Hello,

As you are probably aware, there has been a net neutrality ruling from US
courts and it essentially kills net neutrality.

Reference (this is just one of many news outlets announcing this)
http://gigaom.com/2014/01/14/breaking-court-strikes-down-fccs-net-neutrality-rules/?go_commented=1#comment-1388649

This is surely no new concept to anyone on this list (the concept that we
can't rely upon laws, need to use technical solutions to bypass what
passes for government/corporation-state, etc.) but I have to say this net
neutrality calls into stark contrast what we are doing with what we could
be doing. And by we, I mean anyone using the internet.

Many people use AT&T, or Verizon. Many people use Google and Facebook. Or
Weibo. Or VK. Or... you get the picture. But rather than harp about any
one company (or licensing approach, or ruling, etc) I want to emphasize
decentralized systems beyond what many are accustomed to hearing about /
using.

When people hear "open source" or "p2p" they might think of Ubuntu, or
Android (regarding open source OSs) or Bittorrent, or Piratebay (in terms
of things that come to mind if an ordinary human is asked what do they
thing of as an example of P2P or F2F tech). Given the news about Bitcoin
it's a sure bet at least some people if asked on the street might also say
'Bitcoin' (or alternately, "what's P2P?" or "Software!") So you'll get a
lot of responses and responses will vary substantially, but this is my
sense based on talking to people I know around my (rather small) town.

But how often do you hear people talking about what is needed to literally
Decentralize Everything?

Well, except for posts occasionally on lists like these, or meetings /
discussions with like-minded people, or hackerspaces, or development
discussions, the answer is Almost Never.

Anyway, this recent ruling announcement re. net neutrality (or its death)
here in the USA is just one more example of how we cannot rely upon laws,
at least in my view. But it also made me think some more about this and
realize that if we want decentralized protocols / solutions to spread at
all, we have to do a way better job at being good advocates for them and
talking about them incessantly to everyone in a way that is easy, simple,
and makes sense to people.

As this post already exhibits I can be very wordy and windbaggish.
Further evidence of that fact is presented amply in my recent post here:
https://odinn.cyberguerrilla.org/index.php/2014/01/02/opensourcebuildguide/

As I reflect on this I think about the following.

1) I need to make something shorter that easily introduces people to open
source stuff. Something that's even simpler than prism-break
(http://prism-break.org/) - an option which is so simple that anyone (at
least in primary school levels) can understand it and act on things
presented in it within less than a minute. Look. Software. Click (one
click, two max!) to get it. Done.

2) What are some ways to Decentralize Everything? To the DNS and beyond?
Stuff that comes to mind (remember, there is no one thing, there are no
captains, there is no one solution, these are just examples of possible
partial solutions being thrown out here):
   2)a. https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/
   2)b. https://github.com/namecoin
   2)c. https://nameid.org/
   2)d. concepts like this
http://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-plans-to-beat-censorship-for-good-140105/
   2)e. Convergence for namecoin
https://github.com/JeremyRand/Convergence/tree/namecoin
   2)f. Convergence (a different one) https://github.com/moxie0/Convergence
   2)g. Tack.io - for pinning (it's my understading that moxie0 prefers
this direction, but I haven't been tracking it closely enough to say
what is going on with it right now)  -->  http://tack.io/
     2)g.1. See also the Tack internet draft(!) at http://tack.io/draft.html
     2)g.2. See also reference TACK implementations https://github.com/tack

So...

As I read through this, and similar stuff, I think to myself, something
about this needs to be broadcast in a way that it is so easy to do, so
simple to accept, that it meets the "everybody sees it (or it's in the
news) and they click and download it"

I know it's never really that simple. But I am throwing this out there
because even more censorship is coming. And there are no captains, and we
do need to decentralize everything. We must get A Lot more people on board
with decentralization, open source, and as close to p2p as possible, we
need to make it so easy to defeat censorship of anything that those who
propose allowing it to happen will just throw up their hands in
frustration. So the question (one of many!) is how to present this in a
way that makes sense to a lot of people.

A lot more than currently.

OK I am done for now.

[note: this message has been also posted to cypherpunks list.]

your thoughts please