Thoughts on the Small Internet First, let me say that both the Small and Large Internets [0] rely on the infrastructure, methodologies and software created decades ago that were a result of open collaboration between highly skilled and creative people. The effort was funded largely by public tax dollars and created for the public good. One only has to look at the lack of security in the original, core Internet protocols (DNS, BGP, SMTP) to see that the people working on them could not conceive of their creations being used for nefarious purposes. What most people now rely on and call 'The Internet' and what spring coined the Large Internet [0] is mostly the World-Wide Web, now controlled completely by a few large multi-nationals and mutated into a form that perfectly enables all the worst impulses of modern capitalism, fascism and authoritarianism (neo-liberalism if you prefer). Snowden's lesson was that none of us were paranoid enough. So I see the Small Internet as a return to those original ideals of open community and trust, tempered by reality in a world where we have to secure our servers inasmuch as they are tethered, even in small ways, to the Large Internet that is attacked and surveilled continuously. The Republic's logs are filled daily with brute-force attacks, as are, I'm sure, the Zaibatsu's and every other server with public-facing network services. The discussion around the Small Internet has highlighted the measured and in-depth conversation that it encourages [1]. I heartily agree. It does assume use of gopher, but in my opinion there is no reason the Small Internet cannot be a collection of protocols in deliberately stripped-down form. A good example is tilde.team's default use of the Bash Blog static site generator and HTTPS for it's user's websites. Again, Snowden comes to mind and I see no reason to allow my ISP or whoever is almost certainly listening in (even passively) to view my Small Internet browsing or communication habits. In authoritarian regimes like the US, Russia or China, you might think twice before discussing, reading or posting something considered 'subversive' over an insecure channel. The EFF calls this a 'chilling effect' [2]. So I see the Small Internet as more inclusive and open to whatever minimalistic protocols the pubnix owners prefer, all with the goal of encouraging free and open debate. As spring says, we do need to create this ourselves. I think we're well on our way. [0] gopher://republic.circumlunar.space/0/~spring/phlog/2019-01-16__The_Small_Internet.txt [1] gopher://republic.circumlunar.space/0/~katolaz/phlog/20190219_fomo.txt [2] https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-files-22-firsthand-accounts-how-nsa-surveillance-chilled-right-association