The isolation of the world and the culture of Nerds, hackers and shipropankov
I was inspired to write two documentaries by Jason Scott to write this article: BBS: The Documentary and GET LAMP . The first tells about the world of the Bulletin Board System (BBS), the formation of the FidoNet, ASCII / ANSI-art scene. The second shows the world of interactive fiction (IF) games (Adventure, Zork, ...). I myself found both BBS and FidoNet, found their culture and atmosphere.
After viewing them, it seems that there were so many beautiful interesting and enticing technologies, games and pieces, and then they suddenly sank into oblivion. It was good, but it became lousy. But it soon came that nothing like that. In percentage terms, it dies, but in absolute numbers, both it was and remained.
')
GET LAMP showed that blind people can play games. I myself played and went through only two IF games. And I can say for sure that if it is good with fantasy, if you prefer books to films, then IF will easily bring much more impressions and pleasure than a bunch of popular games on store shelves. BBS: The Documentary showed that modems and computers allowed the blind to communicate and work on a par with everyone else. And now it’s as if it’s all gone, BBS, FidoNet, IF, and with them the availability of information, communication and entertainment disappeared.
Previously, text-based user interfaces, command lines, and now the tyranny of graphic applications and even menu interface items have been replaced with icons. You can either read the text with a speech synthesizer or print in Braille. That is, in the CLI and TUI systems, the blind live comfortably, for them, often, there is no need to alter anything at all. But in the world there is a tendency to create interfaces, not only for blind people who are less suitable, but also for people like me in general, who have to guess what the author wanted to say with this or that icon, solve the puzzles. For example, the Lynx browser allows you to travel on the web to the blind: there is only text in it, so speech synthesis or Braille will enable the transmission of information to these people. But sites make everything less suitable for its use.
For example, I'm using (apart from Lynx) the Xombrero graphical browser. It does not support neon javascript chips or any WebRTC and, year after year, fewer sites under it work. WWW was once a distributed document system. Now it is increasingly becoming a distributed application delivery system. Even to see the address of a store or club, its creators believe that without downloading a separate JavaScript program, it’s not uncomfortable to do it. Many of them cease to support sites altogether (although there are also free hosting for static data) and move completely to social networks. But it’s one thing to have a page in LiveJournal - at least you can read the information, get data, read-only documents without registering and downloading programs (that is, from Lynx), and it’s another thing to post it on VKontakte, which forcibly redirects the browser if it’s JS program loading is disabled (and not free, obfuscated). That is, the information becomes inaccessible if you do not have a powerful computer, in which virtual machines must be regularly updated to run programs that require an increasingly thick Internet channel and in which you need to register via linking to a portable tracking device (cell phone ).
A separate problem is the movement of data to a CloudFlare CDN, which does not allow access if it suspects that the connection is coming from the Tor network, that is, preventing a person from not wanting to track his IP address. Or mailing lists using Google Groups service, in which you can not view the archive of messages without downloading a couple of megabytes of proprietary software.
Once was popular ICQ. Alternatives to him in the beginning was not really. Then came XMPP / Jabber. Technically rather scary and cumbersome protocol, but a tolerable alternative. Ten years ago, a protocol for end-to-end chat encryption appeared: OTR. Everyone in the pocket has a powerful computer with a fast information transmitter, while it is possible to install the XMPP / Jabber / OTR / whatever software client. But this is not happening. Who used to be in ICQ, now in Skype. Who used to be in IRC (although it’s an open, simple protocol, it’s all about it) now sits in Telegram, WhatsApp and others. It was a false feeling: well, finally, we had a few dozen Jabber clients and now people will change from centralized proprietary closed solutions. But no, nothing changes. Someone still continues to use Jabber, because it is an open protocol, as he says. But as for example a girl with only Viber appears, a man forgets instantly about the closeness of protocols.
