Mail Transcript: The Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem

From: Mohsen Banan
To: Fellow World Citizens
Date: April 20, 2018
Subject: The Libre-Halaal By* Digital Ecosystem – For Preservation Of The Individual’s Autonomy and Privacy

[ Please distribute this as widely as possible, wherever appropriate.
The transcript of this email is web published as PLPC-180055 and is also available in pdf format. ]

Considering that,

direction and health of models that govern delivery of internet services impact all of us;
with internet all of us now have to a certain extent been empowered to function as reporters, journalists and writers;

I have concluded that it is appropriate to send you this information and make these requests towards propagation of ByStar information.

————————————————

Dear Reporter, Journalist, Citizen Journalist, Writer;

The current direction of the Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem (Internet Application Services Services as they exist today), is towards destruction of more of the individual’s autonomy and privacy. These trends put civilization and humanity in danger.

I, Mohsen Banan, am a software and internet engineer. To address this risk, we have built:

The Libre-Halaal ByStar (By*) Digital Ecosystem
For Preservation Of The Individual’s Autonomy and Privacy
A Unified and Non-Proprietary Model For Autonomous Internet Services
A Moral Alternative To The Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem
www.by-star.net

We have done this in the context of our profession’s responsibility to society and humanity.

With By* we offer real, tangible and practical autonomy and privacy – intended for very large scale.

For those who recognize the importance of autonomy and privacy, ByStar now provides a choice.

But, this email is not about us encouraging you to start using ByStar. Instead, I am requesting that you hear my story and that you think, and that if you see merit I hope that you will help us in spreading the word. Furthermore, I want to make the case that it is your societal responsibility to do so.

All of this is outside of the usual model of economic creatures existing in the common proprietary industrial context where tunnel vision engineers and specialists focus on profits of creating the next kool App and the latest data mining technique. Our process has strong philosophical, moral and societal dimensions. Issues of morality and the preservation of societal welfare are an essential and integral part of our plan.

Our story is about redecentralizing the whole of internet services and the scope of our work are all internet services – everything. The “*” in “By*” is Unix’s globing (everything) symbol. We want to invert the existing model of internet application services and then create a new healthy autonomy and privacy oriented environment.

The scope and scale of what we are doing is enormous. Yet, what we are proposing is more than plausible. However, our model is very complex – as it needs to be – and demands your attention and concentration.

At its highest level, our plan involves replacing the existing internet services model with a new environment where service providers are subject to self-regulations that put the ownership of some internet services into the hands of autonomous individuals themselves.

ByStar is not just about any new particular functionality or a particular product or a particular service. It is not a faster, cheaper, better story. In terms of functionality, what we offer is generally same as what exists today.

Our primary offerings are: Tangible Autonomy and Tangible Privacy. It is becoming more and more clear that, on large scale there is a demand for this. Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Apple are in the business of exploitation of autonomy and privacy. The business model required for offering true tangible autonomy and tangible privacy is very different from traditional current practices.

Our process has strong philosophical, moral and societal dimensions. Issues of morality and the preservation of societal welfare are an essential and integral part of our plan.

Our motivations in building ByStar include addressing our responsibilities with respect to the engineering profession. We claim that you, as a reporter/journalist/writer, have a similar responsibility to your profession and that the press has a responsibility to society and humanity.

Below we present to you a brief description of the problem, the contours of our cure and a reading roadmap. We then expect that you evaluate it and spread the word by writing about and discussing ByStar.

1 Problem: Individual’s Autonomy and Privacy Are Being Crushed
2 Contours Of The Cure: The Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem
3 Obstacles: Widespread Adoption Challenges
4 Where We Are, Why Now
5 Need For Wide Exposure – Evolutionary Growth
6 Reading Roadmap For Reporters
7 Heads Up – Preview Of What Is To Come
8 Next Steps: You, Your Choices and Your Responsibility

1 Problem: Individual’s Autonomy and Privacy Are Being Crushed

In the Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem (Internet Application Services as they exist today), the individual’s autonomy and privacy are being crushed. A deal has been made. Users free-of-charge get: email, calendar, address book, content publication, and Facebook friends. In return, American corporations get: semantic analysis of email, spying with consent, traffic, logs and audit trail analysis and behavior cross referencing.

A new currency has been created. The user’s autonomy and privacy is now the implicit internet currency. For now, the established business model is that of translation of the individual’s privacy into targeted advertising. That business model will naturally grow in scope. The debit side of this new currency is civilization and humanity.

