this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Privacy
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Maybe so. Maybe so.
But I'm not so sure there is a long term tech solution. It's a political problem. Ultimately, if the gov requires let's say a trust attestation for the use of web sites, they will have to comply, or leave the market. Sure, you can run Linux. But now you can't use it to bank, to shop, to access gov services, to pay your bills... If they push hard enough, even mundane shit like get a weather forecast or w/e. Google would already love this. It locks everybody in.
A gov can make life VERY difficult for noncompliance, by leaning on the things you want to do. Sometimes, a site that isn't local like a bank can say, fine, we'll leave that market. But the bigger the market, the less they wanna do that. What happens if the US follows the UK into this? And then Australia or Japan piles on? Plus, some things are local by definition. Like your bank. If it's required to block non-trusted (I threw up in my mouth a little bit...) devices, it will have to do that.
I'm not sure Linux can save us. Maybe it can buy us a little time. But in the end, this needs a political solution. Not a tech one.
There will be two forms of the internet. One will be the clearnet, where everything is monitored and controlled, and the other will be Tor and I2P, where you still have freedom to be an actual person. Also, mesh networks like MeshCore and Reticulum.
The internet can be gated because it requires you connecting to central infrastructure and a central operator has to assign you an address where something like reticulum requires no central authority because it's based on public-private keys and so anybody can connect to the network permissionlessly
I'm starting to look into the 'other' as you say here, but there's a lot to learn, and it can be hard to figure out at times. I tried to get Yggdrasil set up on my computer and just kept running into wall after wall, it was very disheartening. Going to take a break from it and learn about onion addresses instead, I guess.
I have only heard of Yggdrasil recently so I don't know much about it. Tor works quite well but I2P has disappointed me every time I've tried to use it. Mainly because of its connection speeds.
I can pull blocks from my Monero node at 5 mbps over Tor hidden services, but only about 40 kbps over I2P. That makes Monero completely unusable.
When you set up I2P on your computer, it takes you through a step where it supposedly measures your bandwidth, but it's a really sucky test, and sets your bandwidth incredibly low, and you have to manually up it if you want more. Like for example, I have a 100 MBPS symmetrical fiber connection and it wanted to set my bandwidth with the automatic test to like 600 kbps.
I think that's part of why the network sucks so much because the automatic test doesn't nearly set your bandwidth to what it should be. So it's not taking advantage of nearly the bandwidth that's available on connections.