No, not the one promised by the Pied Piper team on HBO's Silicon Valley.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist credited as the inventor of the internet and the World Wide Web as we know it (much to Al Gore's chagrin). He has recently announced that he is unveiling a new internet, one that will allow individuals to own and control their data rather than leaving it up to large companies. Berner's-Lee is like most of us. He doesn't like what the internet has become. He doesn't like how Facebook, Google, and Amazon have effectively centralized the internet and control people's data. So he's doing something about it.
Tim has been working on a startup called Inrupt in secret for many months. Inrupt is built on the "Solid" platform that has been in development for years. Solid is designed to be like the early days of the internet, wild and free. The basic idea is that each user is assigned a Solid ID and a Solid pod when they first come online on the platform, which can be hosted wherever you want. Pod stands for "personal data store." All your data exist on your Solid pod. When an app requests access, Solid will authenticate and then you can choose to give it access to your pod.
The plan is to make this platform free and open source. What about the existing big tech companies? Here's what Tim had to say about that.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a British computer scientist credited as the inventor of the internet and the World Wide Web as we know it (much to Al Gore's chagrin). He has recently announced that he is unveiling a new internet, one that will allow individuals to own and control their data rather than leaving it up to large companies. Berner's-Lee is like most of us. He doesn't like what the internet has become. He doesn't like how Facebook, Google, and Amazon have effectively centralized the internet and control people's data. So he's doing something about it.
Tim has been working on a startup called Inrupt in secret for many months. Inrupt is built on the "Solid" platform that has been in development for years. Solid is designed to be like the early days of the internet, wild and free. The basic idea is that each user is assigned a Solid ID and a Solid pod when they first come online on the platform, which can be hosted wherever you want. Pod stands for "personal data store." All your data exist on your Solid pod. When an app requests access, Solid will authenticate and then you can choose to give it access to your pod.
The plan is to make this platform free and open source. What about the existing big tech companies? Here's what Tim had to say about that.
We are not talking to Facebook and Google about whether or not to introduce a complete change where all their business models are completely upended overnight. We are not asking their permission."
I love the idea, if for no other reason than a big middle finger to these social media companies. If there's anyone who has a chance at succeeding with a new internet, it's the guy who created the current one.
Maybe they'll demand you register your Pod, who knows. Anyway, they'll fail too, governments are always too stupid to understand progress.
I was seriously considering deleting all my accounts or just using a service that will randomly feed incorrect information to the big companies that are secretly recording everything I am doing.
Sup