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I think you're pretty off, yes. Censorship-resistance is one of the core selling points of Ethereum. :) > but will make it so the address the item is stored at

I think you're pretty off, yes. Censorship-resistance is one of the core selling points of Ethereum. :) > but will make it so the address the item is stored at returns nothing There's no way for the blockchain to do that. The only way this is possible on ethereum is if the smart contract includes a self-destruct function, and the owner of the smart contract decides to call it (either because their private keys were compromised, or because they were coerced into doing so IRL). Otherwise, it's technically impossible to do without taking down the entire network or breaking encryption. I'm less familiar with IPFS so can't really speak much to that -- but from what little I understand, censorship-resistance is also a major selling point there. > So, it's the equivalent of some entity controlling the DNS? There is the ENS, but even then, nobody can take an ENS domain down except for the owner of that domain. Not even the creator of the ENS smart contract, unless they specifically included upgrade functionality into the contract, because smart contracts are immutable. > Sure, the item at the address is immutable, but you might not be able to get it. As long as you have access to a single Ethereum node, or access to a service that has access to an Ethereum node, you will be able to get at it. It's hard to imagine you not getting at any Ethereum nodes unless a Great Firewall of China situation exists, and even China doesn't care to ban most proxies.

paxys 5y ago
It's not always about censorship resistance. What if someone uploads child pornography on IPFS? Do we all just go "ah well, it's immutable" and live with it?
- selestify 5y ago
  Well yes, you either play whack-a-mole with every single IPFS server, or you live with it, because you have no choice. Like I've said elsewhere, this is "for better or for worse," depending on your political sensibilities. Again, I think Tor is a good example here. Lots of CP on Tor, or so I hear. But also persecuted journalists and whistleblowers, and safer drugs than you'd find on the streets. You can't realistically say "I want X to be outside the reach of tyrannical governments, but not Y." It's an all-or-nothing deal. By its very nature, these sorts of libertarian technologies will attract all the illegal parts of society -- for better or for worse.
  - paxys 5y ago
    So then the ceiling of adoption for this entire ecosystem is Tor or BitTorrent at best. Far cry from the "next internet" it is being touted as.
    - mattwilsonn888 5y ago
      Why would that be a good comparison? If Tor offered comparable services to crypto then we wouldn't be talking about crypto as something different and more advanced than Tor, which it fundamentally is.
    - selestify 5y ago
      That's a strong claim. Depends a lot on what the regulatory landscape is going to look like in the future. I'm guessing you're no more a Congress insider than I am. Having used both defi and traditional financial infrastructure, defi definitely feels a lot, lot more frictionless to me, at least while acting within the Ethereum ecosystem. Time will tell, but I find it hard to believe such frictionlessness won't eventually force its way into the world.
- _1tan 5y ago
  IPFS has ways of dealing with that. E.g. your node can backlist hashes.
- serverholic 5y ago
  Yes.

paxys 5y ago

It's not always about censorship resistance. What if someone uploads child pornography on IPFS? Do we all just go "ah well, it's immutable" and live with it?

selestify 5y ago
Well yes, you either play whack-a-mole with every single IPFS server, or you live with it, because you have no choice. Like I've said elsewhere, this is "for better or for worse," depending on your political sensibilities. Again, I think Tor is a good example here. Lots of CP on Tor, or so I hear. But also persecuted journalists and whistleblowers, and safer drugs than you'd find on the streets. You can't realistically say "I want X to be outside the reach of tyrannical governments, but not Y." It's an all-or-nothing deal. By its very nature, these sorts of libertarian technologies will attract all the illegal parts of society -- for better or for worse.
- paxys 5y ago
  So then the ceiling of adoption for this entire ecosystem is Tor or BitTorrent at best. Far cry from the "next internet" it is being touted as.
  - mattwilsonn888 5y ago
    Why would that be a good comparison? If Tor offered comparable services to crypto then we wouldn't be talking about crypto as something different and more advanced than Tor, which it fundamentally is.
  - selestify 5y ago
    That's a strong claim. Depends a lot on what the regulatory landscape is going to look like in the future. I'm guessing you're no more a Congress insider than I am. Having used both defi and traditional financial infrastructure, defi definitely feels a lot, lot more frictionless to me, at least while acting within the Ethereum ecosystem. Time will tell, but I find it hard to believe such frictionlessness won't eventually force its way into the world.
_1tan 5y ago
IPFS has ways of dealing with that. E.g. your node can backlist hashes.
serverholic 5y ago
Yes.