3 ms·

IPFS is so heavy and unperformant, just not a lot of bang for your buck when paying for a host. As far as I can tell it owes its success to VC funded blockchain

IPFS is so heavy and unperformant, just not a lot of bang for your buck when paying for a host. As far as I can tell it owes its success to VC funded blockchain startups subsidizing hosts with 8:1 payouts for hosting other peoples' stuff I'm betting on webtorrent paired with seedboxes - your peer just has to serve whatever mp3/mp4 you're hosting to the first few clients, and as long as their browser windows are open they can help seed any viral growth, handling DDoS/hugs-of-death without issue. If there are multiple hosts in a community they can enter peering agreements and sync their seedboxes to keep media available, solving bitrot if only I could figure out how to get paid to implement it

evbogue 3y ago
Someone with money should create a VC fund for simple IPFS alternatives. That's a good idea.
kaliqt 3y ago
Would be nice to see a well secure alternative to torrent and IPFS so we can just settle and use it. Ideally encrypted and anonymous optionally too.
- genewitch 3y ago
  I like the idea of anonymity, and have done implementations of anonymous services - ones that are public and live now. I wouldn't do it for money unless i was somehow indemnified against fault and damages. In my measured opinion, it is too risky to allow unfettered anonymous uploads, even strictly financially.
  - bubersson 3y ago
    If you use bitcoin you can make services that provide value and get paid for those online without any identity involved. That's the main value. That said it's a bit complicated to use bitcoin in a truly anonymous way without connecting identity to it at any point.
    - jazzyjackson 3y ago
      (not the OP:) Sure I could host your content without knowing who you are, the issue is hiding my own identity when I'm found to be hosting illicit content, this issue is then multiplied when I'm taking payment and trying to offramp those funds to pay my bills. The financial system at large is built to discourage people transferring funds anonymously for myriad reasons, and most people aren't interested in keeping all their cash inside the black market (no exit nodes in torspeak)
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  you can torrent over tor (well, more in theory than in practice) from my view it's been settled for near 2 decades now, IPFS just gets more press in certain circles
- 3np 3y ago
  Veilid is trying, at least https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37118124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37118124 https://veilid.com/defcon/talk/ https://veilid.com/defcon/talk/
doublepg23 3y ago
Would tweaking PeerTube not work for that?
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  i'll have to take another look at their technology stack, are they torrent or IPFS? They were using Gun db at some point too maybe but it's been some time since i checked, maybe it was a clone.
nunobrito 3y ago
Keep it simple. Just post the SHA256 hash on the note and when publishing keep sending the file to some file hosting server (as done today). The file host will be gone one day, hopefully some other server will have the same hash. SHA256 is not enough? Just use a tag like file:sha256:blablablabla and you now support better hashes in the future. Nostr isn't about blockchain nor a crazy fear of losing data. It is intended for sharing notes that someone, somewhere might have interest to piece back together in a few centuries from now.
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
  We have the same idea, a sha256 is all you need to construct a magnet link and start peering, my suggestion is for a nostr client to support this use case and webtorrent to replace the hash with the embedded file on the front end. not to make any change to the protocol.
  - nunobrito 3y ago
    so long it remains as standardized hash. The problem with torrent hashes is that it remains specific to torrents. Most common scenario are volunteers setting up large storage space that indexes all files according to SHA256 where anyone can regenerate those hashes again easily if needed. Maybe time for a NIP on this topic?
- evbogue 3y ago
  I like the idea of simply hashlinking to a blob. Then, ask a random relay if they have it. If we don't want a global scope for blob sharing maybe the relay only responds if we are friends/members of the relay.
supermatt 3y ago
Isnt IPFS effectively the same thing as trackerless torrents? i.e. its a DHT for registration and lookup of distributed resources where segments can be downloaded from multiple sources in parallel. I think the main difference is that in IPFS the content ids (equivalent to torrent hashes) support multiple encodings, etc, and peer connections are more flexible than bittorrent "nodes" in their addressing - i.e. multiple protocols/transports, etc.

evbogue 3y ago

Someone with money should create a VC fund for simple IPFS alternatives. That's a good idea.

kaliqt 3y ago

Would be nice to see a well secure alternative to torrent and IPFS so we can just settle and use it. Ideally encrypted and anonymous optionally too.

genewitch 3y ago
I like the idea of anonymity, and have done implementations of anonymous services - ones that are public and live now. I wouldn't do it for money unless i was somehow indemnified against fault and damages. In my measured opinion, it is too risky to allow unfettered anonymous uploads, even strictly financially.
- bubersson 3y ago
  If you use bitcoin you can make services that provide value and get paid for those online without any identity involved. That's the main value. That said it's a bit complicated to use bitcoin in a truly anonymous way without connecting identity to it at any point.
  - jazzyjackson 3y ago
    (not the OP:) Sure I could host your content without knowing who you are, the issue is hiding my own identity when I'm found to be hosting illicit content, this issue is then multiplied when I'm taking payment and trying to offramp those funds to pay my bills. The financial system at large is built to discourage people transferring funds anonymously for myriad reasons, and most people aren't interested in keeping all their cash inside the black market (no exit nodes in torspeak)
jazzyjackson 3y ago
you can torrent over tor (well, more in theory than in practice) from my view it's been settled for near 2 decades now, IPFS just gets more press in certain circles
3np 3y ago
Veilid is trying, at least https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37118124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37118124 https://veilid.com/defcon/talk/ https://veilid.com/defcon/talk/

doublepg23 3y ago

Would tweaking PeerTube not work for that?

jazzyjackson 3y ago
i'll have to take another look at their technology stack, are they torrent or IPFS? They were using Gun db at some point too maybe but it's been some time since i checked, maybe it was a clone.

nunobrito 3y ago

Keep it simple. Just post the SHA256 hash on the note and when publishing keep sending the file to some file hosting server (as done today). The file host will be gone one day, hopefully some other server will have the same hash. SHA256 is not enough? Just use a tag like file:sha256:blablablabla and you now support better hashes in the future. Nostr isn't about blockchain nor a crazy fear of losing data. It is intended for sharing notes that someone, somewhere might have interest to piece back together in a few centuries from now.

jazzyjackson 3y ago
We have the same idea, a sha256 is all you need to construct a magnet link and start peering, my suggestion is for a nostr client to support this use case and webtorrent to replace the hash with the embedded file on the front end. not to make any change to the protocol.
- nunobrito 3y ago
  so long it remains as standardized hash. The problem with torrent hashes is that it remains specific to torrents. Most common scenario are volunteers setting up large storage space that indexes all files according to SHA256 where anyone can regenerate those hashes again easily if needed. Maybe time for a NIP on this topic?
evbogue 3y ago
I like the idea of simply hashlinking to a blob. Then, ask a random relay if they have it. If we don't want a global scope for blob sharing maybe the relay only responds if we are friends/members of the relay.

supermatt 3y ago

Isnt IPFS effectively the same thing as trackerless torrents? i.e. its a DHT for registration and lookup of distributed resources where segments can be downloaded from multiple sources in parallel. I think the main difference is that in IPFS the content ids (equivalent to torrent hashes) support multiple encodings, etc, and peer connections are more flexible than bittorrent "nodes" in their addressing - i.e. multiple protocols/transports, etc.