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> How is this possible? By removing intermediaries > [Sia] makes a small transaction fee from each file contract. Am I wrong in observing that the number of i

> How is this possible? By removing intermediaries > [Sia] makes a small transaction fee from each file contract. Am I wrong in observing that the number of intermediaries between hosting data on AWS == the number of intermediaries oh Sia == 1? What exactly is this doing? Blockchain contracts to rent out your hard drives?

Ajedi32 7y ago
They explain what the mean by that two sentences later: > Hosts on Sia do not have to worry about building and maintaining enormous datacenters, employing thousands of employees, and marketing their services. They only need to worry about providing reliable storage capacity to renters on Sia. And yes, it's essentially a decentralized storage market built on smart contracts. You can either pay to store your files (the client software handles redundancy, contracts, etc automatically) or _get_ paid to rent out space on your hard drive.
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  How do they verify that a host can actually store all of the data?
  - Ajedi32 7y ago
    If I recall correctly, the client pre-computes hashes of random fragments of each file then "quizzes" the hosts on that information periodically. If they're not actually storing a copy of the data, they won't be able to compute the resulting hash. (I may be misremembering some of the details, but I believe that's how it works in principle.)
    - b_tterc_p 7y ago
      What if the client lies about the pre computed hash quizzes?
  - Taek 7y ago
    Ajedi32 is not correct. Data is verified probabilistically on the Sia network. The blockchain has access to the Merkle root of the data that the host is supposed to be storing. The blockchain will request that the host provide a 64 byte segment of the data (chosen randomly) along with a Merkle proof that the data is part of the Merkle root. If the host can provide the data and the proof, the host is rewarded as though they've demonstrated that they have all of the data. If the host cannot provide those 64 bytes along with a proof, the host is punished as though they are not storing any of the data.
    - b_tterc_p 7y ago
      How does punishment work? What stops one bad actor from agreeing to collect infinite data from a variety of sources and tanking both the trust and profitability of data hosts? Also what about bandwidth constraints on the host end
      - Taek 7y ago
        When a host agrees to accept data, they put up out-of-pocket money. This makes it expensive for a bad actor to accept an infinite amount of data, as each piece of data requires more collateral to be put forward by the host. Before a renter creates a contract with a host, the renter will perform some measurements on the host and determine if the host is suitable. A renter in China will chose different hosts than a renter in the US, because the latencies and throughputs of each host will be different.
        b_tterc_p 7y ago
        Is there somewhere I can read about the punishments in more detail? E.g. how often the quizzes are, what the penalty is for getting it wrong / not being available for the answer?
    - brokenmachine 7y ago
      How often are they queried, and what percentage of the payment is the punishment? A bad host could only store, say, 1/3 of the data that they say they are, and play the odds that they are storing the requested random chunk.
jason50 7y ago
I think they are saying they are removing "trusted" intermediaries. There are zero trusted intermediaries sitting between buyer and storage/bandwidth in Sia's model. Thus, value cant be extracted from providing trust/confidence.
snarf21 7y ago
I agree that the use cases don't seem to be lining up. So is this for personal use or corporate data center replacement? Consumer companies will give you 2TB for $10 with no bandwidth costs with guaranteed replication and sharding built in. What happens when one of these nodes goes down? I didn't see anything in the post about that. I think the thing that always gets lost in these ideas is that there is a reason that people pay these current prices. It is because is solves a real problem and high reliability requires paying people to make sure that is true. A smart contract and collecting micro payments on the hope a cryptocurrency will rise in price have much different skin in the game. I've always thought the most important use case around decentralized storage was more around censorship. You can post content that is harder to block in countries that firewall AWS, etc.

Ajedi32 7y ago

They explain what the mean by that two sentences later: > Hosts on Sia do not have to worry about building and maintaining enormous datacenters, employing thousands of employees, and marketing their services. They only need to worry about providing reliable storage capacity to renters on Sia. And yes, it's essentially a decentralized storage market built on smart contracts. You can either pay to store your files (the client software handles redundancy, contracts, etc automatically) or _get_ paid to rent out space on your hard drive.

b_tterc_p 7y ago
How do they verify that a host can actually store all of the data?
- Ajedi32 7y ago
  If I recall correctly, the client pre-computes hashes of random fragments of each file then "quizzes" the hosts on that information periodically. If they're not actually storing a copy of the data, they won't be able to compute the resulting hash. (I may be misremembering some of the details, but I believe that's how it works in principle.)
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    What if the client lies about the pre computed hash quizzes?
- Taek 7y ago
  Ajedi32 is not correct. Data is verified probabilistically on the Sia network. The blockchain has access to the Merkle root of the data that the host is supposed to be storing. The blockchain will request that the host provide a 64 byte segment of the data (chosen randomly) along with a Merkle proof that the data is part of the Merkle root. If the host can provide the data and the proof, the host is rewarded as though they've demonstrated that they have all of the data. If the host cannot provide those 64 bytes along with a proof, the host is punished as though they are not storing any of the data.
  - b_tterc_p 7y ago
    How does punishment work? What stops one bad actor from agreeing to collect infinite data from a variety of sources and tanking both the trust and profitability of data hosts? Also what about bandwidth constraints on the host end
    - Taek 7y ago
      When a host agrees to accept data, they put up out-of-pocket money. This makes it expensive for a bad actor to accept an infinite amount of data, as each piece of data requires more collateral to be put forward by the host. Before a renter creates a contract with a host, the renter will perform some measurements on the host and determine if the host is suitable. A renter in China will chose different hosts than a renter in the US, because the latencies and throughputs of each host will be different.
      - b_tterc_p 7y ago
        Is there somewhere I can read about the punishments in more detail? E.g. how often the quizzes are, what the penalty is for getting it wrong / not being available for the answer?
  - brokenmachine 7y ago
    How often are they queried, and what percentage of the payment is the punishment? A bad host could only store, say, 1/3 of the data that they say they are, and play the odds that they are storing the requested random chunk.

jason50 7y ago

I think they are saying they are removing "trusted" intermediaries. There are zero trusted intermediaries sitting between buyer and storage/bandwidth in Sia's model. Thus, value cant be extracted from providing trust/confidence.

snarf21 7y ago

I agree that the use cases don't seem to be lining up. So is this for personal use or corporate data center replacement? Consumer companies will give you 2TB for $10 with no bandwidth costs with guaranteed replication and sharding built in. What happens when one of these nodes goes down? I didn't see anything in the post about that. I think the thing that always gets lost in these ideas is that there is a reason that people pay these current prices. It is because is solves a real problem and high reliability requires paying people to make sure that is true. A smart contract and collecting micro payments on the hope a cryptocurrency will rise in price have much different skin in the game. I've always thought the most important use case around decentralized storage was more around censorship. You can post content that is harder to block in countries that firewall AWS, etc.