Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, and Marta Belcher, Chairman of the Filecoin Foundation, discussed in depth how to use a decentralized network to preserve the Internet for future users, as well as thinking about Web 3.0.
Original title: “Founder of “Internet Archive”: A Brief Talk on the Vision Behind the Internet Archive-Web3.0″
Interviewee: Brewster Kahle, Marta Belcher, founder of the Internet Archive and Chairman of the Filecoin Foundation. Compilation: Baize Research Institute
The “Internet Archive” is a non-profit digital library that provides Internet data file reading services. It was founded by Brewster Kali in 1996. The “Archive” provides digital materials such as websites, web pages, and graphic materials. Permanent storage of music, video, audio, software, animations and millions of copies of books. In addition, the archive is also one of the proponents of network openness and liberalization.
One of the most important services in the archive is Wayback Machine, which is translated as “Website Time Machine”. As early as 1996, it has more than 300 billion web pages. It provides a place for researchers and historians to save digital cultural relics; It can also be used for entertainment, for example, you can see what Google looked like as early as 2001; you can also visit some websites that have been closed and no longer exist.
“Internet Archive” founder Brewster and Filecoin Foundation Chairman Marta co-hosted Forkast’s podcast, discussing in depth how they use decentralized networks to preserve the Internet for future users, and their thinking on Web 3.0.
The vision behind the Internet Archive
Can a decentralized network really help the information on the Internet?
“Internet Archive” Brewster: We initially tried to archive the Internet, but in fact the goal is to become an archive on the Internet and develop towards the direction of storing “everything in the world.” How do we build a digital library? Can we make all knowledge available to everyone? This is my vision of the Internet decades ago. With the technology we have now, we can actually achieve this goal.
I remember when I walked into the library when I was young, it seemed to be “infinite”, with several floors, and the bookshelves on each floor were “infinitely stretched.” But it’s not infinite, it’s even just a small part of human books, let alone periodicals, TV shows, and other things you can access. So my idea is that the Internet allows anyone to become a publisher, everyone’s voice can be published on the Internet, and there will be libraries that can record them, organize them, and make them have lasting value.
So the network is a good step in this direction, but it actually has many shortcomings. For example, an Internet movie can actually only be obtained from the Web server from which it came, and you can only get a URL address (Uniform Resource Locator). Even though the movie can be obtained from many different places, it has only one URL, so when the URL at the source is stopped or deleted, it will disappear on the Internet. This is not a way to handle culture correctly.
So this time reflects the importance of copying of online content, just like you have multiple copies in multiple databases.
We have been trying to fill the missing websites through the “website time machine”, and we collect nearly 1 billion web pages every day. In fact, this is more like a GitHub, you can roll back the time on all the different websites and view their copies of the pages at all times.
Although it’s easy to collect web pages in this way, why don’t we try to do something that is actually better? Now we have JavaScript, which allows users to publish codes in our web programs; we have valid hash codes, which are related to decentralized storage networks such as BitTorrent and Fliecoin.
So, what are the better things we want to build? We want to build a private and sound network where you can really make money by posting content on the network, not just through third parties. Therefore, we called for the establishment of a decentralized network in 2016. At that time, our development team got together to discuss and believed that these decentralized technologies were our way forward. Now we have completed some of the work, because we now have smart contracts.
That’s cool. But can we get storage? Can we get some kind of decentralized storage service similar to BitTorrent, where we can process transactions with hash codes instead of just an address? Such technologies are being developed, and we hope to see good and beneficial ways to guide these technologies.
Thoughts on Web 3.0
“Internet Archive” Brewster: Since 1980, we have known that a new generation of publishing is coming, and it will be digital. We have a vision, that is, there will be a new network system. It must be an open protocol, and it must be a system that anyone can join.
My contribution in this area is trying to build WAIS, which is an open protocol-based system with distributed servers and distributed clients. We started in 1989 and made it public on the Internet in 1992, which is much earlier than the current Internet. It is a system where people can get the expertise they need. In a sense, it is more like Apple’s artificial intelligence Siri. In WAIS, you can ask questions to servers that store different types of knowledge. Then they will give the answer. It has a simple URL system and a built-in payment system. But in the end we failed.
When the Internet appeared, people realized that it was so easy to use, so people liked the Internet more so that the WAIS search system was integrated, so we are probably the most famous now as the first search engine on the Internet, but It is just an infrastructure.
For Web 3.0, my idea is that users can compete with many “big players”, we need to make everyone can participate in it, you don’t have to live on someone else’s platform, and you don’t have to follow the rules of a specific platform to participate. .
I think the current Internet is going the wrong way. Due to the emergence of various misinformation and false information, some “big players” with better algorithms have appeared on the Internet, and they have the power to control the information they want to display. This is very dangerous.
In Web 3.0, we really should have a filter mechanism so that you will not receive spam all the time. But this should not be controlled centrally as it is now. So, how do we build a system with a large number of participants, a large number of winners, and a large number of opportunities to build a next-generation network on this basis? Maybe it will not be implemented in Web 3.0, then we will also have 4.0, 5.0 and 6.0.
I find that looking back at history is a good way to predict the future. If you adopted very early prints in the 1400s and 1500s, it wasn’t until the early 1600s that you really got a royalty-based system so you could get paid to write books and make a very simple transaction: you buy from someone For a book, most of the money is left with the bookseller, and then part of it is returned to the printer, and part of it is returned to the author. Early humans took a long time to develop this system.
So now, we are in the early stages of the Internet, and we are owned by “ad networks.” We don’t have a good “royalty-based” system. So how do we do it?
We can build it as Web 3.0 so that there is no centralized form of monopoly. If it fails, then let us make sure that we will reach 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0. Web 3.0 sounds good, and it will help democratize everything.
Marta, Chairman of the Filecoin Foundation: For me, the coolest thing about decentralized networks is that they can store the most important information of mankind. “Internet Archive” has been doing such an amazing job in protecting the Internet. Not only is your job protecting the Internet today, but your job can preserve the most important information of mankind in the future.
For me and Filecoin, Web 3.0 means creating a decentralized storage network, you don’t have to rely on one or two big players to effectively store all the networks. Instead, it is the ability to create a system in which even if some nodes fail, the entire system can still resist danger, and users can obtain information in it, not just owned by a few companies.
Recommendations for developers who are building Web 3.0
Pay attention to the monopoly of different mechanisms and methods. These monopolies are basically individuals, organizations, and agreements that seem to control everything. So how do we build a system that is flexible enough to bypass these types of monopolies? I want to know whether the Web 3.0 network protocol we established can really serve us well.
When we build these systems, we should also allow new players to join in without having to obtain permission from old players.
From a more positive perspective, Web 3.0, a technology that integrates “global intelligence, global brain, and global intelligence”, can make the Internet a smarter, more efficient, more interesting, more interesting, and freer world. But this will require everyone to participate in combating misinformation and building a “global brain.”
