Project SAFEspace
The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information. - Tim Berners Lee
Sir TBL invented the world wide web and the hyperlink initially from a scientific point of view: hyperlinks refer to the original source (without having to know on which computer this source information is stored). Since then the web has evolved a lot, and with the advent of web applications we now see centralised applications that absorb all our information. We only get access to our information at the grace of the company and our data is being sold de facto beyond our control.
SAFEspace can be the new webbrowser, but this time with the our basic rights first.
- You login with your MAID account into your SAFEspace. It gives you access and control over all your information. It is your information and no-one elseās. period.
- SAFE Applications are the new webpages. In itās most trivial state an āapplicationā is a static website. SAFE Applications are already immutably āinstalledā in the network, so there is no need any longer for installation, updating or risk of corruption. SAFE applications can be full fledged C++ codes, running on the local machine. A high quality SAFE label for open-source, peer reviewed applications can give users trust.
- SAFE Applications are servants to your information. They never own your information. You only permit them access to specific parts of your information. You can always revoke access to information. As the application executes locally, your information should never leave the SAFEspace; ie the Application can never be allowed to send information to a central server - if it does, it should make this crystal clear when, what and why (ie bug reports etc).
- Sharing information with other users all happens through the SAFE routing and SAFE sharing network layers.
So from within your SAFEspace, once logged in: you access all your data, independent of app generated, or you stored it yourself. You control which applications can launch, run and access what information.
For example, you store all your pictures in your SAFEspace. In your picture folder, for a given picture you could see with whom you have shared this picture, but also which ādecentralised social applicationā or āphotoshop appā also has access to this picture (only when it is running locally importantly!!)
Benefits from a SAFEspace browser
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Of course, project SAFEspace will be open-source and free. So this will be the legacy browser and many alternatives will follow! The SAFEspace browser is only a thin layer on top of the existing structure provided by the SAFE network (a now important difference!)
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You can log in with multiple MAID accounts. In particular the MAID account of the owner of the machine for farming on the local drive. But also a music application would benefit when you host a party: all friends can open their SAFEspace and the music application can be allowed to play from everyoneās music collection.
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Per physical machine there is only one routing layer active. Running multiple SAFE routing cores per machine (as could happen when we have independent SAFE applications) is an harmful burden on both the machine and the network. - of course, this is not prohibited if for some reason it would be desirable, but ānatural usageā would not swamp the network with nodes joining and leaving every second you open a SAFE application.
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Single login over all applications, local on your machine.
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Transparant way of indicating the difference between webbrowsing and SAFEbrowsing