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I was working on the same building as the team from Protocol Labs. I talked with a couple of devs and it seems like they never even considered that most people

I was working on the same building as the team from Protocol Labs. I talked with a couple of devs and it seems like they never even considered that most people who would be interested in running a node would like to have control over who gets access to the pinned files. I think I opened a ticket asking for an ACL system, but it got closed. I really had high hopes for it, but I realized that all I really want is an object storage with content addressable urls.

deleted 3y ago
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pclmulqdq 3y ago
ACLs are fundamentally incompatible with blockchains. Your only solution is to encrypt those files, and have off-chain key management if you ever want to revoke access.
- rglullis 3y ago
  IPFS and distributed filesystems have nothing to do with blockchains.
  - mhluongo 3y ago
    Filecoin, the thing funding IPFS, certainly does :)
    - dartos 3y ago
      Sure, but IPFS, the technology, doesn’t.
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    IPFS is entwined with (and pretty much 100% backed by) Filecoin, which is a blockchain. Introducing a point of incompatibility would be a nonstarter.
    - rglullis 3y ago
      Nothing is "entwined". I can download kubo and run it without even knowing what Filecoin is. In fact, every user of Brave browser does it. Same thing for projects like OrbitDB. Same thing for customers of Pinata.
      - pclmulqdq 3y ago
        I can download F2FS and run it on my RAM. That doesn't mean that F2FS isn't entwined with NVMe SSDs. In fact, while F2FS is a ludicrous example, this happens regularly with filesystems. The core design of filesystems is still built assuming that a block device will be behind it. IPFS is the same way, just s/block device/blockchain/.
        rglullis 3y ago
        I'm sorry, I really have no idea where you are trying to go with this. - You can have files on IPFS and no blockchain whatsoever "behind it". - IPFS itself makes no use of blockchains as an abstration for data storage or file organization - If all the blockchains networks and nodes disappeared overnight, no IPFS nodes would be affected. I don't know if you actually used any of that or just going by hearsay.
- simpsond 3y ago
  ACLs are compatible with some blockchains. Token gating, merkle proofs, and RBAC are fairly common in smart contracts. See: https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/2.x/access-control#role-based-access-control https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/2.x/access-control#r...
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    In terms of interacting with smart contracts, yes. In terms of accessing data, no. All data on a blockchain is public and immutable, and that's the point.
- unicornmama 3y ago
  But nginx HTTP bridge with copyright banlist is OK…
- fulladder 3y ago
  IPFS does not in any way involve a blockchain. There's a separate "layer on top of IPFS" called Filecoin that does involve a blockchain. (From a technical point of view, it's not really a layer on top, more of a re-implementation of IPFS with a blockchain.) I've worked on IPFS and know many of the key people at PL. They really are not blockchain people or cryptobros. They are much different from anyone else in crypto I have encountered. But ultimately they have to fund their activities somehow, and this is the reality of where the business potential is in P2P circa mid-2020s.
dhash 3y ago
Hi, PL-funded founder here. This was one of the things that made IPFS a non-starter for us. We ended up grafting Hashicorp Vault into kubo (the go-ipfs implementation) so that we could use IPFS and have things like detetes and access revocation that actually work.
jnthnvctr12 3y ago
i used to work at PL, surprised you got that response (don't know who you talked to). Meanwhile, folks have been building things like that: https://guide.fission.codes/developers/webnative/file-system-wnfs https://guide.fission.codes/developers/webnative/file-system...
ianopolous 3y ago
We've been pioneering privacy and access control on top of IPFS since 2015 in Peergos [0]. We have block level access control for example: https://peergos.org/posts/bats https://peergos.org/posts/bats As well as E2EE, sharing, trustless servers and more [1]. [0] https://github.com/peergos/peergos https://github.com/peergos/peergos [1] https://book.peergos.org https://book.peergos.org
- rglullis 3y ago
  Ok, that is really cool. I worry though that this is too tied into the whole peergos architecture? Can you give some pointers on what would I need to do to have a node with the extended protocol and nothing else?
  - ianopolous 3y ago
    The block auth is very generic, just an extra top level key in cbor maps or a small prefix in raw blocks. The protocol is S3 V4 signatures. There is a Java implementation of the modified bitswap for this in Nabu [0] and a Go one in ipfs-nucleus [1]. With both of these you can use whatever auth verification protocol you like. [0] https://github.com/peergos/nabu https://github.com/peergos/nabu [1] https://github.com/peergos/ipfs-nucleus/ https://github.com/peergos/ipfs-nucleus/

deleted 3y ago

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pclmulqdq 3y ago

ACLs are fundamentally incompatible with blockchains. Your only solution is to encrypt those files, and have off-chain key management if you ever want to revoke access.

