The reason why the speaker embarked on such a massive, time-consuming project is essentially because he was concerned about the future of the Internet itself. Online platforms are managed through a potentially very dangerous system. To access a site one must go through “multiple intermediaries” – also known as gatekeepers. These are the domain name server, the hosting company and a web hosting service. The problem with these gatekeepers is that not only are they vulnerable to attack, but they also make censorship and surveillance of information easier.
During his lecture on the alternative web, Tamas Kocsis gives a worrying example of a disproportionate accumulation of power that is difficult to understand from the user’s perspective. Although cheaper and more efficient for developers and service providers, the cloud-based backup system also makes it possible for ‘giant companies’ [to obtain] unlimited control over the hosting services.”
Tamas Kocsis focuses his TED talk on the alternative web around his ZeroNet concept which is ‘open, free and uncensored’. These people-powered internet platforms empower the user by cutting out the middleman. The network is secured using public key cryptography, meaning only the owner can modify the site. Kocsis’s decentralized web is essentially a venture to make the Internet more user-centric, actively stripping big-hearted corporations of their disproportionate power and tackling freedoms such as China’s tightly government-controlled Internet access or the over-regulated new copyright protection law of the European Parliament. which aims to “block content based on rules controlled by major companies.”
