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IPFS is the Distributed Web

ipfs.io

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Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#221

Post by snarfy »

idlewords wrote: post #9

I worry that this is another example of throwing technology at a social and political problem. That the current web is centralized has little to do with its technical design, and everything to do with economic and structural incentives that have made it that way. It's tempting to say "start afresh", but we'll just be trading our current problems for a new set of problems IPFS introduces. It's a law of nature that pro…

There are plenty of technical reasons why the web is centralized.

I cannot even host a server on my residential service without violating the ToS agreement. Even if I did, there is the problem of not enough IP addresses so my IP is dynamic. This is solved with dynamic dns, etc but is another technical hurdle to overcome. And then there is NAT creating yet another layer to hosting your own server. And I won't even go into security.

These are all solvable, but to say there is little to do with the technical design ignores all of the problems that led us to where we are today.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#222

Post by fizzbatter »

cabalamat wrote: post #191
fizzbatter wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I worry that this is another example of throwing technology at a social and political problem. I'm so lost at this assertion. How is this a social / political problem? IPFS is not permanent hosting. It is not an attempt to take power away from others and distribute it to the masses. It is purely a technical problem, which i think is objectively true. I have a feeling that you believe IPFS is partially designed to s…

> [IPFS] is not trying to become a pirate haven. Why? Well, mainly because piracy inhibits adoption. Really? The number of BitTorrent users is considerably greater than the number of IPFS users, so surely the exact opposite is true. Maybe a piracy platform build on top of IPFS could be its killer app.

Well, that is fair. I'm mainly talking about "normal" adoption though.

Eg, for a long time BitTorrent was being branded as a pirate haven. The only major players i saw adopt BitTorrent were open source projects needing to distribute large ISOs. IPFS is something that they're trying to get into standards, into browsers, into operating systems, etc. If it's known for distributing kiddy porn on the dark net it will be much more difficult.

I know piracy spreads like wildfire, but it's not really the target audience for what IPFS is trying to do. In short, they want YouTube, not PirateBay. Or so i gather, at least.

Do you disagree?

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#223

Post by Senji »

daveguy wrote: post #104
d--b wrote: post #98

I have a truly naive question about the distributed web: what makes the supporters of it think it will be any different from the original web. I mean, isn't it likely that at some point, there will be the need for a centralized search engine for it? Isn't it unavoidable that big companies like facebook runs their own non-distributed subnetwork, so that it can deliver standard functionality to all its users? The origi…

The difference is IPFS (or similar) would distribute content . Currently communication is distributed, but content is not. IPFS is like https, but where every page is a bittorrent. There are challenges for security in distributing services and monetization. However, the key is that content would be distributed. YouTube probably would not switch to ipfs, but DNS (what was targeted recently) would make sense. A DNS hos…

We should use something like namecoin and the .bit domain. Take the power of domain names away from governments and registrars.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#224

Post by Senji »

dharma1 wrote: post #210
wyager wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps so, but if your plan for resiliency is based on the kindness of strangers in countries where the DMCA nor censorship does not apply, it's not much of a plan. Have you ever used Bittorent? It works great.

Torrents work for content that is heavily seeded, but you also have a lot of content that has ~0-5 seeders with very bad bandwidth. I don't see how IPFS tackles the problems of guaranteed availability and enough redundancy while relying on volunteers to mirror and serve content. Also, if you want to DDoS content, it sounds like all you need to do is find the IPs of the nodes that host the content you want to target (…

Have fun when all your DDOS bot ips get added to null route on my ISPs level.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#225

Post by Senji »

clueless404 wrote: post #172
wyager wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps so, but if your plan for resiliency is based on the kindness of strangers in countries where the DMCA nor censorship does not apply, it's not much of a plan. Have you ever used Bittorent? It works great.

It works great only for a limited number of use cases. It's terrible for unpopular content, it is not immune to takedown notices nor is it very resilient in the face of a determined adversary.

That's what zeronet is for.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#226

Post by inimino »

rer wrote: post #220
inimino wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's a lot of it.

Would it go away if there was less of it? Can you imagine ways there could be less of it?

If there was something dramatically better for every use case (which is not IPFS) it would slowly displace HTTP in new deployments and there would still be HTTP for a very, very long time. The Web we have, in other words, isn't going anywhere.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#227

Post by inimino »

fizzbatter wrote: post #92
idlewords wrote: post #9

I worry that this is another example of throwing technology at a social and political problem. That the current web is centralized has little to do with its technical design, and everything to do with economic and structural incentives that have made it that way. It's tempting to say "start afresh", but we'll just be trading our current problems for a new set of problems IPFS introduces. It's a law of nature that pro…

> I worry that this is another example of throwing technology at a social and political problem. I'm so lost at this assertion. How is this a social / political problem? IPFS is not permanent hosting. It is not an attempt to take power away from others and distribute it to the masses. It is purely a technical problem, which i think is objectively true. I have a feeling that you believe IPFS is partially designed to s…

From the article:

"The Internet has been one of the great equalizers in human history and a real accelerator of innovation. But the increasing consolidation of control is a threat to that.

"IPFS remains true to the original vision of the open and flat web, but delivers the technology which makes that vision a reality."

This presents IPFS as the technological cure for the "consolidation of control" that threatens the Internet.

These are not purely technical problems.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#228

Post by clueless404 »

Senji wrote: post #224
dharma1 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Torrents work for content that is heavily seeded, but you also have a lot of content that has ~0-5 seeders with very bad bandwidth. I don't see how IPFS tackles the problems of guaranteed availability and enough redundancy while relying on volunteers to mirror and serve content. Also, if you want to DDoS content, it sounds like all you need to do is find the IPs of the nodes that host the content you want to target (…

Have fun when all your DDOS bot ips get added to null route on my ISPs level.

It's not like the grandparent is advocating DDOSing, he is just pointing out that doing so is trivial for less popular content. This is something that IPFS doesn't address, but that their marketing fluff implies would IPFS would take care of.

Good luck adding all DDOS bot IPs to your null route.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#229

Post by clueless404 »

fizzbatter wrote: post #222
cabalamat wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [IPFS] is not trying to become a pirate haven. Why? Well, mainly because piracy inhibits adoption. Really? The number of BitTorrent users is considerably greater than the number of IPFS users, so surely the exact opposite is true. Maybe a piracy platform build on top of IPFS could be its killer app.

Well, that is fair. I'm mainly talking about "normal" adoption though. Eg, for a long time BitTorrent was being branded as a pirate haven. The only major players i saw adopt BitTorrent were open source projects needing to distribute large ISOs. IPFS is something that they're trying to get into standards, into browsers, into operating systems, etc. If it's known for distributing kiddy porn on the dark net it will be m…

If IPFS wants get gain traction and go mainstream, they still have you address the kiddy porn and piracy issue.

You can't go downloading and seeding random hashes if this exposes you to criminal charges and/or law suites.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#230

Post by clueless404 »

Senji wrote: post #225
clueless404 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works great only for a limited number of use cases. It's terrible for unpopular content, it is not immune to takedown notices nor is it very resilient in the face of a determined adversary.

That's what zeronet is for.

Could you expand on that?

Zeronet offers no anonymity, you have to use Tor for that.

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