About 15 years ago, many people did not have email. Now some of them have it, but ... they just don’t know how to use it. The concept of netiquette does not exist for them by definition. As there were N people using email in a decent way, only they now remain. Many mail is only working. Many need mail only for registration on sites and that's it. Several years ago I was among tenth-graders and it turned out that exactly one person from the whole class had email at all - the rest of them only had an account on VKontakte.
In the 2000s, many of my friends and acquaintances began to look at the world of free software: GNU / Linux, * BSD, and other systems. The benefit of the available Internet. But I thought that they were interested in free software. As soon as the work appeared, which allowed purchasing expensive Apple computers, then from the world's open source software, it blew away like the wind. This world was just a thing under which somehow it was possible to work (UNIX-like yet) and which was, as a rule, free. The really appreciated the ethical side of free software are just a few, and they are STRs who are the first to become interested.
Now pass cryptopathic variety. I'm not exactly sure, but I think that those who did not know how to encrypt the file before the cryptopatio are not in a hurry to start after. The most common question I hear from them is: how can I (from a cryptographic point of view) safely use XXX on my iPhone or MacBook. I know only a couple of people who use full-disk encryption - although regarding PGP it is very easy and simple (since there is no key exchange, trust management and so on) and is in all major operating systems out of the box. But PGP or OTR anyway remains the lot of a meager minority. Although PGP has been with us for more than a quarter of a century, OTR is more than 10 years old. It is safe to transfer a file from one computer to another - still in the overwhelming majority of cases an impossible task.
BitTorrent protocol with us for over 15 years. At some point it was popular, but now from year to year it is used less and less among friends. Many do not even have his client installed, not to mention constantly using. It would seem: purely technically, it is beautiful in its simplicity in the effective mass exchange of large amounts of information. It works well even for transferring large files (for example, hundreds of megabytes of photos) between two heterogeneous computers (it will automatically continue downloading, does not require an intermediate server for storage). The exchange of information often occurs through centralized "clouds". Again, everything returned to its place: centralized, primitive non-efficient means of data transmission dominate.
Again, I am too young to catch the Eternal September phenomenon in USENET, but I understand perfectly what this is about. You have an echoconference in which for many years there were predominantly just educated techies, with a lot of nerds. And then suddenly a cloud of people rushing into their world who wanted or simply did not hear about ethics or spit (not educated). The signal-to-noise ratio changes qualitatively, making these ehi useless. USENET, NNTP still live, but moved to the Internet mailing lists (maillist). And there all the same people as before were in USENET.
When there was no widely available Internet in our country, FidoNet was popular. Now this network has thinned out qualitatively, but I do not think that it is necessary to consider that as a phenomenon, as a separate world with its atmosphere, it has died. FTN networks were not technically well planned and they were honed to work under simple, cheap systems. Now all available computers can run at least full-fledged UNIX-like operating systems. FidoNet has moved to another virtual space. Most of its traffic goes over IP.
Returning to the IF and games, point-and-click toys were very popular in their time and were selling well (at that time). First, computers in the overwhelming majority were in all kinds of nerds and techies. Not so "tough" users of computers, which then was not enough, they really played. Now they do not make money on these games, but they, anyway, still exist as a genre and are being made. In percentage terms, they are invisible, but even purely text-based interactive fiction is still done and very worthy. Personally, I can not evaluate yet, but I played in the IF just the mid-to-late 2000s.
