so can your registrar.
the decentralized and redundant infrastructure solves a real problem: there is no single technical point of failure the can take out the entire system. in decades of operation, DNS as a whole has never suffered a complete outage. the root zone has had 100% uptime, despite several large-scale attacks over its existence.
but the very centralized control of the same system presents a real problem: you're at the whims of Two Organizations (registry and registrar) to not take your domains away. you can never own a domain.
the hierarchical nature allows you to pick which organizations to be at the whims of, and this is good, because there's no single organizational point of failure for the entire system (besides ICANN, who does not have the power to take away individual second-level domains). if one registry or registrar is hostile, you can go to another one.
but you can never own a domain. you can never not be at the whims of one of the divine organizations.
in a decentralized system (in the sense we mean when we say "DNS is centralized"), you're not forced to trust a central entity. in DNS, you have a couple choices, but at the end of the day, you have to pick one to trust.
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it sounds like what i just described may overlap with what you call an "authoritarian"/"libertarian" system? but you didn't explain these terms very well in the context of a distributed computer system. i'm not sure what you meant by them exactly. so i just avoided using them at all. -
Using an out of band method to share host to IP addresses would work right now.
If the regime learns no one will listen to them, that should discourage them from trying in the future. If not, the part of the world that wants freedom needs to cut the us government and corporations out of their lives.
That's possible though would be an difficult transition period, but if they keep abusing their power they need to lose it
@alienghic @alice @cwebber Fight now, or they come for us anyway later.
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@agowa338@chaos.social DNS infrastructure is relatively decentralized/redundant (just look at the diversity of root zone operators!), but control is not at all decentralized (though, it is hierarchical, as you say)
most significantly, the root zone is controlled by ICANN alone, and each TLD is controlled by a registry alone. to buy a domain, you have to go through that registry indirectly. that registry can take your domain away. and so can your registrar.
the decentralized and redundant infrastructure solves a real problem: there is no single technical point of failure the can take out the entire system. in decades of operation, DNS as a whole has never suffered a complete outage. the root zone has had 100% uptime, despite several large-scale attacks over its existence.
but the very centralized control of the same system presents a real problem: you're at the whims of Two Organizations (registry and registrar) to not take your domains away. you can never own a domain.
the hierarchical nature allows you to pick which organizations to be at the whims of, and this is good, because there's no single organizational point of failure for the entire system (besides ICANN, who does not have the power to take away individual second-level domains). if one registry or registrar is hostile, you can go to another one.
but you can never own a domain. you can never not be at the whims of one of the divine organizations.
in a decentralized system (in the sense we mean when we say "DNS is centralized"), you're not forced to trust a central entity. in DNS, you have a couple choices, but at the end of the day, you have to pick one to trust.
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it sounds like what i just described may overlap with what you call an "authoritarian"/"libertarian" system? but you didn't explain these terms very well in the context of a distributed computer system. i'm not sure what you meant by them exactly. so i just avoided using them at all.Yea, decentralised and authoritarian.
decentralised and libertarian would be e.g. Tor with .onion addresses. Which has the issue of not being able to choose the domain name (in it's entirety at least).
centralised and libertarian would be .i2p, you (in theory) can choose who the central authority that provides the naming is yourself. Which has the issue of them potentially disagreeing (like early days when you c'n'p-ed host files)
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Using an out of band method to share host to IP addresses would work right now.
If the regime learns no one will listen to them, that should discourage them from trying in the future. If not, the part of the world that wants freedom needs to cut the us government and corporations out of their lives.
That's possible though would be an difficult transition period, but if they keep abusing their power they need to lose it
@alienghic @alice @cwebber Well, payment could be things like Visa gift cards of any variety (in the US, non-reloadable) that does not need to be activated with ID.
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Yea, decentralised and authoritarian.
decentralised and libertarian would be e.g. Tor with .onion addresses. Which has the issue of not being able to choose the domain name (in it's entirety at least).
centralised and libertarian would be .i2p, you (in theory) can choose who the central authority that provides the naming is yourself. Which has the issue of them potentially disagreeing (like early days when you c'n'p-ed host files)
And centralised and authoritarian would be when IANA had a full table and wouldn't have a concept of delegating.
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@agowa338@chaos.social DNS infrastructure is relatively decentralized/redundant (just look at the diversity of root zone operators!), but control is not at all decentralized (though, it is hierarchical, as you say)
most significantly, the root zone is controlled by ICANN alone, and each TLD is controlled by a registry alone. to buy a domain, you have to go through that registry indirectly. that registry can take your domain away. and so can your registrar.
the decentralized and redundant infrastructure solves a real problem: there is no single technical point of failure the can take out the entire system. in decades of operation, DNS as a whole has never suffered a complete outage. the root zone has had 100% uptime, despite several large-scale attacks over its existence.
but the very centralized control of the same system presents a real problem: you're at the whims of Two Organizations (registry and registrar) to not take your domains away. you can never own a domain.
the hierarchical nature allows you to pick which organizations to be at the whims of, and this is good, because there's no single organizational point of failure for the entire system (besides ICANN, who does not have the power to take away individual second-level domains). if one registry or registrar is hostile, you can go to another one.
but you can never own a domain. you can never not be at the whims of one of the divine organizations.
in a decentralized system (in the sense we mean when we say "DNS is centralized"), you're not forced to trust a central entity. in DNS, you have a couple choices, but at the end of the day, you have to pick one to trust.
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it sounds like what i just described may overlap with what you call an "authoritarian"/"libertarian" system? but you didn't explain these terms very well in the context of a distributed computer system. i'm not sure what you meant by them exactly. so i just avoided using them at all.@agowa338@chaos.social in particular for Autistici/Inventati, the relevant domains seem to all have been under
.org. this is operated by the Public Interest Registry which is based in Virginia, United States. that's the single point of failure that can take away those domains. and because they're based in the US, of course they will revoke domains relating to anyone its government declares as terrorists. like, sure, not all of DNS is centralized with PIR, but all of.orgis controlled by them alone.
one can play a game of whack-a-mole and find a new registry. check out sci-hub, which has done exactly this.
but it doesn't solve the problem. at some point, you can run out of registries or jurisdictions. you can be Kicked Off DNS entirely. centralized between N entities that have to agree to remove you, is still centralized. it's not that much different from 1 entity consisting of N members voting to control what the single entity does. (i think you already know this and agree with me? certainly this has to be what you meant by authoritarian) -
Autistici/Inventati's domains have now been revoked. I updated the link in the above post with a wayback machine copy.
Every now and then someone tells me, "We have a decentralized naming system, it's called DNS!" and I say, no we don't, DNS is extremely centralized? And if that wasn't clear to you before, hopefully it's clear to you today.
@cwebber DNS is "decentralized" because if one server removes a domain name, you can just use another one that still has it. However this is not at all how DNSs are operated in reality & it is completely centralized. There are a few alternative DNS networks, but those are also centralized!
What are people getting confused about here, the acronym? The "D" stands for "domain", not "decentralized".

