Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IPFS is the Distributed Web

ipfs.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 286 posts

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#261

Post by clueless404 »

fizzbatter wrote: post #259
clueless404 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yea, this is where you're mistaken. It cannot make you distribute anything! Oh, really? "In some cases, nodes must work for their blocks. In the case that a node has nothing that its peers want (or nothing at all), it seeks the pieces its peers want, with lower priority than what the node wants itself. This incentivizes nodes to cache and disseminate rare pieces, even if they are not interested in them directly." h…

> What's to say BitSwap won't proactively decide to download and start seeding some rare pieces of kiddy porn? Nice catch, that is interesting. Granted, i feel like this could be tweaked as it is simply a mechanic to attempt to reduce leeching on the network. > You need to know if the hash contains kiddy porn before you download it, but to know if it contains kiddy porn you have to download it. Classic Catch-22. How…

> Granted, i feel like this could be tweaked as it is simply a mechanic to attempt to reduce leeching on the network.

How do you propose tweaking it without either publishing a directory of all the kiddy porn on IPFS or creating a bottleneck which incidentally is ideal for tracking and surveillance?

> How do you know if that link to a pdf from a friend contains kiddy porn?

You don't, but at least your browser won't shout out to the world: "Hey, everybody! This guy is downloading kiddy porn! IPFS does that and to add insult to injury then automatically goes on to seed it.

On the web you also have a sense of where you are. With IPFS you don't, it's all a bunch of hashes. There is no there there. There are no clues to tell you that you are in a seedy neighborhood. Everything is just available, one hash away, from kiddy porn to fine art. That makes navigating IPFSpace such a minefield, the next hash could take you anywhere.

> I'm really lost on how this is any different than HTTP/BitTorrent/etc.

Let me recap:

- BitSwap

- metadata leakage

- automatic seeding

- opacity and lack of control

> Again, stay away from random hashes just like you stay away from sketchy torrents and random http files.

How? Is there some kind of sniff test I don't know about?

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#262

Post by fizzbatter »

clueless404 wrote: post #261
fizzbatter wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's to say BitSwap won't proactively decide to download and start seeding some rare pieces of kiddy porn? Nice catch, that is interesting. Granted, i feel like this could be tweaked as it is simply a mechanic to attempt to reduce leeching on the network. > You need to know if the hash contains kiddy porn before you download it, but to know if it contains kiddy porn you have to download it. Classic Catch-22. How…

> Granted, i feel like this could be tweaked as it is simply a mechanic to attempt to reduce leeching on the network. How do you propose tweaking it without either publishing a directory of all the kiddy porn on IPFS or creating a bottleneck which incidentally is ideal for tracking and surveillance? > How do you know if that link to a pdf from a friend contains kiddy porn? You don't, but at least your browser won't s…

Fwiw, I appreciate your insight on this matter. I know we disagree on some points, but it was fruitful for me to see your perspective. Anyway:

> How do you propose tweaking it without either publishing a directory of all the kiddy porn on IPFS or creating a bottleneck which incidentally is ideal for tracking and surveillance?

Well this is off the cuff, because i wasn't aware of BitSwap's desire to seed in the event of no swap data.. but with that said, i was mainly just referring to alternate methods to help inhibit leeching.

Eg, allow leeching but only for the first (tiny) %x. How willing a host is to allow leeching should be up to them regardless. If i'm hosting a file i want to distribute for an open source network, it's in my interest to host it, and i'd rather not inhibit others from downloading what i'm providing them based on some BitSwap algorithm trying to make things "fair".

P2P is a tough challenge though, which is what that whole sketchy BitSwap section stems from. I imagine a beer and an hour and you could come up with a dozen alternate methods to discourage leeching. Whether or not they're as effective as requiring "work", is impossible for me to say.. but i think we both agree that the work outlined in that PDF is a bit.. sketchy.

> How? Is there some kind of sniff test I don't know about?

Well, i don't know about you - but i don't download random files on the internet. I download from trusted sources only. IPFS would be no different. A trusted web TLD or a trusted IPNS namespace would be good enough for me to feel it is trusted, in both accounts. Outside of trusted domains on the web, i don't download it. Eg, would you download 555.555.555.555/foo.pdf? I certainly wouldn't.

I think with IPFS it will become a bit defacto to trust IPNS rather than IPFS directly. Not only are hashes potentially dangerous, but they're simply a terrible UX. A parallel would be like downloading `555.555.555.555/foo.pdf` - you have no idea if that's kiddy porn or not, it's effectively a random hash. Don't download it.

A domain (like that IPNS is aiming to provide, i believe) would be more akin to `https://trusted-site.com/foo.pdf`. Long term, i don't think anyone should be using hashes directly. But that's just my 2c, we'll see how it plays out.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#263

Post by deno »

clueless404 wrote: post #251
deno wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeding when phone is actually in use would be net positive. And everyone is on their phones all the time nowadays anyway.

