@mttaggart Unless this is easy to do for us simpler folk, this will be just another case of why the masto/fedi folk scratch their heads and wonder why so few of their non-tech friends aren't here. Or, it's the reason apple has market saturation... it's easy to use. I love the idea. Would like to see a firefox extension that allows for applying as well as validating. And an easy way to add my site. Perhaps a central repository with a searchable fully tagged database would be useful as well.

@mttaggart webrings are a great idea but do we really need more tech? Web rings were just a few hyperlinks in webpages, do we really need more new tech in something that wants to be human?

@mttaggart love it. The old webrings were a wonderful, simple thing.

@mttaggart Oh I am so here for this

@mttaggart This is COOL!

@mttaggart you talk about "a little humanity in our technology", but I'd rather get "a little technology in our humanity" =3
I'll check out the code, seems intriguing

@mttaggart unexpected The Expanse / Farscape crossover.

@mttaggart @happyborg #webring

Just adding a hashtag here.

@mttaggart Congratulations, I think it's a great idea and is totally worth a try!

@mttaggart Cool effort, thanks!

Just fyi, not sure if it was mentioned already: the first link in the article doesn't link to the source code, but to the article itself.

@mttaggart hell yeah, I'm very on-board with this idea! Watching this space closely

@mttaggart @shellsharks@shellsharks.social @shellsharks@malici.ous.computer this is your jam!

@mttaggart

Looks good! But there's a problem: Big Tech's stranglehold on the internet itself. I'd certainly go for Ringspace as a user/creator, but the government or Big Tech can disappear Ringspace in the blink of an eye.

We need an alternative to the internet itself. Long ago I read an article about small, cheap, easily manufactured boxes which could be plugged into power outlets and connect to each other via various methods, forming something like what the internet was originally intended to be: a means of communication that would resist damage and major disruptions.

Of course nothing came of that. But as long as Big Tech and the government have the power to cut off the internet (and they do), their boot will be on our necks.

So...good idea, and well worth implementing. But we need more.

@mttaggart Holy shit WEB RINGS! Fuck yeah!

@mttaggart This looks awesome! I'm one of the people who helped with the Xanadu Project that started way back in the mists of time...back...back...back to the 1960s. Eep! I'm ancient!

@mttaggart this sounds very interesting. I definitely will try it. But I want to say here that I don't think, any technical innovation, even the most genius one, will solve this problem. The fediverse, ringspace and many other such "things" are tools. We have certainly alteady demonstrated that we can use these tools within small circles of activists and people with good technical skills to create some "nice spaces" for us. But: we need to act as a society and that means laws.

@mttaggart neeeeeatttt

Fun facts about this project:

• All hand coded (of course)
• Written in Rust (of course)
• Raw SQL instead of ORM
• Raw JS browser extension
• Took like four years off my life

@mttaggart Hey, cool idea, thanks for sharing! I like the identity and reputation concepts.

Seems like a lot rests on the Ring Server. Thoughts about reputation management in a world with a lot of competing Rings? eg, Assume folks start up many malicious rings, whose only purpose is to provide a veneer of legitimacy to malicious sites. Any mechanisms to delegitimize them?

@mttaggart @AAKL What you need for your identity is called a Chaumian blind signature. That is a mathematical way to sign a file you don't get to see. So you could get a TLS certificate that proves you are a unique human, by showing your physical ID, but the person who issued you the certificate cannot match it with the ID you showed them.

This way everyone on your human web would be provably human, and you could not have sock puppets. You would need commercial ID providers though.

@AAKL I came to this conclusion a while ago.

https://taggart-tech.com/human-web

As far as precedent...pirate radio? Zines? I mean the internet itself was something of an alternative medium back in the day.

The question is what will be possible on the physical/low-level network operated by powers outside our control. The reality on the wire dictates the rest.

@AAKL Blogs/sites have existing methods of integrating with the Fediverse (and the ATmosphere, for that matter). They kind of solve a different problem. As I note in the docs, Ringspace communities really aren't meant to be large. They are intended for small groups to trust each other, and for readers of that group of producers to trust the producers.

This is a proposal and proof-of-concept, but I have every confidence someone smarter and more talented than I has a better idea for the future of the human web.