More publicity for the Safe Network this week with @JimCollinson featured in a Computing piece about Web3. In the article Jim explains that he shares the overall aims of Web3 but worries about the implementation so far, and talks about how we need to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. He goes into more detail below.
General progress
@ChrisO continues to tighten up the CLI, by extending the install script to use a system-wide location for safe if the script runs as sudo, and a Powershell install script is provided for Windows users (#1017). This removes the need to use Linux emulation to get the latest version of safe on Windows. Windows users are generally less comfortable with the terminal, so it’s important we remove as many barriers as possible. For instructions, please see the updated Quick Start section of the CLI user guide.
@Qi_ma thinks he’s found a bug that was stopping all the elders joining as a network starts up - something that’s been causing unpredictable behaviour in recent community testnets and on CI. However, it’s quite a deep rooted little blighter and will take a bit of time to work through all the code affected, but fingers crossed.
The DKG work on aggregating signature shares when elders reach consensus on nodes joining and leaving has now been completed by @davidrusu and @anselme. This is a necessary step to allow the membership work that @bochaco has been doing to be integrated into the sn_node code, so that’s what will be happening over the next few days.
The Web3 We Weave: Building an Internet for Humanity
It’s a trait often found with new advancements—we have this new tech, now what can it do? How can we build a business, or an ecosystem, around this technology, or a platform based on its inherent limitations? This is often a trap, and one that Web3 is tumbling into, and why—as I explained to Computing—Web3 has some fundamental issues that need to be grappled with.
It’s not due to lack of investment, or enthusiasm, or sharp minds… it’s mostly down to the starting point.
So let’s reframe things. Rather than asking, what can people do with this new technology? Let’s instead ask: what do people need? Then let’s go and make technology to meet those needs.
Sometimes it’s worth taking a step back and looking at why we are building the technology that we are, especially when the solutions we are promoting often seem to go against the grain of current trends; Web3 being no exception.
That is the modus operandi of the Safe Network project. So here’s a reminder of what we are all working towards, what the objectives are:
- To allow anyone to have unrestricted access to public data: all of humanity’s information, available to all of humanity.
- Enable people to securely and privately access their own data, and use it to get things done, with no one else involved.
- Allow individuals to freely communicate with each other privately, and securely.
- Giving people and businesses the opportunity for financial stability by trading their resources, products, content, and creativity without the need for middlemen, or gatekeepers.
So what does society need? What is the current Web2 lacking, and where is it failing to meet those needs? More than anything: unrestricted access to knowledge, unencumbered access and control of personal data, and privacy in the utilisation of those features.
So if we are building a new web—a third generation as it were—we absolutely need to address those issues and not entrench them.
Blockchain allows us to go and build some fascinating things, and quickly, but artificial scarcity, and the tokenisation of everything is not the basis of a global communications platform fit for the needs of humanity. This is why we continue to pursue some fundamental technological advancements, even though they are hard, they take time, and despite being told they cannot be achieved. They must be achieved.
Let’s take for example, perpetual data, and the pay-once-store-forever model. It sounds outlandish. But it is a prerequisite for giving people both control over their personal data and building a global knowledge commons, available and open to all.
Without this, control over knowledge lies with those who have the ability to pay for it. Control over knowledge means control of power, and therefore power belongs to the wealthy… so it becomes a fundamental question of entrenching inequality.
And to whom does the control over personal data belong? If through losing the ability to pay for it, or through falling out of favour with those serving it, I can lose access to my personal data, is it really my data? Am I sovereign over my own digital life, or am I merely renting it from someone else?
The surveillance state was imposed on us all, secretly, against our will, and the surveillance capitalism model of the Internet hand-in-hand with it. Who, if they were offered the choice now, would consent to it?
The alternative is to accept that public knowledge, and private data, is something that is worthy of collectively building, maintaining, and preserving for the good of everyone, and together building the technology, the economy, and the infrastructure that will serve us all.
The prize is huge here, so we commend you all for lending a hand in seeing it come to life.
Useful Links
Feel free to reply below with links to translations of this dev update and moderators will add them here:
Russian ; 
German ; 
Spanish ; 
French; 
Bulgarian
As an open source project, we’re always looking for feedback, comments and community contributions - so don’t be shy, join in and let’s create the Safe Network together!
