Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web • Hacker News Board

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#191

Post by reit » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:17 PM UTC

kang wrote: post #187

Confiks wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for your first point, you should really first learn more about how IPFS handles content addressing. If you look at section 3.5 the paper[1], you see that a IPFS object consists of a free-form data field, and an arbitrary amount of links to other IPFS objects. This is a very flexible format that allows for caching. You talk about a page with comments. You could (this is an example) create three 'models': a Page, a…

I gave a poor example. What I wanted to say was an ever changing data in a non-centrally managed context. Some nodes hold hashes for the previous version and then they'd compete for resources. The thing from bitcoin is 51% attack where majority of nodes collude to provide the wrong data(they might not be malicious but just serving old version of a data). This can only be prevented by time-stamping in slow scenarios.…

>In case of neocities, a central server is giving you a hash that the nodes would provide you the data for, but without a central management how does IPFS associate correct file to the correct hash?

Mathematics[1]. Your hash is based on the content of the file, therefore you can guarantee that the content is the same as what the original author published. Also, IPFS is not a blockchain, there is no 51% attack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#192

Post by beyti » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:23 PM UTC

nly wrote: post #174

A universal distributed file system that looks native on my system (thanks to FUSE) and caches content I access locally, while serving it securely to others, is interesting... assuming you can solve key problems like search, identity when you want it, privacy when you dont, and human memorable addressing... which afaict IPFS doesn't address. The "permanent web" on the other hand you can create using MHT archive files…

+1, I still try to understand how to uniquely address all the content (btw asked for it here, just one guy made a joke). Can't think of fb using this without centralization also.

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#193

Post by reit » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:25 PM UTC

kang wrote: post #178

cjbprime wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> uses bittorrent trackers to identify the nodes in the network It's using a distributed hash table, not trackers. Nothing's completely decentralized; distributed hash tables are pretty good, since you can join them by talking to any participating node at all.

That is true for the data lookup part where DHTs are replacing DNS in a way put still the peers need to discover each other's ip in some way. I don't know what would be the term for it since it is not completely centralised, as in the nodes collectively form the system without any central coordination, but a new node joining in still needs some information to connect to the network from some source which could be den…

It would be quite difficult to blacklist every bootstrap node. The thing is, every single IPFS node represents a DHT bootstrap node. In a world where everyone is using IPFS you could just turn to the stranger next to you, ask for his IP address, and bootstrap off him. You only need one single node to prise your way into the DHT network, one is enough to build out the rest of the network from.

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#194

Post by rdancer » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:28 PM UTC

tikhonj wrote: post #144

oskarth wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (Let the entire existence of the Web, with its myriad flaws, be a lesson to you: your crappiest demo may well become the thing you're known for twenty-five years later, so make sure your crappiest demo doesn't suck as bad as the Web does.) The web is amazing, and you are using it right now. It has flaws, but so does anything that achieves success at the level the Web has. How many technologies have a direct impact…

A big (biggest?) reason is that popularity is largely independent of quality. Things get popular for lots of reasons heavily affected by the shape of social networks and early choices by a small number of people involved—often based on what they have and have not heard of more than an analysis of what is better or worse. Quality plays a small role at best. This Nautil.us article[1] does a good job of summarizing the…

How does one take advantage of this situation?

There will be technologies which:

(1) despite better quality, but won't have enough traction (OS/2 v Windows),

(2) thrive just fine, while their crappy cousin continues beating them in popularity year after year (PostgreSQL v MySQL)

(3) despite being better on paper, fall short in actual use (Android v iOS)

(4) ___________________________

Without fame, how does one evaluate technologies; it's impossible to try them all. How does one proceed?

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#195

Post by kang » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:31 PM UTC

reit wrote: post #191

kang wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave a poor example. What I wanted to say was an ever changing data in a non-centrally managed context. Some nodes hold hashes for the previous version and then they'd compete for resources. The thing from bitcoin is 51% attack where majority of nodes collude to provide the wrong data(they might not be malicious but just serving old version of a data). This can only be prevented by time-stamping in slow scenarios.…

>In case of neocities, a central server is giving you a hash that the nodes would provide you the data for, but without a central management how does IPFS associate correct file to the correct hash? Mathematics[1]. Your hash is based on the content of the file, therefore you can guarantee that the content is the same as what the original author published. Also, IPFS is not a blockchain, there is no 51% attack. https:…

I am not native english speaker so perhaps was misunderstood again. You searched for a content by an author, and the network gives you multiple hashes, which one do you trust, without a central authority telling you?

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#196

Post by Confiks » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

kang wrote: post #187

Confiks wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As for your first point, you should really first learn more about how IPFS handles content addressing. If you look at section 3.5 the paper[1], you see that a IPFS object consists of a free-form data field, and an arbitrary amount of links to other IPFS objects. This is a very flexible format that allows for caching. You talk about a page with comments. You could (this is an example) create three 'models': a Page, a…

I gave a poor example. What I wanted to say was an ever changing data in a non-centrally managed context. Some nodes hold hashes for the previous version and then they'd compete for resources. The thing from bitcoin is 51% attack where majority of nodes collude to provide the wrong data(they might not be malicious but just serving old version of a data). This can only be prevented by time-stamping in slow scenarios.…

I don't really see how your 'competing for resources' scenario would work. New peers that try to fetch the new content at some IPNS name would see a new IPFS object hash, and search the DHT for that new hash. Nodes that have an old version won't be involved (unless of course the object 'hierarchy' contains cached data, which will only speed things up). At first the only peer having the new content will probably be the creator, but this will quickly spread across the network.