Today, the world is largely unaware of this. The public has not awakened to the perils of the proprietary Internet model, and happily entrusts its personal data, its privacy, its freedoms and its civil liberties to proprietary business interests. And the people whose responsibility it is to safeguard the public interest – government, and the engineering profession – are asleep at the wheel. Or worse yet, they have become accomplices.

More recently, discussions of loss of privacy in the context of Internet services has become a daily occurrence in mainstream western press. None of these discussions has any depth and no meaningful cure is even searched for. Many articles and books have been written about “End of Privacy.” Shallow, subdued nagging – that is the position and role of American press on the problem.

2 Contours Of The Cure: The Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem

Loss of autonomy and privacy are symptoms of the basic model of the Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem. At societal level, autonomy and privacy can not be preserved just with new technology. There are no band-aid technical solutions that can be applied to the proprietary digital ecosystem that can fix it.

We need to erect a new parallel digital ecosystem whose primary purpose is to preserve autonomy and privacy of the individual to stand against the Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem.

ByStar is shaped by a number of fundamental understandings that fully oppose the conventional wisdom of Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem participants.

Any real autonomy and privacy offering needs to conform to the concepts that we are putting forward. It is our deep understanding and leadership in voluntarily adopting these restrictions and concepts that makes ByStar real and enduring.

2.1 Service Provider Self Regulation: Basis For Offering Autonomy And Privacy

A genuine autonomy ensuring internet service such as ByStar Autonomous Services, should truly “belong” to its user. For Autonomous Services, the service provider is simply a temporary host, keeper and enabler of the user’s service.

ByStar Autonomous services belong to their users, this means that:

All ByStar software must be internally transparent – HalaalSoftware.org.
All ByStar internet services must be internally transparent and reproducible – LibreServices.org.
Individuals (Autonomous Entities) must be in full control of their own ByStar Autonomous representations and should optionally be able to self-host (Be-Your-Own-ASP) their own ByStar Autonomous and their ByStar Controlled entities.
When ByStar Autonomous services are externally hosted, they should be subject to “Service Portability” and “Service and Information Non-Retention” Agreements.

For example in the context of email, the user needs to be able to reproduce his email services at his own premise (without any legal or other restrictions) if he wishes to and ensure that all of his emails are private and in his possession. When he deletes an email, he should be sure that there is no copy of that email left anywhere.

The above self imposed restrictions, limitations and regulations towards the user owning the service are counter to Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regime’s model which makes the service provider the owner and the controller of the service. Therefore, it is in the interest of those who wish to provide genuine and real autonomy and privacy to fully reject IPR.

2.2 Conceptualizations Of the Libre-Halaal Label, Poly-Existence and Rejection of IPR

The Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem is built around a set of false beliefs and concepts. The disastrous results that we are starting to observe (deterioration of autonomy and destruction of privacy) are ramifications of these mistakes.

Intellectual Property is a central and fundamental colossal conceptual error that impacts the shape and direction of the Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem. IP influences software and services to become internally opaque and proprietary. These in turn deteriorate privacy and autonomy of the individual.

That which the IPR regime wishes to restrict (knowledge, content, etc.) are poly-existentials that naturally exist in multiples. All digital entities are poly-existentials. Poly-existentials can not be subject of private property (umbrella monopolistic restrictions). Our deep understanding of nature of poly-existentials is articulated in PLPC-120033 and our deep understanding of poly-existence and natural laws of the digital world has shaped the design of Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem.

Full rejection of the IPR regime is an integral part of the ByStar design and strategy.

Having rejected the concept of IP and private ownership of software and internet services, we then need to impose public restrictions on manner-of-existence of software and internet services. We have chosen to express this with the “Libre-Halaal” label – as opposed to the existing Open-Source, Free Software, FOSS/FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open-Source Software) labels which are only applicable to software. We further expand on this in a document titled: “In Search Of The Right Label For Correct Manner-Of-Existence Of Poly-Existentials”.

2.3 Collaborative Dynamics Of Libre-Halaal Services

The extraordinary collaborative power of Libre-Halaal Software (FLOSS) is now generally well understood. But extending it to the domain of internet services is new.

Libre-Halaal Services are an extension of the principles of Libre-Halaal (Open-Source) Software into the internet services domain.

Libre-Halaal Services definition and regulations, create an additional collaborative power which has not yet been recognized.

2.4 Overarching Design

The Internet Services industry has arisen in a highly disorganized, unstructured way, driven by a multitude of uncoordinated commercial initiatives. The various industry capabilities have been built in an ad hoc manner, based on immediate business expedience, rather than by any sort of overarching engineering design. The result is the Internet Services industry as it exists today: chaotic, non-collaborative, uncoordinated, and falling far short of its true potential.