What trends do I see and what will happen in the future? I see that people have less and less equipment that would have data storage devices. Many have no CD / DVD / BluRay-ROM. Many have laptops without Ethernet ports — WiFi / Bluetooh connectivity only. More and more people do not even have computers, but only smartphones and tablets. And they often do not have USB ports or slots for connecting flash memory. Apple technology has the most severe censorship, DRM and restrictions: it’s impossible to download a program onto your device just by passing their centralized, censored cloud storage out of the box. At the same time, according to their rules, they actually prohibit downloading free software. Finding programs that bypassing the “clouds” could transfer data between devices via Bluetooh / WiFi is not a trivial (if not already impossible) task. Recently, the United States adopted (?) The law prohibiting the change of firmware in WiFi access points: that is, the only way (for mobile devices) data transfer remains beyond the control of the user. Corporations advocate the use of DRM in all its manifestations, and even the charger can be connected only brand, and not just any. What is happening in the United States, due to the fact that the overwhelming mass of people, even with a choice, still makes a step towards sponsorship and dependence on this country, directly concerns us. Therefore, the inability to manage their devices (flashing WiFi routers) will be with us. The prevailing amount of all actions and data passes through centralized clouds. Everything is stored "somewhere out there", and on the device only a maximum of the cache is available. One click and the person will lose access to everything. He can no longer install any program and manage his computing devices. Soon, some of the largest email providers will either change the SMTP protocol or, as a measure against spam, come up with something that will make it impossible to raise and use your own mail server with them. There are no protocols and programs for instant messaging anymore which could be used by everyone without problems - closed non-free solutions dominate and are forcefully incompatible with everything else.
What will happen then? All communications within the centralized corporate clouds, the availability of data on passport / cellular / token only, without any privacy or security is for the majority. And in isolation the existing hacker world, the world of nerds with free programs, open protocols and formats, accessible information, without artificial restrictions. That is, as it was 15-20 years ago, it will remain so. And now just a certain transitional period at which a false impression is created that hacker technologies have a chance to become mass-used. Already 5-10 years, everyone has a powerful computer with a huge memory, fast communication channels, accessible Internet and free software available free of charge, open protocols and formats. Sharing files or chatting has become easier and easier? There was an unrestricted (in most countries) strong cryptography, asymmetric cryptography, but did it become better with privacy? Far from it, not a drop, quite the contrary. In theory, people should become more united, information is more accessible, but in practice not at all. Censorship is easier (at the same time I don’t want to say that censorship is not needed at all), spying (by it I mean any collection of information about a person, including “counters” of visits) as nothing to do. Even for people with disabilities, it does not become qualitatively easier to work on computers on par with others: I / O devices have improved, but there is less and less information in text form.
Thus, not everything is so bad and not so good. People remain the same, nothing radically changes in the world. The world of nerds, hackers, and cipherpunk will always stand apart.
After viewing them, it seems that there were so many beautiful interesting and enticing technologies, games and pieces, and then they suddenly sank into oblivion. It was good, but it became lousy. But it soon came that nothing like that. In percentage terms, it dies, but in absolute numbers, both it was and remained.
')
GET LAMP showed that blind people can play games. I myself played and went through only two IF games. And I can say for sure that if it is good with fantasy, if you prefer books to films, then IF will easily bring much more impressions and pleasure than a bunch of popular games on store shelves. BBS: The Documentary showed that modems and computers allowed the blind to communicate and work on a par with everyone else. And now it’s as if it’s all gone, BBS, FidoNet, IF, and with them the availability of information, communication and entertainment disappeared.
Previously, text-based user interfaces, command lines, and now the tyranny of graphic applications and even menu interface items have been replaced with icons. You can either read the text with a speech synthesizer or print in Braille. That is, in the CLI and TUI systems, the blind live comfortably, for them, often, there is no need to alter anything at all. But in the world there is a tendency to create interfaces, not only for blind people who are less suitable, but also for people like me in general, who have to guess what the author wanted to say with this or that icon, solve the puzzles. For example, the Lynx browser allows you to travel on the web to the blind: there is only text in it, so speech synthesis or Braille will enable the transmission of information to these people. But sites make everything less suitable for its use.
