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I imagine there are many technical reasons why this is a bad idea. A few from the top of my head: • Very few sites could allow their database to be distributed

I imagine there are many technical reasons why this is a bad idea. A few from the top of my head: • Very few sites could allow their database to be distributed. • Pages could be altered by nodes in the network for nefarious reasons. • Anything with a session would probably be very hard work. Shame really, as it'd make it harder of ISPs to shape traffic.

brianshaler 14y ago
• Pages could be altered by nodes in the network for nefarious reasons. Not if you use a BitTorrent model. You'd get checksums from a known source and discard any chunks you receive from nodes that don't match the expected checksum. Not impossible to spoof/alter, but exceedingly unlikely.
- Hrundi 14y ago
  Similar to our trust on the 13 root servers then. I guess this all depends on who to trust.
engxover 14y ago
I'll admit I wasn't thinking of databases when I posed the question, and you're absolutely right about sessions. Anything with a log-in would be quite difficult, and out of my league to even imagine. As for alteration of pages, what about "hashes"? Isn't the point of a hashsum to make sure the torrent is correct? My thoughts of how this process would work are: 1. You browse the internet as usual, except for a browser add-on that would check links to see if they were available in torrent form. 2. As you click on a link, your browser either loads the webpage in torrent form, or saves the site in torrent form for seeding. 3. More users = more sites in torrent form = faster browsing speeds. Again, wouldn't work with log-in sites, but for something static like Wikipedia, wouldn't this be incredibly helpful for cutting costs, reducing server load, etc? And whenever a page is updated, Wikipedia simply uploads the new version with it's new hashtag for browser checks. I hope that clarifies my thinking. So is this a good idea at all? Or still fraught with downsides?

brianshaler 14y ago

• Pages could be altered by nodes in the network for nefarious reasons. Not if you use a BitTorrent model. You'd get checksums from a known source and discard any chunks you receive from nodes that don't match the expected checksum. Not impossible to spoof/alter, but exceedingly unlikely.

Hrundi 14y ago
Similar to our trust on the 13 root servers then. I guess this all depends on who to trust.

engxover 14y ago

I'll admit I wasn't thinking of databases when I posed the question, and you're absolutely right about sessions. Anything with a log-in would be quite difficult, and out of my league to even imagine. As for alteration of pages, what about "hashes"? Isn't the point of a hashsum to make sure the torrent is correct? My thoughts of how this process would work are: 1. You browse the internet as usual, except for a browser add-on that would check links to see if they were available in torrent form. 2. As you click on a link, your browser either loads the webpage in torrent form, or saves the site in torrent form for seeding. 3. More users = more sites in torrent form = faster browsing speeds. Again, wouldn't work with log-in sites, but for something static like Wikipedia, wouldn't this be incredibly helpful for cutting costs, reducing server load, etc? And whenever a page is updated, Wikipedia simply uploads the new version with it's new hashtag for browser checks. I hope that clarifies my thinking. So is this a good idea at all? Or still fraught with downsides?