In contrast to this, ab initio, ByStar Digital Ecosystem is based on a well designed, orchestrated, coherent, collaborative, scalable, generalized Internet Services model. At the heart of this design are the abstractions of Autonomous By* Entities, Controlled By* Entities, Direct Inter-Autonomous By* Services, Federated By* Services and Mediated Inter-Autonomous By* Services. Collectively these abstractions permit us to reproduce all capabilities and services that are currently available in the Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem.

The Proprietary paradigm has created a centralized, opaque, rise-of-the-middle, anti-autonomy and anti-privacy services model. The Libre-Halaal paradigm leads to a decentralized, transparent, end-to-end, autonomy and privacy oriented services model.

2.5 The Universal BISOS (By* Internet Applications Services OS) – Software Of ByStar

Much of the engineering power of ByStar comes from The Universal BISOS (By* Internet Applications Services OS).

BISOS, is rooted in the “On Unix” philosophy as a layer on top of Linux. BISOS implements core ByStar abstractions which permit easy realization of customized internet application services.

BISOS inherits Debian’s model of universality and is used both on all ByStar servers and also on all ByStar user environments. Just like Linux, BISOS is open-ended and can organically grow.

2.6 Initial Small Scale ByStar Services

Based on BISOS and based on the mentioned ByStar design principles, we have created a small scale digital ecosystem that demonstrates and proves the viability of our model and our design.

Starting with this initial implementation which primarily focuses on ByStar-Autonomous and ByStar-Controlled services we can clearly demonstrate that much of the individual’s autonomy and privacy can be safe guarded in the current environment.

As an example of ByStar’s ByName capabilities consider my own web site at mohsen.banan.1.byname.net – which fully belongs to me. As you browse there, note that in addition to my information you are also seeing various ByStar capabilities. In the previously mentioned context of email example, with ByName, I have tangible autonomy and privacy. When I delete an email, I can be sure that there is no copy of that email left anywhere on my side. I, exclusively possess my own emails.

We call the current set of ByStar-Federated and ByStar-Inter-Autonomous services the “ByStar Web Collective”. See www.by-star.net for current details.

With these in place, we just simply need to grow ByStar in terms of scale, scope and capabilities. Such growth can be evolutionary and with widespread participation and investment it can be accomplished very rapidly.

2.7 Initial ByStar Capabilities

We have developed a set of core capabilities for ByStar-Autonomous and ByStar-Controlled entities that enable individuals to engage in their activities on the internet without compromising their autonomy and their privacy. Just with these capabilities alone, a great deal of privacy is preserved.

Current ByStar core capabilities include:

Universal ByStar Ids, Credentials And Authentication:: Access to ByStar capabilities are through universal ByStar ids and credentials. ByStarCentral maintains ByStar’s Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) which enables authenticated inter-autonomous inter-autonomous interactions.
Autonomous Private And Collaborative Distributed Information Synchronization:: Using Git, ByStar-Objects are privately synchronized.
Autonomous Email:: ByStar-Autonomous entities enjoy a rich private messaging environment called MARMEE (Multi-Account Resident Mail Exchange Environment). ByStar email is very private. This is very distinct and different from the likes of Gmail.
Content Generation And Autonomous Content Publication:: ByStar-Autonomous entities are empowered to independently produce and autonomously publish their own content. Published content are uniformly PLPC-numbered and organized with access pages. Every content and document mentioned here has a PLPC number. The PLPC-180038 is the document that describes “ByStar Software And Services For Autonomous Content Collaborative-Authorship, Generation, Publication And Distribution”.
Controlled Objects Management (for IoT and more):: Each ByStar-Autonomous entity is empowered to manage her own ByStar-Controlled entities through GOSSONoT (Generalized Open-Source Self-Organizing Network of Things).
Confidentiality And Anti-Privacy Counter Measures:: A fundamental ByStar assumption is that all internet traffic is subject to eavesdropping and is being monitoring. Therefore, encryption and traffic flow confidentiality measures are an integral part of ByStar.

BISOS and ByStar capabilities model are open-ended. They will grow over time. For example, once the dust settles, we anticipate that ByStar will have its own blockchains integrated into the fabric of ByStar digital ecosystem.

3 Obstacles: Widespread Adoption Challenges

While very logical and well articulated, there are a good number of obstacles that you may have to overcome in understanding what we are presenting.

There is not much that we can do about these obstacles other than making you aware of them.

3.1 Not In Their Interest To Understand

Many reviewers are vested in the proprietary model (e.g., are copyright and patent holders or are associated with them) and it is not in their interest to understand that the IPR model is invalid. And that the existing proprietary model is vulnerable to the inversion that we have put forward. Such reviewers would not wish to recognize that the logic that we have presented is correct. It is not in their interest to understand.

