Sir Tim Berners-Lee Wants to Get Personal Info Back Under User Control

[engine]

Sir Tim Berners-Lee has devised technology to enable users to bring their data back under their control, instead of out in the cloud.

The idea is that the personal information is brought into one place, and users can decide which information is handed over to companies and businesses.
Dubbed "Solid" by Sir Tim, the open source project is initially being created by his company, Inrupt.

"The web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division, swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas," wrote Sir Tim, on a blog on the Medium website.
Solid would restore balance to the web because it meant people never lost control of their data, he said.
"People want apps that help them do what they want and need to do - without spying on them," wrote Sir Tim.
"Apps that don't have an ulterior motive of distracting them with propositions to buy this or that."

[bbc.co.uk...]

[Marshall]

Interesting concept. Now hackers only have to hit one database rather than many,

[graeme_p]

@Marshall, that is true in order to get all of one person's information, but not in order to get the information about users who use a particular service. However, if you keep your Solid data on your own machine, someone hacking it will only get your data. So lots and lots of hacks to get a mass data breach if everyone does that. Also it supports competing providers, so each provider can have only a small number of people's data.

[TorontoBoy]

I am playing with it now. There's no user docs and it is not so intuitive. You store your content in your POD and link back to the commercial web page. All content stays with your POD.

[Leosghost]

Whatever they call it, it is someone else's system..
Keeping it on your own computer it can still be hacked..
I'll keep my personal info in my head.. :)

[tangor]

Meanwhile, Go, Tim!

Anything to break up the cartels (yeah, that's a bit over the top) running the web right now. :)

Why this is foo I'm not sure, because if it DOES take off your logs won't mean squat from here on out.

[graeme_p]

Its early days yet.

I think his problem is getting critical mass - there is not point developing for it until he has users, and there is nothing to attract users until there are services to use with it. Network effects yet again.

[keyplyr]

Like getting toothpaste back into the tube.

[engine]

The idea is laudable.

It's only just been announced, so there's a long way to go.

A key to this is in the implementation, although, it may also be a problem of uptake. Why would a major provider, such as google, want to give up all that data!

The other thing worth mentioning is the current high reliance on mobile devices, such as your smartphone. If you lose your smartphone, or it breaks down, or is stolen, you're in trouble: Not just because access to the data could be another's hands, but the sheer inconvenience of the loss might be a problem.

[tangor]

Not just because access to the data could be another's hands, but the sheer inconvenience of the loss might be a problem.

That begs the question: How difficult (or easy?) is it to back up a smart phone ... somewhere? And:

I wonder how many phone users have ever considered backing up their "content" and who could they trust to do that? Or what personal/private options for doing same is possible? Or if that (if exists) can be made secure, too?

Backing up my computers is enough of a hassle... thinking about a phone (which I don't have/use) makes the head spin.

[keyplyr]

Phones are extremely easy to backup.

All smart phones come with software to do that; backing up all apps, settings & data to the phone's memory, a cloud service, or (on Android) the external memory card... all secure.

My phone is set to do weekly backups just like on my computer and just as easy.

[TorontoBoy]

I am working with Solid. There are currently two providers: inrupt.net and solid.community. There are teething problems, such as servers being overwhelmed. Stuff does not exactly work well, but it is early days. I've been doing documentation on how to use the system, as there is scant little help on how to use the thing.

If you are interested you can sign up [solid.inrupt.com...] and get a pod, for free. Ask your friends to sign up and get their own unique webID. Out of the box you can configure and then use a notepad, chat, long chat (I don't know the difference), address book. They have implemented an access control list ACL mechanism down to an item level, like who has access to a specific notepad. Not everything works, so be warned. I am hopeful that this tech will be adopted.

Solid has a github. There is lots of tech docs to read. It is all open source and the community seems friendly enough.