Current (January 2011) events in Egypt show that a distributed Internet will evolve. How so? Open data formats like microformats.org and HTML5 Micro Data will enable our perspectives on technology to reverse. From “how much money can Larry, Steve1 or Steve2 make?” to “how can I get an alternative to sharing my babyphotos with Zuck?”, from “what may I do in my corporate work environment?” to “here is the part of my stuff you may see, boss”.
And with that the configuration of systems and trust in data will also become available for true specs.
Today’s spec is “runs with Intel, Microsoft and some integration from one of our partners”. Future spec will be “here is my data, go figure, service providers. Make me some offers.”
Why that matters for egyptians you ask? If they could do this, they could easily pass on each others’ data, via their wireless antennas on their mobiles. Without being cut off centrally. Without censorship. Without the need to ask permission to raise their voices. The internet has the technology, the genie is out of the bottle. We won’t loose this sorcerer’s aprentice’s broom 
Open Data formats like microformats.org and HTML5 Micro Data enable data to be free, any kind of data. Configuration, access and user workload data. Hardware already has become ubiquitous, and much of the required software for a truly distributed internet is available for free anyways.
It is only a question of time for peer 2 peer networks to evolve. If illegal application can stuff two thirds of the Internet, just think about the potential to organize rallies in north africa, north korea, north something else.
Why should a people with at least a handful of satellite phones and the ability to access download facilities the world over restrict itself to the whim of some self-centred megalomaniac?
Well, in more developed countries the investments of e.g. George Bush or Silvio Berlusconi would suffer big time from switching off the internet, so there the problem is on another level. But in evolving societies like in the middle east there is every demand for people to make themselves independent of government controlled infrastructure providers.
And the simple truth is that they will go for independence – eventually.
This is true for people confronted with extra smart German legislators as much as for dictators who have basked in the sun of US support for 30 years.
And there is no restriction of this truth to the more ephemeral underpinnings of the Internet. It is also true for the more abstract layers of solution stacks, like user data, and also for stuff you put into Google (look at their terms, section 8.3, to be found on Google by searching for “google” and “terms”, first found link …).
To make this liberation happen – and it will happen, and it will happen on a personal level, without a chance for any type of bastard to stop it totally – we have to start thinking about our data from our own perspective.
Not as vendors. Not as consumers of some software. But as the owners of ourselves and of our thoughts and ideas. And what else is it about, when Mr.Zuckerberg mused about the ownership of data? The same holds true for silly individuals in any government.
IT IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS TO SPECULATE ABOUT WHO OWNS MY DATA! BUGGER OFF!
Sorry. Had to be said.
