9 ms·

The difference is IPFS (or similar) would distribute content. Currently communication is distributed, but content is not. IPFS is like https, but where every pa

by daveguy 10y ago

The difference is IPFS (or similar) would distribute content. Currently communication is distributed, but content is not. IPFS is like https, but where every page is a bittorrent. There are challenges for security in distributing services and monetization. However, the key is that content would be distributed. YouTube probably would not switch to ipfs, but DNS (what was targeted recently) would make sense. A DNS host list should be more distributed. Even with DNS there is a dynamic content challenge. When a DNS entry changes, it would still need to propagate. This brings it back to a distributed communication problem. If you could distribute content more consistently and 100,000 computers could step in as dns providers with authentic data rather than concentrating dns at dyn or Google it would help. That will still require protocol updates so that the fail over uses local content. Really ipfs and distributed content could be a component to help with distribution. It definitely isn't a complete solution alone (yet -- there is a push to make it the solution).

glibgil 10y ago
The internet may run on content (storage) and communication, but both those things run on computation. Until computation can be safely distributed real changes can't happen
- wyager 10y ago
  What do you mean? It seems to me that the single largest destructive force on the internet is forcible content takedowns. IPFS is immune to those.
  - clueless404 10y ago
    In which way is IPFS immune to content takedowns? IPFS provides no anonymity, so it won't take long before DMCA notices to start arriving.
    - tom_mellior 10y ago
      > In which way is IPFS immune to content takedowns? In the way that, if one node is forced to take down some information, that information may still be accessible from other nodes under the same address as before. It's not quite immunity: They can still harrass individuals. Call it "resilience", maybe. > IPFS provides no anonymity, so it won't take long before DMCA notices to start arriving. It should compose well with Tor, I'd hope.
      - clueless404 10y ago
        Which makes it about as resilient as regular content hosting, which is not very. Does IPFS work with Tor?
        mburns 10y ago
        >Which makes it about as resilient as regular content hosting, which is not very. It is decidedly more resilient than regular hosting in that situation.
        clueless404 10y ago
        How so? IPFS so only as resilient as you are good at dodging DMCA notices.
        mburns 10y ago
        Because mirroring content on IPFS is trivial and transparent to the consumer. All it takes is a single user (or an arbitrary number) outside of US jurisdiction and the content is more or less DMCA-immune. The equivalent is not practical in traditional HTTP, where content at risk of being taken down is scraped from the server and that snapshot-in-time is hosted as a mirror, generally at a different domain.
        clueless404 10y ago
        > Because mirroring content on IPFS is trivial and transparent to the consumer. Which is also why a regular consumer should never use IPFS and why prosumer should immediately disable caching and seeding upon install. > All it takes is a single user (or an arbitrary number) outside of US jurisdiction and the content is more or less DMCA-immune. Perhaps so, but if your plan for resiliency is based on the kindness of strangers in countries where the DMCA nor censorship does not apply, it's not much of a plan. Plus you'll still have to seed the original which opens you up to liability, as IPFS does not provide any kind of anonymity. So, while better than traditional HTTP, IPFS isn't really immune to takedowns nor very resilient.
- kordless 10y ago
  I've come to the conclusion compute needs to be separated from content and users using a new non-financial based business model. That's the only way to ensure game theory based models don't fuck up the infra on which everything depends.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Chalk me up as someone who totally doesn't get your distinction betweeen content / computation and what distributed computation would look like. Or why the current model (SaaS with Javascript apps literally shipped to every browser) isn't distributed computation. (The long digression on takedowns doesn't illuminate this at all either.)
singham 10y ago
With the web going more mobile with less storage space. Why would anyone would want to be a node in such a network where you have to cache content for others.
- rv11 10y ago
  same reason why people seed torrent?
  - s_kilk 10y ago
    Notably, no-one seeds torrents from their mobile connections. The cost would be prohibitive, without even getting into the issue of storage.
    - rv11 10y ago
      cost is prohibitive today, not necessarily tomorrow or work only when you are using wifi . storage can be capped.
    - hatsunearu 10y ago
      The idea is that companies or people backing the content could easily provision more nodes to meet the demand. To create an IPFS "host", its super simple: ipfs pin myhash
- teekert 10y ago
  Well apart from battery, If I was an ISP, I´d like it if a Youtube movie would flow from one persons mobile to the hotspot of the train said person is sitting on and on towards another person on the train. This scenario would require significantly less bandwidth overall. Same goes for neighbors accessing the same information. And this can be extrapolated to many situations. The IPFS powered internet would perhaps lead to more uploads but it would scale significantly better and will be cheaper to maintain. Hence cost can also go down for end users/consumers.
  - clueless404 10y ago
Senji 10y ago
We should use something like namecoin and the .bit domain. Take the power of domain names away from governments and registrars.

