from Hacker News

Diaspora version 0.7.0.0 released

by chtfn on 8/20/17, 6:35 AM with 62 comments

  • by jancsika on 8/20/17, 2:11 PM

    Someone should run a Diaspora pod with the following model:

    1. They market it like crazy in the hopes of getting something like a few million users

    2. They publicly state that they will mine all metadata for the purpose of generating an "inference report".

    3. Every other week they release an "inference report" that reveals a new, dangerous way the seemingly innocuous metadata can be used. Some examples would include a) accurately gleaning more private data from the metadata, and-- if enough people join-- b) using that data to subtly influence the behavior of the participants.

    Outside researchers are given access to the process in order to audit it. Anything revealed in the inference report would be assumed to already be happening on larger commercial networks.

    Users would remain as long as they believe the value of the inference reports outweigh the risk to them of using the network.

    Edit: formatting

  • by tw1010 on 8/20/17, 12:52 PM

    I like these guys' perseverance. But part of me can't stop the feeling of sadness that they've spent a better part of a decade working on it, perhaps the best years of their lives. I know perseverance and failure is seen as good things in certain circles, but I don't think I've ever read a biography where the author spent ten years on something that ultimately went nowhere and then went on to do things of enough noteworthiness to merit said biography.

  • by mejin on 8/20/17, 10:59 AM

    While I completely support the goal of diaspora, I don't think that I can use it. one of the main benefits of Facebook is that I can look up someone's information / posts without them being informed. Imo that is what made Facebook so big in the first place.

  • by dewey on 8/20/17, 9:31 AM

    Is there a bigger community actually using Diaspora? Maybe I'm outside of that bubble that's why I'm wondering.

  • by adnam on 8/20/17, 11:16 AM

    I think it would be really interesting to build something like dispora as a suite of dockerised micro-services which would allow you to add and extend functionality based on a new social-networkong protocol in a language-agnostic way. It would also be very easy to incorporate email and xmpp which are already federated protocols.

  • by dgudkov on 8/20/17, 9:46 AM

    I don't know if these guys have funding or not, but they deserve it. There is too much centralization nowadays. Too many eggs in the same basket.

  • by dreamfactored on 8/20/17, 7:34 PM

    I think Github could create a good nucleating community for federated networking. They could host a giant pod of Github users (could be the next venue following slashdot>kuro5hin>reddit>hn), and they could also create 1 click tooling for Github users to create pod for their own project communities.

    Would be a good kickstarter for generating sufficient network effect value to use in the first place, evolving the platform software through real world tire kicking, and getting it out to the wider world. And being github, as well as a sufficiently technical userbase, there's already a business model around freemium hosting which could be applied.

  • by blubb-fish on 8/20/17, 3:46 PM

    diaspora is flawed by design. it will only ever be used by techies b/c either you take care of your own server or you have to trust somebody with your data.

    what is needed is a facebook e.V. with a strict data safety policy.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_association_(Germ...

    it would cost transparently what is needed to sustain the service.

  • by xvilka on 8/20/17, 1:39 PM

    MediaGoblin and OpenBazaar also fit their Fediverse.

  • by flaburgan on 8/22/17, 10:56 AM

    I'm so happy to see this release, especially with the codebase cleaning. The diaspora* protocol is now rock-solid (see https://blog.diasporafoundation.org/43-our-federation-protoc... ) that means the federated social web is now free and can extend!

  • by mike-cardwell on 8/20/17, 11:15 AM

    Does event management exist yet? I.e, can my friends and I create events and invite people to them like you can on Facebook?

    Also, ISTR from last time I played with it, there was no ability to create photo albums/collections. Does that exist now?

    Without those two things I couldn't even begin to consider getting people to start using it.

  • by im3w1l on 8/20/17, 9:44 PM

    If I and my friends are on the same pod, and I get banned from it, can I still talk to them?