Originally shared by Will Hill
Can we have distributed communications systems or not? A conversation on Diaspora has gone so wrong, that I suspect impersonation. Edward Morbius continues to tell me that port blocks and other technical measures against people running mail servers are justified by the high volume of spam that large mail ops receive. I think that leads to unacceptable spying and censorship and that the same reasoning will be used to dismantle any effective, distributed communications method. If I can’t be trusted to run a mail server, why should I be trusted to run a Friendica pod? Is this really Ed that I’m talking to?
If anything the cost of spam to large providers proves that email and other services are better done small. Small servers don’t have enough readers to be worth while. Damage to one server impacts fewer people. An abundance of choices gives everyone redundancy, and so on and so forth. There is an analogous security argument for an abundance of free software distributions. Freedom leads to cooperation, abundance, diversity and security. Centralization leads to monopoly, censorship and neutralization of dissidence. I thought these were bedrock concepts of free computing and networking.
Is there something I’ve missed here?