Re-decentralizing the Internet

Catalog description

Decentralization has become a buzzword in the technology space, and there is much more to decentralized technology than NFTs and cryptocurrency. In this course, we will examine the fundamental concepts of the existing internet infrastructure, work to define what decentralization means, learn about the “why” of decentralization, survey the landscape of decentralized, distributed, and p2p protocols, and develop decentralized applications. We learn about will examine the implementation of decentralized technology and throughout the course, we will look at different use cases of decentralization such as evading censorship, protecting privacy, and creating resilient applications. We will also consider ethical questions about the decentralization movement—how will it grow, who benefits from decentralization, and whether a decentralized internet is even a good solution at all. We will examine the underlying technologies that enable decentralization, as well as looking at the current implementations of decentralized protocols and apps built on top of decentralized protocols. Finally, we will touch on adjacent topics such as local networks, mesh networking, and p2p networks. While this course will cover a breadth of decentralized and self-hosted applications, we will steer away from decentralized financing and NFTs and instead focus on decentralized information sharing. The goal of the class is to challenge students to think critically about the future of the decentralized web and develop applications that leverage these technologies. Students with or without a background in networking are both highly encouraged to enroll.