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HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

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Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#121

Post by userpass »

vog wrote: post #119
carolc wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that many CRMs etc. don't have a lot of data. And that's actually good, it makes the database size very manageable in the context of trustless, distributed networks. I'm not following the logic of the argument here though, jumping from "X is good for Y" to "...don't actually have huge amount of data", perhaps you can elaborate? With a merkelized append-only log (immutable DAG), there's always an audit trail. I…

Here's my complete line of reasoning: You can build mutable systems on top of immutable (append-only) systems. But is that a good idea? Yes, it is, for systems which don't have huge amounts of (non-static) data, and/or system which need an audit-trail anyway. And these are more systems than one may initially think.

I don't really get it. Sure it's fine if one p2P app uses 3GB (1GB for the append only log, 2GB for a database with indices that can actually be queried) of data. What if you have several apps? Let's say 10. Then you need 30GB and because people only have 32GB to 64GB of storage on their phones the discussion ends right here.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#122

Post by feanaro »

htns wrote: post #66
Asdfbla wrote: post #49

Why are distributed filesystems like IPFS so popular again these days ? Freenet has been around (and super niche) for close to 20 years soon. Is it because the Bitcoin hype has reinvigorated crypto-anarchists?

I've been wondering that too. There isn't much allure to it beyond "our hosting/CDN will be cheaper if we let the customers pay for it". If anything it weakens privacy a little, since any mean-spirited gremlin gets to snoop on who visits and hosts what.

> There isn't much allure to it beyond "our hosting/CDN will be cheaper if we let the customers pay for it".

This is a very business/customer-centric perspective. What about resistance to censorship, ease of sharing without relying on central third-parties, resistance to linkrot of non-commercial content or even content from a business that went under, etc?

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#123

Post by feanaro »

z3t4 wrote: post #117

You can add redundancy to HTTP by having more servers, just add more IP addresses to the domains A record. And files will be cached on the client (forever, if you let it).

Yes, you can, but do you think that's a comparably easy thing to do? Especially when you take into account that IPFS also facilitates coordination between unrelated parties in making the caching happen.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#124

Post by [deleted] »

carolc wrote: post #101
vog wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but your argument is deeply flawed. There's quite a far stretch between "Y can be built on top of X" and "X is good for Y". To provide an argument that might fill this gap: Most systems don't actually have a huge amount of data. Look at the data size and data growth of CRMs, special-purpose wikis, and so on: These are mostly smaller than 500 MB (excluding static content like images), and grow by les…

Agreed that many CRMs etc. don't have a lot of data. And that's actually good, it makes the database size very manageable in the context of trustless, distributed networks. I'm not following the logic of the argument here though, jumping from "X is good for Y" to "...don't actually have huge amount of data", perhaps you can elaborate? With a merkelized append-only log (immutable DAG), there's always an audit trail. I…

[deleted]

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#125

Post by carolc »

vog wrote: post #119
carolc wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that many CRMs etc. don't have a lot of data. And that's actually good, it makes the database size very manageable in the context of trustless, distributed networks. I'm not following the logic of the argument here though, jumping from "X is good for Y" to "...don't actually have huge amount of data", perhaps you can elaborate? With a merkelized append-only log (immutable DAG), there's always an audit trail. I…

Here's my complete line of reasoning: You can build mutable systems on top of immutable (append-only) systems. But is that a good idea? Yes, it is, for systems which don't have huge amounts of (non-static) data, and/or system which need an audit-trail anyway. And these are more systems than one may initially think.

"Here's my complete line of reasoning: You can build mutable systems on top of immutable (append-only) systems. But is that a good idea? Yes, it is, for systems which don't have huge amounts of (non-static) data, and/or system which need an audit-trail anyway. And these are more systems than one may initially think."

I disagree that immutability is a negatively defining factor here re. data size or capabilities of the database.

If you look how many Big Data systems process data, you'll find that at the core of many, is an append-only log. For example: Kafka is a log (https://engineering.linkedin.com/distributed-systems/log-wha...), and looking at Apache Samza's architecture, we can see how a log is at the core of it (https://www.confluent.io/blog/turning-the-database-inside-ou...). In less Big Data orientated databases, there's always a log of operations (sometimes also called a transaction log or replication log) to keep the track of changes.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#126

Post by caymanbruce »

alexasmyths wrote: post #80
caymanbruce wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The Chinese government will fancy a 'centralized' internet that the government has total control. It will try as hard as it could to make sure the internet is 'centralized' and dismantle anything that is distributed or P2P. Some ISP in China doesn't even allow you to use a public IP. So I think this IPFS thing is most likely a huge threat to the GFW(Great Firewall) system of China. I hope this thing can eventuall…

I didn't mean to say that they would do something 'decentralized' - of course they wouldn't. But possibly something 'better' than HTTP. One of the things about the net, is that it's transactionally open. There's no inherent identity/or security, it was grafted on with SSL - 'kind of'. I suggest it might have been better if identity were required to even make connections, to avoid many kinds of attacks. Hopefully, it…

I know what you mean. But this 'better' than HTTP thing would only be a dream in China. Most websites, including some very big websites in China, have no concern about security. It will take longer than you can ever imagine for them to embrace SSL.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#127

Post by userpass »

carolc wrote: post #112
Luker88 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general? No. Just because you can, it does not mean you should use a distributed db. Please remember to say that distributed, open databases have very narrow use cases. Leaving aside use cases like credit card information, there are a lot of user information that is illegal to share unless the user explicitly consents. In the EU you can't even share your access logs by default. And how do you handle authentication…

> "Distributed filesystems and CDN in general are great, but let's use them for things that do not actually need a single bit of security, please." The notion that distributed filesystems are inherently, or can't be, secure is way off. I would argue that with these technologies, such as IPFS, they can be more secure. The use cases are not only "open databases" (by which I assume you mean open to public), private data…

http://scuttlebot.io/more/protocols/secure-scuttlebutt.html >"Unforgeable" means that only the owner of a feed can update that feed, as enforced by digital signing (see Security properties).

https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork >You have to follow somebody to get messages from them, so you won't get spammed.

Doesn't that make it completely pointless because updates are still centralised? It merely shifted trusting a single provider to trusting each user which is not a scalable solution. The value add is so low you might as well just use IPNS and make people subscribe to IPNS addresses.

Re: HTTP is obsolete. It's time for the Distributed Web (2015)

#130

Post by CJefferson »

alwillis wrote: post #28
Semiapies wrote: post #11

Ugh, servers! Except, you're gonna have to have servers unless you've got the entire web backed up on everyone's computer. Otherwise, you don't and can't know how many copies of a page or other file are out there. But who's going to pay for servers to retain random peoples' and companies' web detritus? This whole project exists because that's not feasible in the long term... It's not "crazy", it's pure, thoughtless h…

Because IPFS uses a distributed hash table like Bittorent, you don't have to know where stuff is--that's the problem with the HTTP, which is location addressed. IPFS is content addressed—the hash is the location. You never host anything unless you want to; you don't host random stuff. It's 2017, if you're using Google Docs or an instant messenger program and lose access to the backbone, you can't communicate with som…

Except for bittorrent, in my experience unless someone dedicates themselves to full time "hosting" of some torrent, it will be seedless within a month or so, after the initial wave of popularity.
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