by daveguy 10y ago

glibgil 10y ago

The internet may run on content (storage) and communication, but both those things run on computation. Until computation can be safely distributed real changes can't happen

wyager 10y ago
What do you mean? It seems to me that the single largest destructive force on the internet is forcible content takedowns. IPFS is immune to those.
- clueless404 10y ago
  In which way is IPFS immune to content takedowns? IPFS provides no anonymity, so it won't take long before DMCA notices to start arriving.
  - tom_mellior 10y ago
    > In which way is IPFS immune to content takedowns? In the way that, if one node is forced to take down some information, that information may still be accessible from other nodes under the same address as before. It's not quite immunity: They can still harrass individuals. Call it "resilience", maybe. > IPFS provides no anonymity, so it won't take long before DMCA notices to start arriving. It should compose well with Tor, I'd hope.
    - clueless404 10y ago
      Which makes it about as resilient as regular content hosting, which is not very. Does IPFS work with Tor?
      - mburns 10y ago
        >Which makes it about as resilient as regular content hosting, which is not very. It is decidedly more resilient than regular hosting in that situation.
        clueless404 10y ago
        How so? IPFS so only as resilient as you are good at dodging DMCA notices.
        mburns 10y ago
        Because mirroring content on IPFS is trivial and transparent to the consumer. All it takes is a single user (or an arbitrary number) outside of US jurisdiction and the content is more or less DMCA-immune. The equivalent is not practical in traditional HTTP, where content at risk of being taken down is scraped from the server and that snapshot-in-time is hosted as a mirror, generally at a different domain.
        clueless404 10y ago
        > Because mirroring content on IPFS is trivial and transparent to the consumer. Which is also why a regular consumer should never use IPFS and why prosumer should immediately disable caching and seeding upon install. > All it takes is a single user (or an arbitrary number) outside of US jurisdiction and the content is more or less DMCA-immune. Perhaps so, but if your plan for resiliency is based on the kindness of strangers in countries where the DMCA nor censorship does not apply, it's not much of a plan. Plus you'll still have to seed the original which opens you up to liability, as IPFS does not provide any kind of anonymity. So, while better than traditional HTTP, IPFS isn't really immune to takedowns nor very resilient.
kordless 10y ago
I've come to the conclusion compute needs to be separated from content and users using a new non-financial based business model. That's the only way to ensure game theory based models don't fuck up the infra on which everything depends.
dredmorbius 10y ago
Chalk me up as someone who totally doesn't get your distinction betweeen content / computation and what distributed computation would look like. Or why the current model (SaaS with Javascript apps literally shipped to every browser) isn't distributed computation. (The long digression on takedowns doesn't illuminate this at all either.)

singham 10y ago

With the web going more mobile with less storage space. Why would anyone would want to be a node in such a network where you have to cache content for others.

rv11 10y ago
same reason why people seed torrent?
- s_kilk 10y ago
  Notably, no-one seeds torrents from their mobile connections. The cost would be prohibitive, without even getting into the issue of storage.
  - rv11 10y ago
    cost is prohibitive today, not necessarily tomorrow or work only when you are using wifi . storage can be capped.
  - hatsunearu 10y ago
    The idea is that companies or people backing the content could easily provision more nodes to meet the demand. To create an IPFS "host", its super simple: ipfs pin myhash
teekert 10y ago
Well apart from battery, If I was an ISP, I´d like it if a Youtube movie would flow from one persons mobile to the hotspot of the train said person is sitting on and on towards another person on the train. This scenario would require significantly less bandwidth overall. Same goes for neighbors accessing the same information. And this can be extrapolated to many situations. The IPFS powered internet would perhaps lead to more uploads but it would scale significantly better and will be cheaper to maintain. Hence cost can also go down for end users/consumers.
- clueless404 10y ago

Senji 10y ago

We should use something like namecoin and the .bit domain. Take the power of domain names away from governments and registrars.