IN BRIEF
·
The
Facts:
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the 'World Wide Web,' has created a
new startup company named Inrupt which is poised to 'interrupt' the data
domination and invasion of privacy of big internet companies like Facebook and
Google.
·
Reflect
On:
Can you envision an internet in which each one of us is the
gatekeeper of our own data and we can all operate on the internet in an
equitable way?
Facebook, Google, and the rest of the censorship and data mining
cabal–you have now officially been put on notice.
Something
that I hinted at in a previous article ‘Anti-Defamation League, Facebook, Google &
Youtube Appoint Themselves As Official Internet Censor‘ has taken on
new significance. When I said that I’m not sure the “censorship cabal” led
by Facebook should really be messing with an Awakening Community, it turns
out we have some pretty powerful people in the Awakening Community.
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the ‘World Wide Web’ and one
of Time magazine’s ‘100 most important people of the 20th century,’
had the noblest intentions when he turned the keys of the internet over to the
world for free in 1989. This awakened genius saw the potential for increased
openness, connectivity, and productivity on the platform which was
fundamentally designed as a medium for positive change and human empowerment.
The Emergence Of A Frankenstein
Instead,
Berners-Lee has seen his creation turn into some kind of Frankenstein, as noted
in this Zero Hedge article:
“For people who want to make sure the
Web serves humanity, we have to concern ourselves with what people are building
on top of it,” Tim Berners-Lee told Vanity Fair last
month. “I was devastated,” he said, while going through a litany of harmful and
dangerous developments of the past three decades of the web. He lamented that
his creation has been abused by powerful entities for everything from
mass surveillance to fake news to psychological manipulation to corporations
commodifying individuals’ information.
Berners-Lee has worked in recent years in and out of
different companies and advocacy groups trying to preserve the sanctity of the
internet and retain its initial purpose and vision, but despite his
efforts, he has seen its gradual takeover by powerful entities who have been able
to centralize much of the internet’s activities, and along with this have been
able to horde much of its valuable information.
Dreams Of Freedom And Openness
In the face of this, Berners-Lee and other internet activists have
long been dreaming of a digital utopia where individuals control their own data
and the internet remains free and open. But for Berners-Lee, the time for
dreaming is over. “We have to do it now. It’s a historical moment,” he has
said. Ever since revelations emerged that Facebook had allowed people’s data to
be misused by political operatives, Berners-Lee has felt an imperative to get
this digital idyll into the real world.
And so, Berners-Lee has launched a start-up that intends
to end the dominance of Facebook, Google, and Amazon, while in the process
letting individuals take back control of their own data.
Solid and Inrupt
This began with ‘Solid,’ which is a decentralized web
platform that Berners-Lee designed and built with a small team at MIT over
several years. It can be considered as a kind of operating system for the
internet that will serve as the foundation for applications which support the
decentralization of information.
On Solid, all of
one’s information is under the user’s control. Every bit of data he
or she creates or adds on Solid exists within a Solid ‘pod’–which is an acronym
for personal online data store. These pods are what give Solid users
control over their applications and information on the web. Anyone using the
platform will get a Solid identity and Solid pod. This is how people,
Berners-Lee says, will take back the power of the web from corporations.
He then
created Inrupt, Berners-Lee’s new online platform and company that serves as a user
interface to these pods, where everything from messages, music, contacts
or other personal data will be stored in one place overseen by the
user instead of an array of platforms and apps run by corporations seeking
to profit off personal information. The project seeks “personal empowerment
through data” and aims to “take back” the web, according to company statements.
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Inrupt Will Just Be One Of Many
Once
again, as per the Zerohedge article,
Unlike Facebook or Twitter where all user information
ultimately resides in centralized data centers and servers under control of the
companies, applications on Inrupt will compete for users based on the services
they can offer, and only the users can grant these apps “views” into their
data, making personal data instantly portable between similar
applications.
“The main enhancement is that the web
becomes a collaborative read-write space, passing control from owners of a
server, to the users of that system. The Solid specification provides this
functionality,” the Solid website says.
If all goes as planned, Inrupt will be to Solid what Netscape once
was for many first-time users of the web: an easy way in. And like with
Netscape, Berners-Lee hopes Inrupt will be just the first of many companies to
emerge from Solid. In this way, creative developers will be able to
compete with their latest and greatest interfaces to internet information, but
unlike the opportunity seized by the likes of Facebook and Google, these new
interfaces will never be able to ‘own’ or ‘house’ people’s personal data, and
therefore the corrupt and fraudulent abuse of that data by big corporations
will disappear from the internet. This failsafe is now built into the
architecture of the Solid operating system.
The Takeaway
Many of us in the Awakening Community have been upset by
the assault on our privacy and our freedom by the large internet corporations,
but we can take solace in the fact that sometimes these very acts of injustice
are what triggers consciousness to move us forward, and enables awakened
humans to fulfill their dreams of creating the next great thing that will
truly empower humanity.
We
interviewed Franco DeNicola about what is happening with the shift in
consciousness. It turned out to be one of the deepest and most important
information we pulled out within an interview.
We
explored why things are moving a little more slowly with the shift at times,
what is stopping certain solutions from coming forward and the important role
we all play.
