Decentralized Web Primer

#1

Post by xwvvvvwx » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 7:47 PM UTC

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#2

Post by blunte » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:11 PM UTC

Could be that I'm just really out of touch, but I need at least one paragraph saying "What is this?" (and ideally also, "Who is the target audience?" - or "Why would I be interested in reading this?")

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#3

Post by mtgx » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:16 PM UTC

How hard to censor is IPFS? It would be quite disappointing if we managed to switch everyone over to IPFS, and in the end, after all that effort (and the compromises we'd have to make compared to simply using centralized content), governments would remain quite effective at censoring IPFS content.

Could ISPs throttle or block IPFS content, for instance? The developers should start assuming some extremely aggressive environments, like China, and then go from there, because honestly, we don't know if 20 years from now a lot more governments would see China's censorship as a role model to follow. We're already seeing multiple countries in Europe considering it to stop "extremist content", the IPSs in Canada are now banding together to block pirated content, and the US is probably not going to be too far behind after the repeal of the net neutrality rules. And those are just the "democratic" countries. It's obviously much worse for Middle Eastern or African countries already.

So I just hope the IPFS developers will always try to develop the platform from an extreme resilience point of view.

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#4

Post by okket » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:20 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #2

Could be that I'm just really out of touch, but I need at least one paragraph saying "What is this?" (and ideally also, "Who is the target audience?" - or "Why would I be interested in reading this?")

.

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#5

Post by avidphantasm » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:29 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #2

Could be that I'm just really out of touch, but I need at least one paragraph saying "What is this?" (and ideally also, "Who is the target audience?" - or "Why would I be interested in reading this?")

Agreed, there needs to be some discussion (a few sentences at least) of what might be use cases for IPFS.

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#6

Post by blueatlas » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:31 PM UTC

okket wrote: post #4

blunte wrote: post #2

Could be that I'm just really out of touch, but I need at least one paragraph saying "What is this?" (and ideally also, "Who is the target audience?" - or "Why would I be interested in reading this?")

.

Just stop reading if those words doens't mean anything to you.

I don't think this is in the spirit of your typical Hacker News reader. HN readers are naturally curious, but with the volume of what comes across, it can be really hard to decipher if something would be of interest or value just based on the title or page 1.

For me, it's just not possible to read very deeply on everything that seems interesting, and it would be helpful to get a summary sentence or two for posts that are non-trivial.

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#7

Post by DennisP » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:31 PM UTC

mtgx wrote: post #3

How hard to censor is IPFS? It would be quite disappointing if we managed to switch everyone over to IPFS, and in the end, after all that effort (and the compromises we'd have to make compared to simply using centralized content), governments would remain quite effective at censoring IPFS content. Could ISPs throttle or block IPFS content, for instance? The developers should start assuming some extremely aggressive e…

A dev for Ethereum's Swarm, a similar project, wrote the following comparing with IPFS:

"Swarm has a very strong anti-censorship stance. It incentivizes content agnostic collective storage (block propagation/distribution scheme). Implements plausible deniability with implausible accountability through a combination of obfuscation and double masking (not currently done). IPFS believes that wider adoption warrants compromising on censorship by providing tools for blacklisting, source-filtering though using these is entirely voluntary."

https://github.com/ethersphere/go-ethereum/wiki/IPFS-&-SWARM

I recall an IPFS dev saying this document was a pretty fair comparison, but it's been a while and I don't have a link.

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#8

Post by throwaway2016a » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:35 PM UTC

This looks really interesting and I look forward to reading it but IPFS is not the only player in the decentralized web game. One only needs to start typing "IPFS vs" in Google.

Perhaps "An IPFS Primer" would be a better title?

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#9

Post by da02 » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:35 PM UTC

blunte wrote: post #2

Could be that I'm just really out of touch, but I need at least one paragraph saying "What is this?" (and ideally also, "Who is the target audience?" - or "Why would I be interested in reading this?")

I'm with you on this one. I had to Google all of this for a few minutes. This is my best interpretation below. I hope others will come in and correct my silly mistakes. (Disclaimer: I'm not a programmer and English is my 2nd language):

"So you know how people use BitTorrent to distribute big-budget Hollywood movies with occasional mediocre storylines? What if you could distribute your own data on a similar P2P network, but view it directly in a web browser (among other HTTP clients)? You suddenly turn your seed box into a "web server". Plus, you can stream videos on it too. So your home computer is not just a "web server", it can act as your own "Netflix" server to publish your home movies. And you could do it in a secure fashion. You would need a few protocols (eg IPFS), concepts (eg Merkle Trees), and some freely available software to make it practical, easy, and secure. These tutorials will show you how to get all of those things working together to publish & stream to the world."

Watch a demo of this @ 7:00 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CMxDNuuAiQ

Re: Decentralized Web Primer

#10

Post by justinpombrio » Sat, Dec 09, 2017, 8:43 PM UTC

blueatlas wrote: post #6

okket wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.

Just stop reading if those words doens't mean anything to you. I don't think this is in the spirit of your typical Hacker News reader. HN readers are naturally curious, but with the volume of what comes across, it can be really hard to decipher if something would be of interest or value just based on the title or page 1. For me, it's just not possible to read very deeply on everything that seems interesting, and it w…

How about instead "If those words don't mean anything to you, go read their wikipedia entries before continuing"? Not every article on IPFS needs to have its own separate introduction about what IPFS is.