We are spoiled by getting most Internet services for free. Of course, we had to give up something for it. Then we realized that what we gave up was our privacy, and we did not like it. Who wants to be monitored by Big Brother, whether or not we have something to hide?
The current business model for most Internet companies today is to collect information about people, centralize it and then monetize it. This model naturally results in a loss of privacy and it has started getting more attention lately and bothering people. For example, a San Jose Mercury news article points out that Google is now tracking people. John Battelle, in a post yesterday, remarked that he is deeply concerned about the erosion of press freedoms in this country. There are some pending legislative measures that can make things worse.
What are the alternatives? We can pay, but that may be worse than losing our privacy, at least to some of us :-). Somehow we tend to keep our wallets deeper. Another approach is to decentralize. Instead of a pure web service, we go to a hybrid client-server model. The client knows everything about us and that is where the monetization happens. The server only supplies supporting information for the client to perform its functions properly.
A good example of this is Skype. A server, or a distributed set of servers, is involved in setting up a call. After the call is set up, the conversation is peer-to-peer, and encrypted (even if some conversations go through intermediaries, they are still encrypted). Wait a minute, this is the same approach used by the telephone companies, so we have not invented anything new here. We have gone back to the distributed model and made it more secure. First of all, the call traverses the Internet (as opposed to the phone company's network) so it is much harder to tap. Second, it is encrypted, so it is hard to break. However we do have to realize that there are levels of privacy.
So if we build applications in this distributed fashion, and keep the personal information stored on our computers, then we are much more secure. Someone can always break into our computers, but as we all know, there are a number of tools designed to prevent that.
With the personal information kept on our computers encrypted, we may be able to regain our privacy while enjoying the wonderful world of a free Internet.
- Cuneyt
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