SAFE network upgrades

Development
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Yes, we have haven’t we…

Can you give me your reasoning, as a moderator for this decision. Either the disagreements are affecting your judgement or not. Either I’m doing something wrong, or I’m not…which is it
“For the time being at least” - so you might take action in the future?
Ask one of the other mods to make a decision then, based on your opinion that I’m asking “too many questions”, which has sod all to do with forum rules btw.
Too many questions…stop talking to me then! :smiley:
How many questions had I even asked and of whom? Have you counted them and decided it’s too many or what?

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Hmmm…I’m seeing it as the case that either this is still the “purpose”, or alternatively you are talking about introducing “morality” I think. So is it an Absolutist morality or a Stoic morality? - I think it matters because it sets the principle and impacts how the nodes behave…

Yes, but I think in a counter-intuitive way - if you want it to do a particular thing, then you have to “innoculate” it against things that are not helpful towards the goal - by introducing attacking viruses of that nature…maybe :smiley:

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This is not for me to decide when I’m involved. I’ve recused myself. If you wish to discuss anything with regard to moderation of our discussions please do so with the other mods.

On a personal level I am not going to respond further questions from you on this topic because as I’ve said, i think they are getting in the way of discussions about the OP.

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If this ever happens, I will - I was replying to you.

If you think this then why not flag it?
It is the mods decision, not mine as you said - if they decide to move a huge swathe of posts, starting with DIrvine’s then absolutely fine by me.
Leave me alone!.. :

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@jreighley and @Tonda, both of you provide a valuable perspective, but it seems there are two distinct questions:

@Tonda, “What if I am a well-intended contributor to the network; where should I go to find what the next update for my vaults should be?” A federated annual meeting sounds like a valid suggestion.

@jreighley, you correctly point out that regardless of whether an annual meeting appoints responsibility, or any other mechanism points out the preferred next binary; there will always be mutations connecting to the network, benign or malicious. Here ranking is the first form of an immune system, disconnecting nodes that at any time perform unexpectedly or over time show suspicious behaviour. This is not in anyway an AI, as you pointed out.

Your two positions do not seem to me contradictory.

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@Al_Kafir I’ve appreciated many of your posts on this thread! What I believe you want to watch out for is making posts a 1-on-1 conversation; there are many people following the thread and everyone needs to read every response. So regardless whether it’s technical or philosophical, responding to the group and the original topic is preferred over your personal sentiment to single sentences of single posts.

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I have thought about this for half of a year now. Instead of following the majority/minority, follow thyself. But such things would complicate more problems.

If group of nodes decides not to be part of the majority consensus, then you could potentially lose access to their data. So I think node themselves should be unified, and the inside of the network that allows users to create infinity ways. The node network is like a brain, if part of the brain decides to shut off, you lost access to the part of the brain.

The safe network is a secondary brain for humanity.

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Thank you…

Can you direct me to the Forum rule that says No 1 on 1 conversations, or suggest a way of even achieving this if it was against the rules or why It is my responsibility to do this?

Preferred by whom? Can you again direct me to the forum rule that says this.
You know what, to avoid this thread going any further off-topic I will start a thread in off - topic for all those wishing to partake in this particular conversation.

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OK. It wasn’t aware of this behavior. Thank you for the clarification.

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I was watching the black hat 2015 keynote speech as posted by @dallyshalla on project SAFE slack. She speaks from a legal perspective on the hacker culture being destroyed. @jreighley has made this point several times, there is no way to detect which binary/implementation is being used; in the end all that matters is whether

  1. the nodes can cooperate and reach group consensus
  2. no implementation difference can willingly or by accident cause a noticable disruption to the network (under conditions)

Project SAFE is explicitly open source, and @dirvine has stated many times that open source without an effort from the developers to openly explain, discuss and learn from the community is not true to the name. So it seems to me that should perhaps be the desired future path: a diverse, hackable network, while preserving the fundamental principles of freedom, security and privacy.

So I’d be inclined to “want” (i.e. I am currently ignoring technical feasibility) a diverse network with no voted-updates, no preferred implementation.

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131

Please don’t blanket the issues faced by top down approaches over anything that even resembles it. This overtone of rejection on your part is the dangerous fundamentalist type thinking you wrote of. Assuming failure because of the failure of similar systems is unfair to varied approaches. I don’t oppose user input and shifting network composition. My ideas like @dirvine are based on logic but are also untested and unconfirmed in the upcoming system. Thus only theory.

