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Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

boredcaveman.xyz

21–30 of 110 posts

Re: Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

#21
post #2

Yup. Calling it. This is the future, may not seem like it to everyone but this is a part of actually new and extremely useful, passively scalable technology. Imagine (good) unkillable zombie databases- so long as the name of a piece of data is known (its hash).. someone, somewhere, might make it possible for you to answer your query, without even needing to setup a server setup.. that’s _it_! Not to mention it might…

Isn't that what Perfect Dark, Winny, Share, and other peer to peer sharing systems already are? Why is this more compelling than those?

It runs in an unmodified browser. That's a very big deal.

Re: Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

#22
post #20
post #2

Yup. Calling it. This is the future, may not seem like it to everyone but this is a part of actually new and extremely useful, passively scalable technology. Imagine (good) unkillable zombie databases- so long as the name of a piece of data is known (its hash).. someone, somewhere, might make it possible for you to answer your query, without even needing to setup a server setup.. that’s _it_! Not to mention it might…

> so long as the name of a piece of data is known (its hash) But that's also the fatal flaw. It's pretty definitionally true of stuff on the web that the person who owns / controls it wants to be able to change / update it. That isn't really supported at all at present for this distribution method, and it's hard to see how it could be in the future without introducing a single choke point. Case in point: the vast maj…

despite the downvotes, there is some substance to this. mutability is useful.

however, as implemented, all that is needed is for the user of p2psearch to refresh and the browser to pick up the latest database. i imagine most users are not keeping torrent search open 24/7, so this doesn't seem onerous.

it's probably a bit of a process for the host of the frontend to update the database, prepare a new torrent, update the code [0], and then rebuild the bundle regularly, but this could be automated.

regardless, it doesn't seem so unreasonable from an end user perspective, and i personally don't mind if my torrent search index is behind by a few days.

[0] https://gitlab.com/boredcaveman/p2psearch/-/blob/main/src/Me...

Re: Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

#24

Since ipfs is hash addressable, is there a decentralized way to point to the latest hash of the content. I can point a domain to it, but domain can be taken down.

I guess it should be used with something like Namecoin then.

Re: Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

#25
post #8

Getting no results and error: "WebRTC: ICE failed, add a TURN server and see about:webrtc for more details" in Firefox latest.

Do you have WebRTC disabled? Works ok on mine

Just a vanilla Firefox install and ublock origin disabled for this website.

Re: Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

#26
post #9
post #2

Yup. Calling it. This is the future, may not seem like it to everyone but this is a part of actually new and extremely useful, passively scalable technology. Imagine (good) unkillable zombie databases- so long as the name of a piece of data is known (its hash).. someone, somewhere, might make it possible for you to answer your query, without even needing to setup a server setup.. that’s _it_! Not to mention it might…

So this is the true Web3 then?

Yes. The web3 name is being used by crypto-shysters right now so unfortunately they have the lions share of web3 implementation as they call it. But this (OP) is real web3!

Re: Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

#28

Since ipfs is hash addressable, is there a decentralized way to point to the latest hash of the content. I can point a domain to it, but domain can be taken down.

Yes there is, it's called IPNS. It's part of IPFS and still under active development. It can be slow depending on your settings, but it works.

Re: Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

#29
post #17
post #2

Yup. Calling it. This is the future, may not seem like it to everyone but this is a part of actually new and extremely useful, passively scalable technology. Imagine (good) unkillable zombie databases- so long as the name of a piece of data is known (its hash).. someone, somewhere, might make it possible for you to answer your query, without even needing to setup a server setup.. that’s _it_! Not to mention it might…

Unfortunately this is still killable. Someone needs to periodically publish up to date databases using some outside protocol. Also if you participate in the public DHT, then your participation is public and can have consequences on your real-life legal entity. If you want to use TOR and onion sites, I don't think this really adds anything to those. I think this just helps you optionaly crowdsource bandwidth.

It's possible to publish updates to torrent files via the DHT. See http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0046.html

Re: Static torrent website with peer-to-peer queries over BitTorrent on 2M records

#30
All of this seems very familiar; I recall similar claims being made about torrent-paradise.ml (domain now dead); it was a static site, unkillable, db distributed on IPFS, etc.

Is there any relationship between these two projects, or are the similarities only incidental?

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