rglullis 3y ago
IPFS and distributed filesystems have nothing to do with blockchains.
- mhluongo 3y ago
  Filecoin, the thing funding IPFS, certainly does :)
  - dartos 3y ago
    Sure, but IPFS, the technology, doesn’t.
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  IPFS is entwined with (and pretty much 100% backed by) Filecoin, which is a blockchain. Introducing a point of incompatibility would be a nonstarter.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    Nothing is "entwined". I can download kubo and run it without even knowing what Filecoin is. In fact, every user of Brave browser does it. Same thing for projects like OrbitDB. Same thing for customers of Pinata.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago
      I can download F2FS and run it on my RAM. That doesn't mean that F2FS isn't entwined with NVMe SSDs. In fact, while F2FS is a ludicrous example, this happens regularly with filesystems. The core design of filesystems is still built assuming that a block device will be behind it. IPFS is the same way, just s/block device/blockchain/.
      - rglullis 3y ago
        I'm sorry, I really have no idea where you are trying to go with this. - You can have files on IPFS and no blockchain whatsoever "behind it". - IPFS itself makes no use of blockchains as an abstration for data storage or file organization - If all the blockchains networks and nodes disappeared overnight, no IPFS nodes would be affected. I don't know if you actually used any of that or just going by hearsay.
simpsond 3y ago
ACLs are compatible with some blockchains. Token gating, merkle proofs, and RBAC are fairly common in smart contracts. See: https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/2.x/access-control#role-based-access-control https://docs.openzeppelin.com/contracts/2.x/access-control#r...
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  In terms of interacting with smart contracts, yes. In terms of accessing data, no. All data on a blockchain is public and immutable, and that's the point.
unicornmama 3y ago
But nginx HTTP bridge with copyright banlist is OK…
fulladder 3y ago
IPFS does not in any way involve a blockchain. There's a separate "layer on top of IPFS" called Filecoin that does involve a blockchain. (From a technical point of view, it's not really a layer on top, more of a re-implementation of IPFS with a blockchain.) I've worked on IPFS and know many of the key people at PL. They really are not blockchain people or cryptobros. They are much different from anyone else in crypto I have encountered. But ultimately they have to fund their activities somehow, and this is the reality of where the business potential is in P2P circa mid-2020s.

dhash 3y ago

Hi, PL-funded founder here. This was one of the things that made IPFS a non-starter for us. We ended up grafting Hashicorp Vault into kubo (the go-ipfs implementation) so that we could use IPFS and have things like detetes and access revocation that actually work.

jnthnvctr12 3y ago

i used to work at PL, surprised you got that response (don't know who you talked to). Meanwhile, folks have been building things like that: https://guide.fission.codes/developers/webnative/file-system-wnfs https://guide.fission.codes/developers/webnative/file-system...

ianopolous 3y ago

We've been pioneering privacy and access control on top of IPFS since 2015 in Peergos [0]. We have block level access control for example: https://peergos.org/posts/bats https://peergos.org/posts/bats As well as E2EE, sharing, trustless servers and more [1]. [0] https://github.com/peergos/peergos https://github.com/peergos/peergos [1] https://book.peergos.org https://book.peergos.org

rglullis 3y ago
Ok, that is really cool. I worry though that this is too tied into the whole peergos architecture? Can you give some pointers on what would I need to do to have a node with the extended protocol and nothing else?
- ianopolous 3y ago
  The block auth is very generic, just an extra top level key in cbor maps or a small prefix in raw blocks. The protocol is S3 V4 signatures. There is a Java implementation of the modified bitswap for this in Nabu [0] and a Go one in ipfs-nucleus [1]. With both of these you can use whatever auth verification protocol you like. [0] https://github.com/peergos/nabu https://github.com/peergos/nabu [1] https://github.com/peergos/ipfs-nucleus/ https://github.com/peergos/ipfs-nucleus/