As long as peers do not decide to keep the data (by pinning the hash), the old content will simply be deleted and replaced with new content. Pinning is extremely cheap, so you can imagine that you would want to auto-pin pages as you visit them. This is not on by default though, and I think that's a good thing.

> [B]ut without a central management how does IPFS associate correct file to the correct hash?

It does so using cryptographic identities. In IPFS every peer has a private/public keypair, and the PeerId is the hash of its public key. When publishing content under an IPNS name (which always has the PeerId at its root), you must prove that you 'own' the PeerID by signing the object with your private key. Other nodes will not 'mirror' your IPNS object unless the signature matches (which makes a nice consensus).

The paper calls this self-certified names: you can distribute the objects, and let them be provided by third parties without losing authenticity. See section 3.7.

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#197

Post by Confiks » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:36 PM UTC

kang wrote: post #195

reit wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In case of neocities, a central server is giving you a hash that the nodes would provide you the data for, but without a central management how does IPFS associate correct file to the correct hash? Mathematics[1]. Your hash is based on the content of the file, therefore you can guarantee that the content is the same as what the original author published. Also, IPFS is not a blockchain, there is no 51% attack. https:…

I am not native english speaker so perhaps was misunderstood again. You searched for a content by an author, and the network gives you multiple hashes, which one do you trust, without a central authority telling you?

As with my comment above: you trust the content that is ultimately (up the hierarchy) signed in an IPNS object with a valid signature.

And there must indeed by some central authority giving 'ultimate trust'. This is Zooko's triangle. By default IPNS gives you 'decentralized' and 'secure', but you can also opt to tie an IPNS name to a DNS TXT record, and lose 'decentralized' (at least for the initial lookup) but gain 'human-meaningful'.

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#198

Post by rdancer » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

When a massively distributed file system[1] was introduced into the Linux kernel circa Y2K, there was what I remember as a lot of hype.

Nobody, but nobody wanted it then (or since, it's still part of the kernel), and I would be surprised if anybody wanted something similar today.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_File_System

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#199

Post by reit » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

collinmanderson wrote: post #177

adrusi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With IPNS, which allows the creation of links whose destination can be mutated by whoever has the private key, you can implement quite a lot of interactivity. You won't ever be able to implement facebook over this platform, but you can replicate all of its functionality by using a tumblog-like architecture. Facebook's design is inherently centralized, and therefore doesn't really fit into the world of IPFS. The idea…

A few questions about IPNS: - Is it possible to, say, log into my bank account, see my current balance, and set up bill pay? - Can I order a pizza over IPNS? - Can I do realtime chat? Also, this article says we could use Namecoin and not rely on ICANN for DNS, however, you still need ICANN to distribute ip address to get connected to the internet in the first place. Or am I missing something?

1) 2) 3), yes, it is still possible to directly connect to specific peers through IPFS, see http://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmTkzDwWqPbnAh5YiV5VwcTLnGdwSNsN...

I think that it should be possible to build hybrid centralized/decentralized sites with IPFS, with static public content being fully decentralized and sensitive information going through direct tunnels. Of course, the more decentralized your system the better.

As far as the IP system, yes we are unfortunately still reliant on ICANN being sensible about IP allocations, but the DNS system can be fully deprecated. I do know that there is a project out there to redo the IP system in a decentralized fashion but I can't recall its name right now.

Re: Neocities is implementing IPFS – distributed, permanent web

#200

Post by VikingCoder » Wed, Sep 09, 2015, 1:38 PM UTC

beyti wrote: post #182

I just couldn't digest all, after I read this entence in the description: --- When neocitieslogo.svg is added to my IPFS node, it gets a new name: QmXGTaGWTT1uUtfSb2sBAvArMEVLK4rQEcQg5bv7wwdzwU. That name is actually a cryptographic hash, which has been computed from the contents of that file. That hash is guaranteed by cryptography to always only represent the contents of that file. --- And opened a reddit/eli5 ques…

Okay, I can't explain it like you're 5... But here's as close as I can get.

You've got DNA. Everyone's DNA is unique (shhh, just go with me for a minute). In fact, let's say that we found about 140 GATC pairs, which were also unique (we don't need your whole sequence, just those 140 pairs). Meaning, if we take your 140 GATC pairs, and we take my 140 GATC pairs, we'd be guaranteed to get different results.

Now, if I want to refer uniquely to a person, I can just use those 140 GATC pairs, which looks roughly like QmXGTaGWTT1uUtfSb2sBAvArMEVLK4rQEcQg5bv7wwdzwU (when expressed with upper + lower + numbers).

But, you've been thinking to yourself, WHAT ABOUT TWINS?!?

Well, great question...

...but the cryptographic hash that we use is one where twins are EXCEEDINGLY UNLIKELY. Like, amazingly, shockingly, oh my god, unlikely. They exist, but in practice they're so uncommon that it doesn't matter.

Maybe sometime, some unfortunate guy is going to request a picture of Natalie Portman, and get an MP3 of Ted Nugent. It could happen. It's just super unlikely to ever happen in practice.

So, there you have it - a cryptographic hash is... excuse me, because this is a supremely flawed analogy... kind of like the DNA of a file.