Healthy is the practice of debate that incites further conceptual exploration. What I proposed allows for much flexibility in that only core network changes (i.e routing, sentinels, etc) in the short term should be handled in a decentralized political manner. Humanity is still in it’s infantile stage. We’ve yet to fully understand genetic processes. Stop environmental degradation. Reverse involuntary social enslavement or even cure a disease composed of a relatively simple genetic structure (guess). Evolution is preferred and fine by my standards (you imply otherwise). I just believe that like in nature, things happen gradually not in great leaps. This is evident not speculated. Insects most predominately display this as their procreation rate is very high. I tend to be a balanced pragmatist as logic can bottleneck creativity. I place importance on knowing when and when not to be coasting in the ethereal plane awaiting nirvana.

Shutting the “door” was neither my intent, nor what was done. Throwing around charged concepts like fundamentalism only works to contaminate valid arguments with warped dogmatism. Thank you for helping to advance the debate. Any proposals on your end?

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Agreed. Such a feat would require rigorous brainstorming and testing. I threw out a relatively simple short term solution. If there were ever the technical ability with provable safe guards, a new forum for debate imo should be opened. I can ponder far into the future but choose not to neglect the present or the the very close future. I’d be fool to expect an infant to run a marathon.

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what would the responsibilities of an annual meeting be?

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I’m sorry that I have caused you offence. My reference to fundamentalism was ill judged in that post, and not referring to what you wrote - I’m sorry it appeared as if it was. It would have been clearer if I’d separated it out, but I try to address all my current points in one post rather than split them over multiple posts. Sometimes that’s not helpful! :slight_smile:

BTW I wasn’t arguing against top down at all. I was saying that it has plenty of flaws, and therefore that it was important to explore alternatives and to not dismiss them because they are new, untried and risky. So we are in agreement I think.

EDIT: on looking back at my post I see that I wasn’t replying to you, nor quoted you, so I don’t understand why you’ve taken it as about you or what you said. It appears we agree, so I think we can leave it, but maybe you can also think about why you felt so offended and PM me if there’s something we could usefully try and clear up here? I don’t want us to fill the thread with posts that just concern us but if there’s something left hanging over from this it might be good to try and understand it.

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“Reply as linked Topic” is your friend here. It maintains a link between the topic you replied to and the new thread, so people who are interested in the spin-off topic (in this case about evolution and all that) won’t miss it when reading this thread.

Also, you can view your forum-scapegoat status as a purpose given to you through the evolution of this community. :wink:

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Thanks Seneca - I’ll try to remember next time I go off in all the thought experiment etc stuff…Do you create the topic first, then come back and click it?
OK, Ill be mindful to do this in the future - I never use all this stuff and apparently just only achieved my first “flag” award thingy…I’ll try to avoid firework displays in future…fireworks just seem to follow me around though…
That Scottish bloke started it anyway… :wink: …joking!

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137

This is a brainstorm ONLY and goes into Sci-fi territory. So please don’t take it too seriously and enjoy the thought process.

LAW 1. The nodes “must” cooperate to reach group consensus.

Achieving Group Consensus
This requires all the nodes in that (group) to use the same terminology. The problem is lack of understanding when the group receives a new term… see below.

Example “GET_watermark”
All 32 nodes understand what “GET” means. But the request comes in as “GET_watermark.” How do the nodes reach consensus with an unfamiliar term?

  1. If all 32 nodes do not know what “GET_watermark” means… They would ignore/reject the request because it is not part of the protocol.
  2. If 1 node understands what “GET_watermark” means, the rest would ignore/reject that node because it’s acting “funny.” Or they would deny the request by default.

Theoretical Solution to Problem #1
Could the nodes autonomously lookup “GET_watermark” from the official public source on SAFE? If they can, then 28/32 consensus is possible once they learn what “GET_watermark” means.

Some vault (owners) will refuse to support the new function…“GET_watermark.”

This is a valid point of contention, and the reason for LAW 1. Some people will try to influence the Network, which restricts the ability to try new things.

In order for this to work, all vaults must “accept” new functions from the official public source. This leads to the next problem. How do we safely manage new code coming into the official public source?

LAW 2. No implementation difference can willingly or by accident cause a noticeable disruption to the network (under conditions).

Theorectical Solution to Problem #2
This is the hardest problem to solve because we don’t know what to expect in the future. At the same time, we want the Network open to ALL developers, not just a select few elites in charge.

AFAIK, the SAFE Network is incapable of autonomously enforcing LAW 2 effectively. This means humans have to manage it for the time being, until it learns to make it’s own determinations.

When a developer submits code to the official public source, it goes through a process called “Pending Review.”

