Decentralization at the Mozilla Festival�2017
A quick summary by Mark Boas
Decentralization Space
Decentralization is the process of distributing or dispersing functions, powers, people or things away from a central location or authority.� Wikipedia.com
Decentralization Benefits
Decentralization
Application�
Cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations� Wikipedia.com
Co-op? So what?�A collaborative think-a-thon
John Bevan and Bryan Mathers from We Are Open Co-op
Featuring: �
“We Are Open Co-op's 'thinkathon' approach, to help people think about knotty problems in an open, inclusive, and participatory way.”
(Platform) Coops & Dragons: role play the board game
Pietro Polsinelli from Open Lab
�
“...a role playing game where the ‘master’ is a mega corporation (actually, three in one) and tries to economically crush the players each of whom is a (platform) cooperative.”
Session | Slides | Blog | Download
Data - Open, Decentralized and Fighting Propaganda.
Design & Deception: A Crash Course in Data Distortion
Jess Sauer from InfluenceTX
“...covering design and data science methods for transforming raw data into propaganda and highlighting the overlap between unintentional misrepresentation and ill-intentioned manipulation (...) participants will learn about ethical information design and the importance of open data.”
Databox - Decentring Personal Data Processing
Andy Crabtree from Nottingham University
“a radical alternative to the current technological infrastructure that underpins dystopian visions (...) we hope to learn from our participants of the challenges that confront a decentred future,”
Workshop on how to conduct a focal Open Data evaluations for your country
Paulina Bustos Arellano from Article 19
“We will work with the participants on conducting a focal Open Data evaluation in their country. The idea is to base this exercise, on the work that other people have done in their countries.”
Education
and Civil Liberty.
Just Numbers
Nasser Elderoos from ACLU
“Machine learning and face recognition software are being increasingly used by police… This is an introduction to how police collect data from citizens through surveillance equipment. Session will discuss how to analyze open records and surveillance data.”
Where did the internet go? Fighting shutdowns around school exams
Melody Patry from Access Now
“In 2016 and 2017, we recorded more than 30 instances of intentional internet shutdowns during school exams... We'll aim to teach people about shutdowns around school exams and equip them with technical and pragmatic solutions to fight back. ”
Technology�
Mesh Networks
A local network topology in which the infrastructure nodes (i.e. bridges, switches and other infrastructure devices) connect directly, dynamically and non-hierarchically to as many other nodes as possible and cooperate with one another to efficiently route data from/to clients.
Create your own off-grid, long-range mobile mesh networks
Daniela Perdomo and Rahul Subramany of GoTenna
“Provide access to the tools (hardware & software) necessary for attendees to build their own their own off-grid communications projects”
Portable Network Kits (PNK)
Raul Enriquez of Resilient Communities NYC
“How will your local community communicate when a disaster hits? Participants will walk away with skills to assemble, configure, and deploy a portable network kit (PNK).”
“We will also introduce them to the many potential uses and adaptations of the PNK, including the ability to create and mobilize autonomous, locally-controlled information systems for self-determination, mutual aid, and digital sovereignty. Participants will walk away with concrete skills, a how-to guide, and the challenge to use the PNK to gain greater ownership and control over their digital presence.”
Cryptocurrency (blockchain etc).
“A blockchain is a continuously growing list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured using cryptography.”
Warning!
Demystifying ethereum to build your own decentralized app (Ðapp) using blockchain
Abhiram Ravikumar - Mozilla Rep
“Participants are made aware about blockchain - a decentralized database that is used to make sure that transactions are immutable and helps build trust among its users.”
Blockchain for research: a real opportunity or just hype?”
Naomi Penfold from eLife
“... an open debate featuring people who work on blockchain projects for science and research”
“... to raise awareness of the potential utility that blockchain could serve for science as well as its limits.”
Smart Blockchain Indie Film Distribution, and the Internet Of Things
Kristian Van Der Heyden - Harald House
“Many see blockchains as an important stepping stone toward the Internet of Things, a decentralisation that brings creator, seller, buyer closer together. I will share my R&D with the audience”
Peer-to-Peer (p2p).
A key aspect of decentralized systems is that clients are also servers reducing or eliminating the need for a central server.
These client/server nodes are known as peers.
Peer-to-Peer Protocols #1
W3C Proposed recommendation - a decentralized social networking protocol based upon the ActivityStreams 2.0 data format.
The ActivityPub Network
Evan Prodromou from Fuzzy.ai
“an overview of the W3C's ActivityStreams 2.0 social data standard and its on-the-wire protocol ActivityPub. Touching on its implementation in software like Mastodon, pump.io, GNU Mediagoblin and GNU Social.”
Peer-to-Peer Protocols #2
An open transfer protocol designed to distribute data in a decentralised or p2p manner over the web.
The Dat Project is more than a protocol however, it’s also a critical component of data preservation efforts.
Re-decentralizing the Web with a peer-to-peer browser
Tara Vancil and Paul Frazee - developers of Beaker Browser
Host your data on the peer to peer web with Dat
Peer-to-Peer Protocols #3
IPFS (Interplanetary File System)
A protocol designed to create a permanent and decentralized method of storing and sharing files. It is a content-addressable, peer-to-peer hypermedia distribution protocol, combining a distributed hash table, an incentivized block exchange and a self-certifying namespace.
Building Google Docs without the Google (CRDT + IPFS)�
InterPlanetary Linked-Data�
The Distributed Web�
David Dias, Pedro Teixeira and Nicola Greco from Protocol Labs
Artificial Intelligence
and Parallelization.
Explore Parallel Processing by building a hands on design challenge
Devin Dillon from Iridescent
“participants will be given everyday objects, like cardboard and sticks, and challenged to create a parallel processing system that can sort objects accurately using multiple channels”
TV Archives cracked open - Artificial Intelligence for Internet Archive
Tracey Jaquith from Internet Archive
“To work with journalists, researchers, hackers, audio/video and captions and artificial intelligence folks, to learn more about what's available at archive.org/tv and help us extend it with API ideas and experiments.”