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We had a "medium web" in 2004, it grew like a Chia Pet. The are small web parts that use HTTP(s), but a HTTP browser like Netsurf that doesn't support Javascript or even CSS3 or HTML5 (though I like the last two, they just want to be compatible with RISC OS) is seen as an inferior big web experience because HTTP(s) is now associated with big web functionality. Even in 2004, what is seen as a "medium web" now was only somewhat dependent on Javascript, but it I remember everybody used it to play Pogo and that needed a Flash and Java plugin.
Jan 15 · 5 months ago
Alternatively, Gopher has been around almost as long as http, and it's still small. These more minimal text-heavy protocols just don't have mass appeal. I think that you're fooling yourself if you think that your grandma or your barber are likely to ever open a Gemini browser in their lifetimes.
Also, what's wrong with Tor? I use it all the time and even host a Snowflake bridge. Hell, it's good as a VPN sometimes if you're trying to access a video or service that's geoblocked. There are plenty of reasonable, legal uses for Tor. Just don't run an *exit* node from your house, there was a guy in my country who did that a few years ago and almost went to jail. But he didn't!
This seems like a user problem to me. Don't post your life story in places you don't have complete control over if you are uncomfortable with the possibility, however remote, that someone might identify you based on your posts. This is as true on Gemini and it would be in HTTP spaces or in IRC channels, anywhere, really.
Don't share personal stories in gritty detail and you can likely sidestep most of this issue. No protocol can protect users' anonymity if they insist on oversharing their personal information.
When I was a kid, it was simple, just don't say where you're from and don't say your name. But a couple hobbies can give you away. a phrase you say can give you away. What gave away the Unibomber was him being unique and saying the proper phrase "eating your cake and having it too" gave him away after his brother called the cops hearing that phrase on TV. Now imagine LLMs doing it today to mine your data. If you casually say your birthday, there are 0.273785079% percent of the earth that share your birthday, that alone narrows it down. Hell, using these examples I made probably narrow me down.
> No protocol can protect users' anonymity if they insist on oversharing their personal information.
If you must share, also make up a lot. If 70 percent of your personal information is fake it will be harder to positive identify you.
If you’ve declared yourself to be born in five years, told stories about your life in six places (five you’ve never been to), and claimed relationships that don’t exist, it’s going to be harder to match you to public data.
Worried about AI matching your text across sites? Start running it through ChatGPT. Ask it to rewrite your message as if it spoken by someone with a huge data set like Donald Trump or Chris-Chan.
Other people mentioned Tor, I'd like to further back that recommendation and add that by actively using it you are helping people who really need it (as in their life and/or freedom may be at risk). If you're not doing anything super illegal then you can bear the risk of being on "a list" as some put it.
Any increase in total Tor traffic is good for the people who really need anonymity. I'd love to see more capules on onion sites, and once Arti matures I'd love to see a Gemini client with built-in Tor!
If Tor can't protect what western nations call "criminals", (though there illegal and unethical things too) what makes you think it can't protect people in autocratic nations? The same Tools that's used to catch cocaine/opiod dealers/buyers and human trafficing/hitman buyers/sellers are the same tools China and Russia and the rest of the 3rd world autocratic institutions can silence dissent. If the shady people aren't safe, what makes you think the people who are ethical by western enlightenment democracy standards are?
Tor can prevent traffic correlation well enough unless you're sending huge amounts of data. Especially if you're using onion sites. And if you're using a bridge from a foreign country, and you're being careful, you can avoid scrutiny. The people using it for this purpose are often being instructed on how to use it safely.
The main risk of Tor for criminals is that they assume it's some kind of magic invisibility cloak. Chances are they will mess up their opsec--most criminals aren't that smart--and I would guess that "dumb criminal using Tor at home" probably stands out more than "dumb criminal working on clearnet from a McDonalds."
Question about the Small Web — I'm not sure about a lot of the benifits of the small web. Like there's nothing to stop web crawlers from mining data and using LLMs to associate a user name to a legal name, there's very few people that share the same life story. I bet the archives in Textfiles.com has pointed what a kid said 35 years ago to his late 40's legal name by some Pinkertons. There's also nothing we can do about if one day there's spam like there's Spam in usenet now. There's also...
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