Exactly. Or, as the author puts it:

I imagine a different future, where if Alice wants to talk to Bob and Bob wants to talk to Alice, there’s no unaccountable intermediary that can interfere with their communication, whether they’re speaking text, or video, or 3-D models, or simulation.

I never thought I'd live in a society where the value of privacy or anonymity was up for debate. These are real world concepts that I thought everyone took for granted in their routine communications, but are being tossed aside on the Internet merely because finding a technical solution seems too hard (and it is very, very hard).

Maybe we should reframe the debate around the concept of intimacy instead. There are a lot of activities that are perfectly innocent, but I still wouldn't want to do them in a crowded room or in my boss's office. The Internet is becoming the primary medium of electronic communication. I should be able to use it to have an intimate discussion without it being data mined by anyone. There's no reason any third party should be able to detect the conversation is even taking place, and anonymity should be at my discretion, subject to the acceptance of the party I'm communicating with.

I can appreciate that thought, but I think you are overlooking that we are moving from the primary medium of the telephone for these types of communications. Telephones certainly weren't anonymous, or undetectable. In fact when they first started they weren't even private but quasi public (to the operator and others on the party line).

I'm not arguing with the ideal, just pointing out that we didn't transition straight from face to face, anonymous and undetectable to the internet. We passed through the telephone phase, which last many decades, and arguably had less tools available to do what you wanted. Internet communication is an outgrowth of the telephone and its network, but arguably with some work is able to provide more of what you want.

Your home phone was the equivalent of a gmail address. A pay phone was closer to a home email server, or an anonymous internet cafe web browsing session. If its shocking that this debate isn't larger about web decentralization, it should be doubly shocking that it never seemed to occur at all, so far as I can tell, during the phone age.

But regardless, your ISP will always be present, and your packets will always traverse many dozens of pieces of networking equipment, owned by several dozen big faceless institutions, along the way. Services can be eliminated, the network cannot. True point to point communication in the manner the OP and yourself seem to want truly requires point to point communication. Maybe we need some innovation in the ham radio space.

I'm old enough to remember party lines, so your point is well taken. But even with the advantages of the telephone, it soon became obvious that people resented the constant eavesdropping of nosy neighbors. It's frustrating to have to fight that battle all over again, especially when someone like Eric Schmidt says, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." [1] I get it, the Internet is turning the world into a small town, but sometimes living in a small town sucks.

[1] http://gawker.com/5419271/google-ceo-secrets-are-for-filthy-...

Encrypting or even obscuring communications on the amateur radio bands is illegal.

I agree, the discussion here has immediately taken a technical dimension for the same reasons that engineers are really poor at evaluating the real world value and far-reaching social implications of the technology they create.

This is not an article about the technical difficulties of running today's Internet or email. It is about the transition from revolution to institution. Centralisation limits the disruptive potential of the Internet and in the long term will transform it from an enabling technology into another obstacle that needs to be overcome.

This is just another step in a long series of advancements that have transformed human existence: organised Agriculture, Centralised Government, The Written Word, The Legal System, Mathematics, Science, Democracy, Free Markets, Finance, The Industrial Revolution, Publishing, Education, Modern Medicine, Personal Automobiles, and the Mass Media. In the idealistic minds of the pioneers, the potential was evident and intentions often subversive. Today these have invariably matured into terribly inefficient monstrous empires that are fiercely resistant to innovation or new ideas. With the resources to move the world, why should they move for anyone?

Personal Computing and the Internet are new and exciting, the gatekeepers remain engineers because they are the only ones that seem to be able to get it to do anything. Despite the convenience argument, building a centralised infrastructure will lead to the inevitable takeover by the same maniacs that run everything else. Of course, it may take a few generations before Google's superbly engineered infrastructure is operated by a Manufacturing/Pharmaceutical/Petroleum/Media/Retail/Finance/Defense conglomerate whose alumni occupy every significant position in Government. Why should we bother?

"After this, let's build the biggest, most bad-ass super robot weapon ever because it's cool and fun, we'll use a master password because it's more convenient and surely that bully that eats all our lunches might be watching intently, but he's too stupid to understand advanced control theory."

That being said, I would like to work at Google, the smart kids building the biggest, most bad-ass super robot weapon ever.

I approve this message.

Thank you for getting the main point.