When Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web, it was designed to help scientists share information with ease. While the web has grown to become the repository of all knowledge, it is also far from the utopian ecosystem Berners-Lee had had envisioned, which is why the creator of the internet is keen on figuring out what the next step should be for the World Wide Web.
On Tuesday, June 7, Berners-Lee and other top computer scientists gathered at the Decentralised Web Summit to discuss the ways in which web pages could be distributed and scientific papers stored online without having to pay for cloud storage. They also brainstormed ideas to help improve privacy, bring about greater levels of accountability and increase security online.
The web, today, "controls what people see, creates mechanisms for how people interact," Today Online quoted Berners-Lee as saying. "It's been great, but spying, blocking sites, repurposing people's content, taking you to the wrong websites that completely undermines the spirit of helping people create."
The current model on which the World Wide Web is run was developed by Berners-Lee when he was at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, almost 30 years ago. The model relies on central servers and IP addresses and can be easily tracked or blocked. Berners-Lee is looking to decentralise the web, the report said.
The summit also featured the likes of Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive who joined in on the discussion on decentralisation, which ensures that governments are no longer privy to the information being shared online.
The creator of the web is reportedly not very hopeful as the problem is more social and less technological in nature.
