4 votes

8th Layer to the OSI Model, Meta-application Layer

Tags: osi model

The Meta-application layer works by using a number of pre-configured free-to-use web applications such as FB messenger, gmail, skype, gchat, yahoo email, etc to establish a connection and transmit data over top the application layer.

It's purpose is to establish a meta-layer for new applications to make use of, to decrease centralization, and to increase privacy. Take the power back from big corporations, and put it back in with the People! (or some such thing, maybe...).

So each end of the communication would check some pre-configured number of free-online web apps for a code/key from the other side. Once found that key would determine the ordering, frequency, and mediums to use for communication. Such as: gmail - first message, skype - second message, yahoo email - third and forth message, repeat 10x, then reverse order, repeat 10x, and then start over again or better yet some hard-to-discern pattern.

Privacy would be increased through both obscurity (typically not a good way to do security) and through the use of a multitude of different web applications, each with their own varying degrees of security.

The actual messages would be the binary code...or for a more directed-application - text messages... Communication would be slow....but possible?

Anyways, that thought popped into my head so I thought I'd share it in case it took your own brain to any interesting places :)

2 comments

  1. [2]
    halfjew22
    (edited )
    Link
    I have a feeling I'm going to really enjoy reading this as I've thought very similar things and will soon offer a more responsive comment, but please be very careful how you use the word free....

    free-to-use

    I have a feeling I'm going to really enjoy reading this as I've thought very similar things and will soon offer a more responsive comment, but please be very careful how you use the word free.

    Those services you use a vampiric actors seeking to sleep up all of your information that they possibly can to serve you ads to sell you shit that you simply don't need.

    While they are of zero Fiat cost, I personally feel we should be very careful not to designate that as free.

    EDIT

    Now that I finished the post, have you heard of Blockchain Technology? That sounds very similar to what you're describing. Not Blockchain per session, but Blockchain opens up various different mechanisms for promoting those kinds of interactions.

    When we break it down completely, we send sound and image over the Internet and that encapsulates just about everything. One could make an argument for instructions as well,but since we can represent those through image in the form of text or otherwise, I'll just leave the above at sound and image.

    I believe what we should have is image and sound hosting protocol that entire sites can be built off of. In other words, I think we now have mechanisms for economically supporting distributed hosting of images and sounds that don’t rely on centralized hostess. Look up projects like Golem for proofs of concept in this area. I don’t think they’ve nailed it, but they are getting closer than current approaches.

    All in all, hosting an image, file or sound should not rely on imgur, Dropbox, or SoundCloud, but rather those should be portals into accessing YOUR content that you’ve uploaded with whatever UI they design.

    One final thing I want to include is the interesting parallel between the way good software is designed and what a more common sense macro application level would look like. If you read any software design books, you’ll know not to combine data and UI layers, and yet that’s what every large website is up to this point.

    Anyway, I’ll link an interesting article related to this about the future of software development and would love any thoughts or feedback on it: https://link.medium.com/ZrGGiqAMkU

    1 vote
    1. Pilgrim
      Link Parent
      Thank you so much for the comment. I'll be interested to hear more. You're spot on about those bits of software being free from a fiat POV and not a libre POV. I'll try to be more clear moving...

      Thank you so much for the comment. I'll be interested to hear more.

      You're spot on about those bits of software being free from a fiat POV and not a libre POV. I'll try to be more clear moving forward.

      I've read a bit about blockchain and some of the decentralization efforts under way. I'll take a look at that article but am pretty skeptical of anything on medium as it often just hosts blogspam (like my post lol!).

      1 vote