4 ms·

The most important part of IPFS is Content Based Addressing, not p2p. Content Based addressing provides a natural way for data to be portable, because it's not

The most important part of IPFS is Content Based Addressing, not p2p. Content Based addressing provides a natural way for data to be portable, because it's not tied to a storage location or to a transport protocol.

toomim 4y ago
And works great until your content changes, and then the address changes, and you end up wanting to have a way to name and address your content across the changes, and then you aren't using content addressing anymore.
- fritolaid 4y ago
  the metadata can be versioned and you can lookup by version, so names of stored file can be changed but every time there is a change to any of the metadata the version is updated too
- betwixthewires 4y ago
  It works great even in that case, at the fundamental level it makes sense for content to be accessed in such a manner and then indexed on too of that by name.
- geysersam 4y ago
  Well, to me those sounds like different use cases. Pointing to the current up do date content requires a domain anyway. The domain is the users guarantee that a trusted party has made the decision to update the content.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    An end-user doesn't want to manually update a domain each time they update their site. That's practically a non-starter for the technology. Especially since domain updates require transactions (on a L1 or L2 chain) to complete. As mentioned by another person, IPNS does solve this issue, though. My domains are pointed to an IPFS+IPNS-published version of my site, which is re-published on change from Github.
    - quickthrower2 4y ago
      Is IPNS still in fathomably slow?
      - zcw100 4y ago
        Not if you use PubSub
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
  I thought IPFS did both; default content-addressing but with IPNS to allow mutability if desired, which means you can use whatever works the best. Did I misunderstand that?
  - viraptor 4y ago
    No, that's correct. I'm not sure why the parent post ignored the ipns.
    - toomim 4y ago
      Because it's no-longer content addressing: if you are addressing your content by a name, to allow it to mutate, then you aren't addressing it by its content. You're addressing it by a name. And not to beat a dead horse, but IPNS doesn't work very well. These days people tend to build their own naming systems using layers of IPLD hashes instead.
      - viraptor 4y ago
        You're still using content addressing. Any mirrors made stay the same. Any changes are preserved as new versions. All versions are still accessible by their hashes. The fact that you have some extra names on top of that doesn't change the base system.
        toomim 4y ago
        Those features are not what defines content addressing. Content addressing is defined as an address for a document that is a function of its content. If your address is a function of a public key, then you're using "agent key addressing."
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bawolff 4y ago
  Just use a public key as your address, and make signed pointers to the actual content. That's how people have been solving the update problem for ages. Naming things continues to be one of the hard problems in computer science.
  - toomim 4y ago
    Then it's no longer content-addressing. It's now "public key plus a signed pointer referencing a name-that-has-yet-to-be-specified" addressing. I think that's a fine road to go down for addressing data, but it's not content addressing.
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Why not? If you include the public key with the signed pointer, then you can define a "hash" function that returns just the pubkey (yes with collisions, but not in a way that matters) and it is content-addressing. After all, you are literally addressing by content in this scheme. What is actually the difference in any way that matters? What property does content addressing have that this doesn't.
    - theGnuMe 4y ago
      I mean a content hash that redirects if it is deprecated?
  - zcw100 4y ago
    And that's exactly what IPNS does. You can also use DNS with DNSLink.
    - bawolff 4y ago
      Its what everyone does. The technique predates ipfs and friends by a long time.
bawolff 4y ago
Content based addressing is essentially what p2p is. How do you make a p2p service with ephemeral peers without content based addressing? Also not like this was an ipfs innovation. Magnet links (bit torrent and predessor file sharing p2p), freenet, etc all significantly predate ipfs
- fabrice_d 4y ago
  My point is that you don't need p2p to have content based addressing. You "only" need a way to discover a provider for a given hash. p2p is one way, but other network topologies are also interesting to improve performance, for instance mobile clients can benefit from trustless edge gateways.

toomim 4y ago

And works great until your content changes, and then the address changes, and you end up wanting to have a way to name and address your content across the changes, and then you aren't using content addressing anymore.

fritolaid 4y ago
the metadata can be versioned and you can lookup by version, so names of stored file can be changed but every time there is a change to any of the metadata the version is updated too
betwixthewires 4y ago
It works great even in that case, at the fundamental level it makes sense for content to be accessed in such a manner and then indexed on too of that by name.
geysersam 4y ago
Well, to me those sounds like different use cases. Pointing to the current up do date content requires a domain anyway. The domain is the users guarantee that a trusted party has made the decision to update the content.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  An end-user doesn't want to manually update a domain each time they update their site. That's practically a non-starter for the technology. Especially since domain updates require transactions (on a L1 or L2 chain) to complete. As mentioned by another person, IPNS does solve this issue, though. My domains are pointed to an IPFS+IPNS-published version of my site, which is re-published on change from Github.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Is IPNS still in fathomably slow?
    - zcw100 4y ago
      Not if you use PubSub
yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
I thought IPFS did both; default content-addressing but with IPNS to allow mutability if desired, which means you can use whatever works the best. Did I misunderstand that?
- viraptor 4y ago
  No, that's correct. I'm not sure why the parent post ignored the ipns.
  - toomim 4y ago
    Because it's no-longer content addressing: if you are addressing your content by a name, to allow it to mutate, then you aren't addressing it by its content. You're addressing it by a name. And not to beat a dead horse, but IPNS doesn't work very well. These days people tend to build their own naming systems using layers of IPLD hashes instead.
    - viraptor 4y ago
      You're still using content addressing. Any mirrors made stay the same. Any changes are preserved as new versions. All versions are still accessible by their hashes. The fact that you have some extra names on top of that doesn't change the base system.
      - toomim 4y ago
        Those features are not what defines content addressing. Content addressing is defined as an address for a document that is a function of its content. If your address is a function of a public key, then you're using "agent key addressing."
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bawolff 4y ago
Just use a public key as your address, and make signed pointers to the actual content. That's how people have been solving the update problem for ages. Naming things continues to be one of the hard problems in computer science.
- toomim 4y ago
  Then it's no longer content-addressing. It's now "public key plus a signed pointer referencing a name-that-has-yet-to-be-specified" addressing. I think that's a fine road to go down for addressing data, but it's not content addressing.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Why not? If you include the public key with the signed pointer, then you can define a "hash" function that returns just the pubkey (yes with collisions, but not in a way that matters) and it is content-addressing. After all, you are literally addressing by content in this scheme. What is actually the difference in any way that matters? What property does content addressing have that this doesn't.
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    I mean a content hash that redirects if it is deprecated?
- zcw100 4y ago
  And that's exactly what IPNS does. You can also use DNS with DNSLink.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    Its what everyone does. The technique predates ipfs and friends by a long time.

bawolff 4y ago

Content based addressing is essentially what p2p is. How do you make a p2p service with ephemeral peers without content based addressing? Also not like this was an ipfs innovation. Magnet links (bit torrent and predessor file sharing p2p), freenet, etc all significantly predate ipfs

fabrice_d 4y ago
My point is that you don't need p2p to have content based addressing. You "only" need a way to discover a provider for a given hash. p2p is one way, but other network topologies are also interesting to improve performance, for instance mobile clients can benefit from trustless edge gateways.