Storing your data at a hosting company is only minimally better than storing it on LJ or Facebook. And for the average user, more technical complexity is not a real solution.
I think that as social networks increase in importance, we'll see increased regulation of these kinds of site and what they can and can't do with user content. Not necessarily a global solution, but I think at some point the US and EU will say "hey, if you want to collect these kinds of data from our citizens, you'll have to play by certain rules." This is already the case for online commerce - if you collect credit card numbers, there are laws about where and how you can store them. Compromising someone's social network that they've been using to communicate about personal matters could be as damaging as identity theft.
Actually, your hoster definitely could delete your content. What makes you think they wouldn't? They probably wouldn't delete an individual file, though -- they would just delete your whole site or virtual machine.
I've heard Flickr do it. I have never ever heard a vanity site hoster do it without warnings or facilities to take content off, and hosters seem less interested in policing than community sites are. I have some exprience; I myself have been deleted on a warez charge (the PHKL page got front page on /.) but the way that went was better than the way Flickr behaves. I am also thinking that while a hoster may delete a hosted person, at least it would just be one, and not have the whole network go with it.
Using Torrent with an easy to use gui (Azareus? BitTorrent?) as an example (did you already use it, I confess I just skimmed your article-cause you sold me on the details of your idea quite a while back) I think one could create a social networking site that was distributed, hard to remove and dead easy to use.
I am quite excited about the promise of Dreamwidth .... but I like the width of your dream better.
Posted Dec 10th. The link pointed to still on spdcc, my previous web space by a friend, but the admin of that put a redirect in to exonome's page. Two weeks later I get a mail from from my hoster in terrible english that exonome is obviously hosting warex, just look at the spike in my traffic, please vacate now. They were not to be plied. ON Christmas Eve I was making backups of my site to load somewhere else.
It was an 'unlimited bandwidth' account early hosters were experimenting with. I was eating their margins alive. When I moved to a generous account on another hoster, I still regularly had overages for years.
I get why it's important to you personally, but I don't think the problem can really be solved at the storage level.
If your content was on a federated blog network, your data might be safe from deletion, but the network could redirect all of its links and render your content largely invisible. For example, TinyURL and bit.ly can't touch your content, but if they decided to blacklist techsociotech.com then nobody would be able to discuss you on Twitter anymore.
There are ways around that. You could set up your own URL-shortening service. But at some point, the Internet stops working (in the social sense) if people can't depend on shared services.
SmugMug actually has a service that's similar to what you're talking about - they let you use your own Amazon S3 account as secure backup for your photos and other files with their app as a front end. So you "own" the disk but you're still participating in their online service.
Not a clue, but it's kind of funny that The Free Dictionary has seen fit to include PHKL with the sole definition being the one in the post we're discussing. ;-)
As of May 1, you can buy a paid account to get an invite code (which I did either because I'm a sucker or because I want to support the idea). I have an invite code if you want one.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 10:17 pm (UTC)I think that as social networks increase in importance, we'll see increased regulation of these kinds of site and what they can and can't do with user content. Not necessarily a global solution, but I think at some point the US and EU will say "hey, if you want to collect these kinds of data from our citizens, you'll have to play by certain rules." This is already the case for online commerce - if you collect credit card numbers, there are laws about where and how you can store them. Compromising someone's social network that they've been using to communicate about personal matters could be as damaging as identity theft.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 10:18 pm (UTC)My bet is the Eu will be first. They got data privacy acts already and all.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 10:49 pm (UTC)Using Torrent with an easy to use gui (Azareus? BitTorrent?) as an example (did you already use it, I confess I just skimmed your article-cause you sold me on the details of your idea quite a while back) I think one could create a social networking site that was distributed, hard to remove and dead easy to use.
I am quite excited about the promise of Dreamwidth .... but I like the width of your dream better.
Now the real question. How is PHKL warez?
no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 02:48 am (UTC)Posted Dec 10th. The link pointed to still on spdcc, my previous web space by a friend, but the admin of that put a redirect in to exonome's page. Two weeks later I get a mail from from my hoster in terrible english that exonome is obviously hosting warex, just look at the spike in my traffic, please vacate now. They were not to be plied. ON Christmas Eve I was making backups of my site to load somewhere else.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 01:33 am (UTC)If your content was on a federated blog network, your data might be safe from deletion, but the network could redirect all of its links and render your content largely invisible. For example, TinyURL and bit.ly can't touch your content, but if they decided to blacklist techsociotech.com then nobody would be able to discuss you on Twitter anymore.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 10:44 am (UTC)SmugMug actually has a service that's similar to what you're talking about - they let you use your own Amazon S3 account as secure backup for your photos and other files with their app as a front end. So you "own" the disk but you're still participating in their online service.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 02:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-04 01:34 pm (UTC)