Re: Schneier, Data and Goliath: no hope for privacy

D <nospam@example.net> writes:

On Thu, 20 Feb 2025, Salvador Mirzo wrote:
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D <nospam@example.net> writes:
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[...]
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Yeah.  It's not going to work for regular people.  However, there's
something that I think it should work for regular people---low volume
NNTP servers.

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Leafnode I think would be quite a nice piece of software for small,
local nntp
servers.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leafnode
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I use part of its functionality to pull in usenet into my mail client.

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I need to look into leafnode again.  Now I don't think leafnode can peer
with a USENET server, right?  I think we should have a server that does.
I'm willing to write it.

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I think you are right. It doesn't peer, but it does pull selected
groups and latest posts from a "real" nntp server.
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However!
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It saves all messages in a local spool folder, and since nntp is a
nice and simple retro-protocols, it is trivial to understand the
format. So what you could do, between 2 leafnode servers, is to just
reverse engineer the format and "copy" the spool directory between the
two leafnode installations and all the messages will pop up on the
other leafnode as well.

Okay, but the question was to just to confirm my mostly-forgotten
recollections of Leafnode.  I wouldn't mind working on it to make it
peer via NNTP itself.  But I would much rather write a completely new in
a non-C language.

I would be surprised if INN2 doesn't do all of this, but I think we
should have other alternatives with newer ideas too.  For instance, I

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The reason I did not go the INN2 route was that I wanted some small
and simple, for pulling messages one way only. Leafnode at first had
some restrictions such as needing a valid DNS name which was a pain,
so I simply deleted its checks, and now the server can be named
anything I want, which is fine, since I'm not peering. This can of
course be added back if you want it.

I never used INN2, but I do suspect that it's made for a serious USENET
server and that it's more complex that it needs to be for the idea of a
network of small NNTP servers.

Only today was one of my younger partners telling the class that my
emails are quite something to behold. Long and packed with all the
information the person needs to perform the task. At first he found
it draining and stressful, but then he learned that I do not demand
instant replies when I email (then I call or write in the email that
it is urgent) and after a while he learned to appreciate that all
information he might need is in the email.

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Yeah---young people don't quite get e-mail.  They never read about
e-mail.  Perhaps one thing that's against them (and it was not against
us) is that they have a lot of options today.  We didn't have this many
options.  We started out on a simpler world.  So we were able to stay at
the top of the game over the years.  And so we mastered it.  Now we're
experienced and we handle the complexities of the world with the help of
our experience.  They don't have these tools available.  They could get
here quickly, but they're lost.  Instructions we give them don't
suffice: perhaps because people must discover things for themselves.
That's perhaps why education only works for those who actually don't
need one.

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I think is perhaps somewhat of a downward trend. I feel awe when
talking to the older generations who had to learn the hardware,
program in assembler and so on.

I feel the same.  Like you, I feel great learning from the older
generations.  In fact, I often think that they were privileged for being
able to be there first.  I identified this easily enough to develop a
passion for studying the history of computer science, which makes me
look very old now because I use a lot of very old tools, which are
awesome tools despite their age.  I got a web post by Joel Spolsky the
phrase that ``software doesn't get dusty''.

In my generation, hardware and assembler were solved problems, so the
programming was done in higher level languages.
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Todays generation don't even see the hardware, they all use cloud
servers and python.
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So the original foundation gets further and further away. Only a small
set of hw wizards still care and know about that layer of the stack.

That's quite right.  I went through the same.  The whole thing was
pretty much already done.  I believe I am not very fond of directly
interacting with hardware myself.  For example, I usually like to have a
very clean office---no wires (if I could), not a lot of gadgets around.

Nevertheless, I feel obsessed by computers and I try to get close to the
hardware by more abstract means.  For instance, I've been reading about
the 6502 and it seems like such a simple CPU that it makes up for a very
great computer architecture first introduction, unlike x86, say.