Computational Thinking: Lecture 5: Linking

Review where we are in the lectures.
The History of the Internet, The History of the Graphical User Interface, The History of Hypertext.
Encryption.
Trees and Graphs.
Google, Facebook and CS183.
Decentralisation: P2P, Blockchain and IPFS and Filecoin, Merkle Trees and DAT and Beaker.
Bonus: Mark Lombardi, Listening Post and Celestial Mechanics.

You can think of Google as a way of brute forcing a two way world wide web - the way it was meant to be in the first place if Ted Nelson had had his way.
I have respect for Google as the orginal PageRank algorithm was a technical breakthrough in web search. Facebook on the other hand was just in the right place at the right time, with good marketing.
Peter Thiel was one of the original investors in Facebook, you can read about his startup methods in the course that he taught at Stanford, CS183. More notes from the revised course here. Basically have a public and private plan and go for monopoly.
Interestingly another early investor was CIA, via its investment arm, In-Q-Tel. People will survey themselves these days! Another key Thiel company is Palantir Technologies.
Thiel is the subject of the documentary Nobody Speak, about freedom of the press and billionaires censoring of it.

Decentralisation.
Peer to Peer - means you don't need a central authority any more.
Blockchain - means you don't need trust any more.
Two interesting projects have emerged in the past few years: Dat and InterPlanetary File System.
There is some controversy about IPFS and it's methods of funding, indeed the IPFS emerged from Dat.
A good talk the need for IPFS by Juan Benet, one of its creators.

Thanks!