Beyond distributed and decentralized: what is a federated network?

Reading (academic texts) on networks, it is easy to get confused by the various labels attached to the networks described in texts. Federated, distributed, centralized, decentralized… Stijn Peeters wrote an article trying to clear up the entangled terminology. Read it on the Unlike Us resources-page: Beyond distributed and decentralized: what is a federated network?

Are you interested in the debate around federation and the architecture of future networks, then be sure to check out the report and videos on Are You Distributed? The Federated Web Show, which took place at the latest Unlike Us Conference. Capo, Spideralex, George Danezis, Reni Hofmüller, Vincent Toubiana, Arvind Narayanan discuss, moderated by Seda Gürses and with comment from Harry Halpin.

Arvind Narayanan, one of the authors of the discussion-style article in the Unlike Us Reader, who unfortunately couldn’t attend the conference, wrote a blogpost on the topic: Unlikely Outcomes? A Distributed Discussion on Decentralized Personal Data Architectures.

Naked Logic: Lecture of Boldizsár Hordós at Metaforum X, Budapest

By Geert Lovink, November 12, 2024

I am happy to teach computer history at a fine arts university. Besides, I also work with small kids. Part of my job is to pry phones out of their hands—not the most pleasant part of the day. This is partly because (as with every mandatory intervention) it stirs up more chaos than it prevents. [...]

Infrastructure that Sticks: Digital Affect Within Sovietcore

By Salome Berdzenishvili, November 4, 2024

Жить тяжело и неуютно Зато уютно умирать (Living is difficult and confining, But dying is liberating) The words written above are an excerpt from the song Sudno (Boris Ryzhy) by post-punk band Molchat Doma from Minsk. These words also often loop over the reels on post-Soviet aesthetics found online – the ones of decayed brutalist [...]

Ágnes Básthy: Crisis? What Crisis? Taking a Suspicious Walk around a Fashionable Notion

By Geert Lovink, October 31, 2024

(Text of the speech by Ágnes Básthy on the first day of Metaforum X, Budapest, October 25, 2024) “‘Krisis’ was originally a medical concept which designated, in the Hippocratic corpus of texts, the moment when the doctor decided whether the patient would be able to survive the disease. Theologians reprized the term to indicate the [...]