The belief system of many reviewers of this document is Americanism. The current Proprietary American model is perceived as economically beneficial to them and they would have no interest in seeing ByStar disrupt it.

3.2 Complexity Of Scope and Scale – Complexity of The Sheaf of Opportunities

The ability to think and analyze at the full scope of an entire global digital ecosystem is rare. Many reviewers can not begin to consider that the current model is fundamentally wrong and that it needs to be corrected at its foundation. And, that it is possible to do so.

Erecting a fresh new global digital ecosystem represents many large opportunities that we have well analyzed. Absorbing all of that analysis involves effort and patience.

3.3 Un-Western Phobia – Conscious And Unconscious Biases

Many reviewers are likely Americans or Westerners who do not recognize that design of proper Global digital ecosystems should not be just rooted in Western models and values.

We are well aware that, for example, the “Halaal” in our “Libre-Halaal” label provokes islamophobia negative connotations amongst many reviewers. Design of ByStar is based on choosing, building and doing the right things – not on pleasing our audience. For example, in the context of our choosing of the word Halaal, in PLPC-120039 we explain how Halaal is the “right” qualifier word of the Libre-Halaal label.

If in fact you are bothered by or do not like our choice of Halaal in the Libre-Halaal label or other of our Un-Western positioning choices, then our filters are working well.

4 Where We Are, Why Now

We have been at this for more than a decade. In broad summary this is where we are today.

Overarching design architecture for the By* services is complete. It has been well articulated and published. It is also implemented sufficiently for someone with the necessary technical skills to understand the integrity and philosophy of design, and the architectural characteristics in terms of functional scope, depth of integration, and numerical scalability.

Implementation of the By* services themselves is in progress. In terms of functionality, the initial services are already sufficiently complete for deployment and usage. A number of example implementations are in place.

However the services are not ready in terms of security, operational manageability, and scalability. Substantial work remains before we can support large numbers of users reliably and efficiently. This is the last remaining phase of work to be accomplished before we can deploy the services at large scale.

What has been accomplished thus far was done by a small cohesive crack team. We self funded that development for over more than a decade.

We are now ready to expose our design, our conceptual work and our implementations so that we can gather more participants. At this point it makes good sense for us to bring in large amounts of capital and start scaling up.

5 Need For Wide Exposure – Evolutionary Growth

Given the nature of ByStar and given the obstacles that we mentioned above, we fully expect that only a very small segment of our audience can begin to be motivated to participate in what we are putting forward.

So, clearly, ByStar needs wide exposure. Buying into ByStar is both persuasion and resonance oriented. The entirety of our documents and software is publicly available for review by all.

If the overview that we presented above has peaked your interest, wonderful! In the next section we’ll provide you a reading roadmap so that you can dig as deep as you wish.

If for any reason you do not wish for me to include you in our future distributions, please let me know and I will remove your name from our distributions.

I know that typical first reaction to our claims is a chuckle. Some say it is insane. Many say that the notion of creating a parallel digital ecosystem is so very lofty that it can’t be realistic. If that is the case with you, in exchange for the chuckle, we ask you to assist us in our broad exposure campaign. Please forward this information to your colleagues.

ByStar grand design is broad, evolutionary, expandable. ByStar can grow to scale gradually. With the foundations in place, it is through continuous wide exposure that we hope to accelerate the growth.

6 Reading Roadmap For Reporters

Over the past decade we have articulated our thoughts and plans for ByStar and Libre-Services in various dimensions, including: engineering, societal, social, philosophical, moral, ethical, business and economics.

Here we provide you a roadmap and some pointers to allow you to dig as deep as you wish.

6.1 ByStar Overview Narrated Presentation

We have a narrated (voice-over) presentation that provides a general overview of ByStar and which is publicly available as:

An Overview Of The Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem
With Pointers For Digging Deeper
www.by-star.net/PLPC/180054

From beginning to end, the Narrated Screencast Html Presentation is about 30 minutes long.

The presentation includes Elevator Pitch Videos in three languages: English, French and Farsi.

The same presentation is also available in Linear Format which includes the transcript of the narration.

6.2 The Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem Main Entry Point

The primary entry point for ByStar is http://www.by-star.net which is also available as:

The Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem
A Unified and Non-Proprietary Model For Autonomous Internet Services
A Moral Alternative To The Proprietary American Digital Ecosystem
www.by-star.net/PLPC/180016

It has the form of a “Dear Fellow World Citizen” letter. It is about 50 pages long and it would provide you a good general description of ByStar.

