Thread

1. jamienk · 1790267121 · focus · HN ↗

   Did we completely write off the "web of trust" as a workable system? Where you exchange keys with people and co-sign each others keys and then trust keys signed by them. This would be an alt to "algorithms" and also a way to "subscribe" to things that got vetted by trusted people or orgs. I kind of do this with uBlock Origin, where they curate a (very complex) list of ads (but without the key signing). Orgs could vet and publish lists of arXiv papers and I'd be subscribed to that. This could also be the source of my social media feed (friends of friends, etc).

   I remember in the early days of PGP this was put forward as a vision. I remember the various key-holding systems (that were hard to use). I did a key-party with my brother and his friend in the '90s.

   Why did this fail?

   1. minraws · 1790271234 · focus · HN ↗

      Because then it would be a big club, but most wouldn't be in it.

      To clarify: for a large number of topic I find this completely fair and valuable to first have to build trust. But getting your research paper in front of other humans on a aggregation website seems like the one place where this for me falls apart.

      Today any one from any corner of the world from any educational or non education place publish stuff, well moderation is tight and often it won't get through but I know a few friends who aren't in academia that have a paper up there who wouldn't have been as easily able to get a paper on anywhere else.

      Maybe that's not a genuine concern but that often used to be the case and still is in a lot of invite first clubs/groups. I know credible people in the field who were and are working in relative isolation which leads to not being able to participate in sharing of ideas.

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