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HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

ipfs.io

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Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#201

Post by Gigachad »

Taek wrote: post #191
Gigachad wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On what basis do you think this is likely? What part of IPFS gets faster when more users are online? If the file exists on a system in the network, it should make a connection and start fetching the file within milliseconds ideally. It's not like we are distributing multi gb files where more seeders means more speed, this is all just slowness in setting up a connection. Even torrents take 1-10 seconds to initiate dow…

If you want to optimize for latency, you can't use a DHT. You need something that goes point-to-point instead of routing through a series of machines.

Which is why a DHT system is not appropriate for web style uses. No one wants to wait multiple seconds for a page to even start downloading. It's fine for a large file download but not for frequent small requests.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#202

Post by zozbot234 »

drdeca wrote: post #197

What I would like, I think, is the ability to specify both the multihash and a place to request the data from. Like, if I’m talking to someone over some chat setup which doesn’t have a built in “send this file directly to this person” feature, it would be nice to be able to say, give them a multihash of the file and my external ipv6 address (+ port? I’m not quite sure how routing works), and have them request the fil…

If you have a hash of the underlying resource (note that this is different from how IPFS works) then http[s]:///.well-known/ni/sha-256/ is supposed to enable this. The ni: URI scheme also allows for an authority field, which is used as a hint on how to locate the resource.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#203

Post by andrecarini »

drdeca wrote: post #197

What I would like, I think, is the ability to specify both the multihash and a place to request the data from. Like, if I’m talking to someone over some chat setup which doesn’t have a built in “send this file directly to this person” feature, it would be nice to be able to say, give them a multihash of the file and my external ipv6 address (+ port? I’m not quite sure how routing works), and have them request the fil…

You have just invented torrents!

> give them a multihash

magnet URIs

> place to request data from

trackers

> try local network first

Already baked in!

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#204

Post by snvzz »

guntars wrote: post #143
jeroenhd wrote: post #3

I like IPFS, I really do, but whenever I try to use it, it's either too slow to become usable or sometimes it plain doesn't work. I pinned a whole bunch of files on IPFS a while back to experiment with it and the system seems to work, but every time I try to fetch those resources from a location that hasn't cached the content yet, it takes several seconds to show me the HTML/JSON/PNG files. HTTP may be inefficient fo…

Try browsing the IPFS example "website". I opens for me under a few hundred milliseconds. ipfs cat /ipfs/QmQPeNsJPyVWPFDVHb77w8G42Fvo15z4bG2X8D2GhfbSXc/readme

$ time ipfs cat /ipfs/QmQPeNsJPyVWPFDVHb77w8G42Fvo15z4bG2X8D2GhfbSXc/readme

(...)

real 0m0.219s

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#205

Post by renewiltord »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #180
adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: post #58

IPFS needs to decide what it wants to be. Is it about being a decentralized caching layer? Is it about permanently storing content? Is it about replacing my web server? Is it about replacing DNS? Is it about censorship resistance? Right now it does none of those things well. The client chews through CPU and memory when seemingly doing nothing. If I try to download content, it is far slower than BitTorrent unless I go…

> There is no system to keep content alive so links will still die. Torrent trackers solved this in a very interesting way. They created an economic system where bandwidth was the currency, incentivizing the permanent seeding of content. It was illegal to take more than you gave. I've even seen an academic paper studying their system! Bandwidth as a currency eventually proved to be a failure. It enabled the rise of s…

Oh, very good comment. I didn't realize that trackers now incentivize availability (haven't used BitTorrent in a while). Very cool.

Reminds me of maker incentives in markets. Providing liquidity is sometimes paid for.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#206

Post by mmahemoff »

Jasper_ wrote: post #64
delaaxe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about IPFS but Arweave solved the "permanent" part by asking nodes to periodically prove that they're actually storing what they're supposed to be storing: https://www.arweave.org/

What happens when the servers then fail to provide that promise? Isn't the data lost?

The idea is to incentivise hosting via crypto - with ARWeave, there's a bigger upfront fee but no ongoing fees. In theory, it's meant to secure 200 years of storage by putting aside most of the upfront fees for later and (conservatively) assuming storage costs decrease by at least 0.5% per year.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#207

Post by stuaxo »

adfrhgeaq5hy wrote: post #58

IPFS needs to decide what it wants to be. Is it about being a decentralized caching layer? Is it about permanently storing content? Is it about replacing my web server? Is it about replacing DNS? Is it about censorship resistance? Right now it does none of those things well. The client chews through CPU and memory when seemingly doing nothing. If I try to download content, it is far slower than BitTorrent unless I go…

I think you've hit the thing that many new techs have, they don't 100% cover old techs it's a bit of one and a bit of another, but not 100% of each.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#208

Post by sodality2 »

drdeca wrote: post #173
sodality2 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hash is not a literal hash of the content- I think it's like a key that lets anyone looking for it ensure it's legitimate. Then the IPFS p2p search mechanism is what lets you find it.

In what sense is it not a literal hash? Because it had the prefix at the start to specify what hash to use and the length?

"of the content" meaning it's not just a sha-N of the file. Unless I misremember the IPFS protocol.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#209

Post by unknownOrigin »

kortilla wrote: post #135
azinman2 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along with those that have 0 seeders.

IPFS solved that by making sure even popular stuff is difficult to get.

Thanks, quite a bit of coffee is now on my keyboard...

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#210

Post by xwdv »

sergiotapia wrote: post #59
xwdv wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentives must be created for storing content. Imagine if each request was really more like a bounty where the requester would pay the host when the file is delivered.

This is what I'm saying. If there's a financial incentive to store popular content, or a higher incentive to host "at-risk" content this would work out, no? I have no idea how hard this would be to implement. I'm new to ipfs and crypto.

The way it works is by using a smart contract so that content and payment can be exchanged simultaneously and payment is only delivered when the hash of the file matches what is expected.
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