[andai]

I had the idea a few months ago that, since no one wants to see ads, and since most devices greatly under-utilize potential output, ad networks would slowly be replaced by computation networks over the next few years.

So for the time you spend (actively) on a website, instead of being shown ads, you "rent" your device's CPU etc in exchange for the content.

[fratlas]

I actually tried to do a proof of concept for exactly this but gave up after assuming you could never truly trust the client to not mess with/read the data.

[otoburb]

>>[...] assuming you could never truly trust the client to not mess with/read the data.

We have to wait for fully homomorphic encryption[1] to realize this, or a clever implementation of zero-knowledge proofs. Your proof of concept may work now if you can implement partial homomorphic encryption, perhaps something similar to CryptDB[2] or ZeroDB[3]. I read more about this in a recent Zdnet article that gives a brief summary[4].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption

[2] https://css.csail.mit.edu/cryptdb/

[3] https://zerodb.com/

[4] http://www.zdnet.com/article/encryptions-holy-grail-is-getti...

[fratlas]

This is the conclusion that I came to (without knowing there was a word for homomorphic encryption, thanks!). I really think this is the (ideal) future of monetizing the internet.

[jp555]

Maybe a job for quantum computers, if we can figure out a way to run them like we do current computers and not just in a carefully constructed environment (very cold & quiet boxes).