For example, I'm using (apart from Lynx) the Xombrero graphical browser. It does not support neon javascript chips or any WebRTC and, year after year, fewer sites under it work. WWW was once a distributed document system. Now it is increasingly becoming a distributed application delivery system. Even to see the address of a store or club, its creators believe that without downloading a separate JavaScript program, it’s not uncomfortable to do it. Many of them cease to support sites altogether (although there are also free hosting for static data) and move completely to social networks. But it’s one thing to have a page in LiveJournal - at least you can read the information, get data, read-only documents without registering and downloading programs (that is, from Lynx), and it’s another thing to post it on VKontakte, which forcibly redirects the browser if it’s JS program loading is disabled (and not free, obfuscated). That is, the information becomes inaccessible if you do not have a powerful computer, in which virtual machines must be regularly updated to run programs that require an increasingly thick Internet channel and in which you need to register via linking to a portable tracking device (cell phone ).
A separate problem is the movement of data to a CloudFlare CDN, which does not allow access if it suspects that the connection is coming from the Tor network, that is, preventing a person from not wanting to track his IP address. Or mailing lists using Google Groups service, in which you can not view the archive of messages without downloading a couple of megabytes of proprietary software.
Once was popular ICQ. Alternatives to him in the beginning was not really. Then came XMPP / Jabber. Technically rather scary and cumbersome protocol, but a tolerable alternative. Ten years ago, a protocol for end-to-end chat encryption appeared: OTR. Everyone in the pocket has a powerful computer with a fast information transmitter, while it is possible to install the XMPP / Jabber / OTR / whatever software client. But this is not happening. Who used to be in ICQ, now in Skype. Who used to be in IRC (although it’s an open, simple protocol, it’s all about it) now sits in Telegram, WhatsApp and others. It was a false feeling: well, finally, we had a few dozen Jabber clients and now people will change from centralized proprietary closed solutions. But no, nothing changes. Someone still continues to use Jabber, because it is an open protocol, as he says. But as for example a girl with only Viber appears, a man forgets instantly about the closeness of protocols.
About 15 years ago, many people did not have email. Now some of them have it, but ... they just don’t know how to use it. The concept of netiquette does not exist for them by definition. As there were N people using email in a decent way, only they now remain. Many mail is only working. Many need mail only for registration on sites and that's it. Several years ago I was among tenth-graders and it turned out that exactly one person from the whole class had email at all - the rest of them only had an account on VKontakte.
In the 2000s, many of my friends and acquaintances began to look at the world of free software: GNU / Linux, * BSD, and other systems. The benefit of the available Internet. But I thought that they were interested in free software. As soon as the work appeared, which allowed purchasing expensive Apple computers, then from the world's open source software, it blew away like the wind. This world was just a thing under which somehow it was possible to work (UNIX-like yet) and which was, as a rule, free. The really appreciated the ethical side of free software are just a few, and they are STRs who are the first to become interested.
Now pass cryptopathic variety. I'm not exactly sure, but I think that those who did not know how to encrypt the file before the cryptopatio are not in a hurry to start after. The most common question I hear from them is: how can I (from a cryptographic point of view) safely use XXX on my iPhone or MacBook. I know only a couple of people who use full-disk encryption - although regarding PGP it is very easy and simple (since there is no key exchange, trust management and so on) and is in all major operating systems out of the box. But PGP or OTR anyway remains the lot of a meager minority. Although PGP has been with us for more than a quarter of a century, OTR is more than 10 years old. It is safe to transfer a file from one computer to another - still in the overwhelming majority of cases an impossible task.
BitTorrent protocol with us for over 15 years. At some point it was popular, but now from year to year it is used less and less among friends. Many do not even have his client installed, not to mention constantly using. It would seem: purely technically, it is beautiful in its simplicity in the effective mass exchange of large amounts of information. It works well even for transferring large files (for example, hundreds of megabytes of photos) between two heterogeneous computers (it will automatically continue downloading, does not require an intermediate server for storage). The exchange of information often occurs through centralized "clouds". Again, everything returned to its place: centralized, primitive non-efficient means of data transmission dominate.
Again, I am too young to catch the Eternal September phenomenon in USENET, but I understand perfectly what this is about. You have an echoconference in which for many years there were predominantly just educated techies, with a lot of nerds. And then suddenly a cloud of people rushing into their world who wanted or simply did not hear about ethics or spit (not educated). The signal-to-noise ratio changes qualitatively, making these ehi useless. USENET, NNTP still live, but moved to the Internet mailing lists (maillist). And there all the same people as before were in USENET.