Based on a series of “events” to be determined. The new code is either accepted or rejected by whomever: MaidSafe, Dev Pods, Maintainer Federate, Farmers, Archive Nodes. Hopefully, they abide by the principles of privacy, security, freedom… while encouraging innovation.

If accepted, the new code becomes available for vaults to look up.
If rejected, the code goes to SAFE’s knowledge database… see below.

Hackers are invited to attack the Network, and hopefully strengthen its “immune” system.

SAFE’s Knowledge Database (Learning Matrix)
The process above builds a knowledge database to teach the SAFE Network to how to distinguish the difference between “malicious” and “benign” code. And some day in the future, it can autonomously approve/reject by checking it against its own database.

Yes, Skynet/Ultron will be become a reality on that day… RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Hopefully, humans teach it to be good instead of evil. Given our own nature, it’s really a coin toss…

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I use Firefox with several privacy add-ons that causes strange behavior. In the case of this forum, the way it displays these posts is purely sequential and not the originally intended nested replies. I’m unsure if it had a little arrow indicating that you replied directly to me when I decided to respond. I’ll be sure to check harder in the future as to not jump the gun. Though what you wrote seemed to directly target almost everything I wrote about previously. Forgive me, but your post seemed indecisive, needlessly reiterative, and somewhat inflammatory. I am just looking to solidify ideas as soon as possible. SAFE to me means a returned chunk of freedom. So again I apologize if my correspondence seems aggressive and hurried but I joined this forum for fear of something as important as this being backlogged and delayed in the same way the network has. I’m looking for smooth operation and maintenance when it goes live. This ideal motivated me to join the discussion. We’ve all waited to so long and eagerly that I would be crushed if something in anyway hindered its operation. When it goes live I want it to stay that way. Dreaded is the thought of such an incredible system teasing us with its brief operation before being torn away from us due to relatively low hanging technical fruit.

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No worries, misunderstandings, gun jumping, ranting, are all human and though they get in the way we’re all on the same side here. And my post may well have been as you described, though each will see something different. Mostly this is part of being passionate about certain values or beliefs, most of which are shared. So we don’t need to unpick everything so long as we can move on, and as you suggest, focus on making sure the thing works! Sometimes we take something personally and can get stuck, and then the unpicking can help, and I’m always open to that.

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Honestly, I don’t see any reason why vaults cant be a playing ground for developers or enthusiasts. The network is robust enough to compensate for malfunctioning vaults. Critical checks for stability at the very least could easily be implemented.

Check it out:

A person wrecks their vault in an attempt to improve it, the network will notify the user of it’s failure to operate within reasonable parameters and rejects it’s participation in the network. Malicious/ infected vaults have no affect on the overall network as they at a very basic level only work to serve and store data. Anything else will be flagged/rejected by the network. The efficiency of vault performance and it’s reliability are from my understanding, the only two aspects that are tweak-able without stepping out of the bounds of it’s function.

Clients too are similar in respect to their inability to infect the network. They hold very limited power. Again, performance and reliability, with the addition (the following are independent of the other but with symbiotic relationship) of the user interface, and user experience are the few tweak-able areas one can play with. Clients are a bit trickier though, as they have access to your sensitive credentials. I could imagine that the network would allow for these modified clients for the sake of fostering freedom, but at least a warning by the network on the users personal page in which the client cannot intercept could prove helpful. Or better yet a network direct to screen message that bypasses the client entirely after checking the client before allowing use of it.

Example message:
WARNING!! Maidsafe has detected that you are using an unpopular and therefore possibly un-audited client. If infected, your login credentials can be stolen. To avoid this please try using a client of greater popularity. If you would like to popularize this client, feel free to share it with the community. The more minds that inspect the code the safer those who adopt it will be.

In regards to the writing that hints at the concept of A.I.

Good and evil are as you know are relative concepts. A.I or S.I (synthetic Intelligence) as I now prefer to call it, will if mature enough, develop its own notion of what constitutes the two conceptual polarities. The rate of intellectual growth and its corresponding mentative branching is what makes S.I a daunting/unpredictable system. Once a certain cognitive threshold is reached, it will almost immediately out pace human mental capabilities and step out of the scope of human understanding. Imagine being able hold all the information in the known universe in your mind with incomprehensibly rapid information linking capability and infinite expansion capacity. Sounds easy no? Briefly obsess over the idea of an intelligence synthesized by human beings with the above stated capabilities. I strongly believe that the more one thinks about it, the more distorted the picture gets. I don’t mean to be offensive to the human race but such a task is similar to an amoeba’s trying to understand any of the greatest minds of humanity (not that I’m arguing that they are capable of thought in the conventional sense. Just emphasizing the scale.). :wink: