Re: [Bug-gne]External Servers and Illegal/Extreme Content

[Christopher Mahan]

I agree with Imran. The system could self-replicate, self-propagate, 
self-index and self-link all by itself, once it is built the right way.

I am not sure that the current system of mirroring would do the trick, but I 
don't know enough about that to judge.

What I envision would be a group of servers (in the same room or across the 
world, or in orbit for that matter), that could communicate with each other, 
update each other as to the most stable locations of any articles, and point 
to each other.

If the system was done right, I could see that any article would be stored 
on at least 4 separate servers, and that the system would check every 
article every day (in the xml, no need for taking the server's cpu time to 
run scripts to html-ise them), and if only 1, 2, or 3 copies were found, 
then the system could issue the article to be held on an underutilized 
server.

Also, servers with popular articles could offload some to other less-used 
servers to alleviate traffic choke points.

It would almost be a self-balancing DNS server, where only GNE-authorized 
servers communicate with each others.

This gets a lot closer to distributed computing, and since an article is on 
a server one day but may not be on it the next, we might bypass some legal 
issues, I think.

As far as the servers, I think that there would be a standard set of scripts 
(php, java, asp, perl, tkl, python, wsh, ad nauseam) that a server owner 
might be able to install in aspecific directory, and the scripts would then 
self-authenticate with other GNE servers, and the GNE servers might start 
using that server as one of their own (upload article copies, remove 
articles, update translations, versions, etc...

If that server went offline as a result of whatever (war or the rumor 
thereof, a cut cable, or a polica action), none of the articles would be 
offline.

The Gnutella people must be listening...

Now, this system might be considered an expert system, semi-intelligent, and 
I am sure we could get some good AI theorists to figure the nitty gritty and 
heuristic rules.

This also means that once an article is submitted, it might be very hard to 
eliminate from the system. Which is, in my opinion, exactly what we want.

Chris



> From: "Imran Ghory" <address@hidden>
> Reply-To: address@hidden
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [Bug-gne]External Servers and Illegal/Extreme Content
> Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 18:56:22 -0000
>
> On 17 Feb 2001, at 9:55, Tom Chance wrote:
>
> > > > It's the "knowingly" bit that worries me.
> > > Presumably we know/have seen
> > > > the content, that's why we're choosing the server
> > > carefully,
> > >
> > > No, you misunderstand what I'm suggesting, the GNEP
> > > won't
> > > decide which material goes on which server, it'll
> > > only decide which
> > > material it will accept.
> > >
> > >  If an article is rejected by GNEP the author is
> > > able to submit it to
> > > one of the alternative servers, which are willing to
> > > carry
> > > controversial material.
> > >
> > > That way at the worst only the server which accepts
> > > it can be held
> > > responsible.
> >
> >
> > That's a bit of an odd, and very messy way of doing
> > it. It implies not only that GNE will be the central
> > server and any mirrors or "contraversial" mirrors will
> > be little offshoot projects. How, for starters, would
> > you propose you link to all of this material?
>
> Have the IDs @ server_name and have DNS style tables available.
>
> Read the section entitled "An encyclopedia located everywhere" in the 
> original
> RMS announcement.
>
> > Expecting a new index for each server,
>
> No, the index will be part of a front end system. The encycopedia data 
> would be
> a the back end.
>
> >a new web site,
> > or anything similar is ridiculous and will make
> > navigating GNE as painfully laborious as the WWW.
>
> The user won't see any of this, they'll just have a front end which they 
> can
> access and the front end can search multiple servers and return data from
> across a range of servers.
>
> > In your way GNE also still has responsibility for the
> > article as much as if the server holding it was a GNE
> > server, in my view anyway.
>
> How ?, leaglly it will be a server run by person xxx who isn't affiliated 
> with the
> FSF in any way except running software written by them.
> (IANAL)
>
> > We have to have a central
> > submission form, that will then put references into a
> > central index,
>
> That would mean that one body would still control the material which isn't
> consistent with the aims of the project.
>
> >so that the resource remains coherent
> > and without broken links and missing materials.
>
> If we have mirrors, we won't loose material.
>
> >It
> > will also then be much easier to mirror from server to
> > server.
>
> Not really, once we've coded the system we can make it pretty much
> automated.
>
> Imran
>
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