When there was no widely available Internet in our country, FidoNet was popular. Now this network has thinned out qualitatively, but I do not think that it is necessary to consider that as a phenomenon, as a separate world with its atmosphere, it has died. FTN networks were not technically well planned and they were honed to work under simple, cheap systems. Now all available computers can run at least full-fledged UNIX-like operating systems. FidoNet has moved to another virtual space. Most of its traffic goes over IP.
Returning to the IF and games, point-and-click toys were very popular in their time and were selling well (at that time). First, computers in the overwhelming majority were in all kinds of nerds and techies. Not so "tough" users of computers, which then was not enough, they really played. Now they do not make money on these games, but they, anyway, still exist as a genre and are being made. In percentage terms, they are invisible, but even purely text-based interactive fiction is still done and very worthy. Personally, I can not evaluate yet, but I played in the IF just the mid-to-late 2000s.
What trends do I see and what will happen in the future? I see that people have less and less equipment that would have data storage devices. Many have no CD / DVD / BluRay-ROM. Many have laptops without Ethernet ports — WiFi / Bluetooh connectivity only. More and more people do not even have computers, but only smartphones and tablets. And they often do not have USB ports or slots for connecting flash memory. Apple technology has the most severe censorship, DRM and restrictions: it’s impossible to download a program onto your device just by passing their centralized, censored cloud storage out of the box. At the same time, according to their rules, they actually prohibit downloading free software. Finding programs that bypassing the “clouds” could transfer data between devices via Bluetooh / WiFi is not a trivial (if not already impossible) task. Recently, the United States adopted (?) The law prohibiting the change of firmware in WiFi access points: that is, the only way (for mobile devices) data transfer remains beyond the control of the user. Corporations advocate the use of DRM in all its manifestations, and even the charger can be connected only brand, and not just any. What is happening in the United States, due to the fact that the overwhelming mass of people, even with a choice, still makes a step towards sponsorship and dependence on this country, directly concerns us. Therefore, the inability to manage their devices (flashing WiFi routers) will be with us. The prevailing amount of all actions and data passes through centralized clouds. Everything is stored "somewhere out there", and on the device only a maximum of the cache is available. One click and the person will lose access to everything. He can no longer install any program and manage his computing devices. Soon, some of the largest email providers will either change the SMTP protocol or, as a measure against spam, come up with something that will make it impossible to raise and use your own mail server with them. There are no protocols and programs for instant messaging anymore which could be used by everyone without problems - closed non-free solutions dominate and are forcefully incompatible with everything else.
What will happen then? All communications within the centralized corporate clouds, the availability of data on passport / cellular / token only, without any privacy or security is for the majority. And in isolation the existing hacker world, the world of nerds with free programs, open protocols and formats, accessible information, without artificial restrictions. That is, as it was 15-20 years ago, it will remain so. And now just a certain transitional period at which a false impression is created that hacker technologies have a chance to become mass-used. Already 5-10 years, everyone has a powerful computer with a huge memory, fast communication channels, accessible Internet and free software available free of charge, open protocols and formats. Sharing files or chatting has become easier and easier? There was an unrestricted (in most countries) strong cryptography, asymmetric cryptography, but did it become better with privacy? Far from it, not a drop, quite the contrary. In theory, people should become more united, information is more accessible, but in practice not at all. Censorship is easier (at the same time I don’t want to say that censorship is not needed at all), spying (by it I mean any collection of information about a person, including “counters” of visits) as nothing to do. Even for people with disabilities, it does not become qualitatively easier to work on computers on par with others: I / O devices have improved, but there is less and less information in text form.
Thus, not everything is so bad and not so good. People remain the same, nothing radically changes in the world. The world of nerds, hackers, and cipherpunk will always stand apart.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/393023/
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