6.3 Nature of Poly-Existentials: Basis for Abolishment of the IPR Regime

The Libre-Halaal model is in fundamental conflict with Intellectual Property.

Based on “Nature of Poly-Existentials”, we close the debate on the topic of Western Intellectual Property Rights. In a 200 page page document titled:

The Nature of Poly-Existentials:
Basis for Abolishment of The Western Intellectual Property Rights Regime
mohsen.1.banan.byname.net/PLPC/120033

we cover most aspects of the IPR topics and present how the Libre-Halaal model is needed to replace it to protect the public good. In the “Cures” section we offer ByStar as a basis for formulation of national policies. We plan to use this as a central element of our hell-raising (marketing) strategy. I expect for this document to become authoritative on this topic.

If you want to fully understand ByStar, you need to understand poly-existentials and ramifications of their governance. For that, you need to read PLPC-120033.

6.4 Introducing Halaal into Globish And Defining The Libre-Halaal Label

Having rejected the IPR regime, with the question of ownership of poly-existentials aside, we now focus on the question of proper of governance of poly-existentials.

Poly-existentials should be regarded as “public goods” and as such deserve legal protection because of negative externalities which arise if poly-existentials are not properly governed. Based on:

Introducing Halaal and Haraam into Globish
Based on Moral Philosophy of Abstract Halaal
And Defining The Libre-Halaal Label
mohsen.1.banan.byname.net/PLPC/120039

we use the Libre-Halaal label to express proper governance of poly-existentials.

6.5 Universal BISOS (ByStar Internet Services Operating System)

The common software of ByStar is BISOS. Basic documentation for BISOS is available in:

ByStar Internet Services Operating System (BISOS)
Model, Terminology, Implementation And Usage
A Framework For Cohesive Creation, Deployment and Management Of Internet Services
www.by-star.net/PLPC/180047

6.6 Joining And Adopting ByStar

To encourage large groups of users to join ByStar en mass and to facilitate independent adoption of ByStar we have prepared:

A Strategy For Rapidly Becoming An Internet Application Service Provider
Joining, Adopting and/or Licensing ByStar
A Public Unsolicited Proposal
www.by-star.net/PLPC/180040

In this document, we facilitate other organization’s entry into the ByStar digital ecosystem.

6.7 Neda’s ByStar Open Business Plan

Neda’s ByStar business model is web published in the form of an Open Business Plan. The plan is freely available on our website to be read by anyone. It is called:

The Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem
An Inversion to Proprietary Internet Services Model
An Open Business Plan
www.by-star.net/PLPC/180014
www.neda.com/strategicVision/businessPlan

ByStar open business plan is available in 3 forms:

The Condensed Summary (about 12 pages), PDF, HTML.
The Executive Summary (about 15 additional pages), PDF, HTML.
The Full Plan (about 85 pages), PDF, HTML, PLPC-180014.

6.8 Global Poly-Existential And Mixed-Existential Capitalism

In contrast with the traditional mono-existential capitalism, from the perspective of poly-existence and mixed-existence, a starting point for fresh economic models analysis is presented in:

Global Poly-Existential And Mixed-Existential Capitalism
Business Operations In The For-Profit and Non-Proprietary Quadrant
www.by-star.net/PLPC/120042

7 Heads Up – Preview Of What Is To Come

I consider this initial email as the beginning of a process. I will occasionally be sending you updates, announcements and other information.

The frequency of my mailings varies considerably, depending on whether we have new material. During my most active periods the frequency might reach one mailing every 10 days; it usually is much less than this. Initially you may receive several emails all at once, but please don’t be alarmed, this is just a one time burst to bring you up to date on our recent work. After that you will hear from me, probably, less often than you check your tire pressures.

8 Next Steps: You, Your Choices and Your Responsibility

Digital entities are poly-existentials. It is easy to encrypt and hard to decrypt. Basic natural laws of the digital world are on our side. By properly organizing our digital ecosystems and human structures we can preserve our autonomy and privacy.

Your responsibilities start by being willing to understand – even when it may not be in your economic interest to understand.

Based on this introduction, I am requesting that you evaluate ByStar for yourself. If you see merit, please forward this information widely and write about, criticize and discuss ByStar.

At your service,


Mohsen Banan	mohsen.1.banan.byname.net
Neda Communications, Inc.	www.neda.com
The Libre-Halaal ByStar Digital Ecosystem	www.by-star.net
mailto:mailing2018@mohsen.1.banan.byname.net	ByStar Narrated Presentation

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