Net positive to who? Not to the seeder, whose most scarce resource, the battery, is being exploited.

Let’s not forget the context here. We’re talking over-WiFi (not cellular) opportunistic sharing between two phones running an IPFS node.

If you have anything to share at this point this is probably a good indication that both clients have some content in common. So first of all, transfers over WiFi while the phone is in use anyway are not that expensive, and more importantly there’s an opportunity to save a lot of battery, and data, that results in substantial net positive gain.

To illustrate imagine the likely scenario of two people using some form of Youtube with a distributed IPFS cache while on a plane. If those two people have anything in common—and certainly there are things like news etc. that are always in common, those can be shared instantly over the WiFi.

So for an insignificant battery investment, you can potentially save a lot of data and modem power in the long run.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#264

Post by slang800 »

clueless404 wrote: post #242
slang800 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - there's a ton of immutable URLs on the web. All of CDNJS/JSDelivr/Google Hosted Libraries, most of raw.github.com, all Imgur & Instagram images, all YouTube video streams (excluding annotations & subtitles), and all torrent file caching sites (like itorrents.org). There are probably some large ones I'm forgetting about, but just mapping immutable URLs to IPFS could probably cover 1/3rd of Internet traffic. Che…

IPFS archives look like something entirely different from what the grandparent was talking about. Sure, you can manually publish archives over IPFS, but that's not something that automatically creates an IPFS cache copy of whatever you are surfing.

IPFS archives is the effort that's going on right now to archive sites. Eventually there will be a system for automatically scraping & re-publishing content on IPFS.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#265

Post by slang800 »

deno wrote: post #263
clueless404 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net positive to who? Not to the seeder, whose most scarce resource, the battery, is being exploited.

Let’s not forget the context here. We’re talking over-WiFi (not cellular) opportunistic sharing between two phones running an IPFS node. If you have anything to share at this point this is probably a good indication that both clients have some content in common. So first of all, transfers over WiFi while the phone is in use anyway are not that expensive, and more importantly there’s an opportunity to save a lot of ba…

Plus a plane, bus, or train could easily have 50 people within range. Assuming everyone has 8GB of cache space on their phones, you could access about 0.4TB of content directly. With a mesh network that supports packet forwarding, you could connect with everyone on the plane, meaning 100-700 people, which would give you 0.8-5.6TB of content.

Obviously content would be highly duplicated between peers, but you'd have access to a significant chunk of the "popular" internet, and would be able to avoid in-flight WiFi.

For such a mesh network, you don't even necessarily need to connect over WiFi - lower energy Bluetooth could be used too.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#266

Post by slang800 »

clueless404 wrote: post #240
slang800 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except you are not allowed to download videos from YouTube or most (if not all) the popular video content services. If you're not allowed to download videos, then how come they show up on my screen? That information wasn't on my device before I pressed the play button.

Streaming is not downloading (and seeding).

Streaming _is_ downloading. It's just downloading _continuously_ as the content is presented. Whether or not you seed is an entirely separate issue and has nothing to do with streaming vs downloading.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#267

Post by clueless404 »

slang800 wrote: post #264
clueless404 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IPFS archives look like something entirely different from what the grandparent was talking about. Sure, you can manually publish archives over IPFS, but that's not something that automatically creates an IPFS cache copy of whatever you are surfing.

IPFS archives is the effort that's going on right now to archive sites. Eventually there will be a system for automatically scraping & re-publishing content on IPFS.

Fair enough. Eventually somebody will have to do a lot of work to get all that done then.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#268

Post by slang800 »

clueless404 wrote: post #239
slang800 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By allowing your phone to be used as a server, other people will let you use their phones as a server, so you can download faster. If this sharing doesn't emerge naturally, then it can be directly incentivized with ratio tracking (like private torrent trackers), or even with money like the Karma WiFi service. Also, I have WiFi on always and my battery lasts all day, so I doubt this will be a problem.

Having wifi on all day is one thing, actually using it is totally different. Just activate your wifi hotspot on your phone and start using it from your computer. See how fast the battery depletes. No matter what incentive scheme you device , it's not going to help you with your battery.

> No matter what incentive scheme you [devise], it's not going to help you with your battery.

Obviously with certain incentives, battery would become irrelevant. If this hypothetical "IPFS ratio" were as valuable as (for example) what.cd ratio, I'd have no problem carrying around car battery to continue seeding. Thankfully, I don't think it would be possible for my phone to consume that much power in a day.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#269

Post by clueless404 »

slang800 wrote: post #265
deno wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not forget the context here. We’re talking over-WiFi (not cellular) opportunistic sharing between two phones running an IPFS node. If you have anything to share at this point this is probably a good indication that both clients have some content in common. So first of all, transfers over WiFi while the phone is in use anyway are not that expensive, and more importantly there’s an opportunity to save a lot of ba…

Plus a plane, bus, or train could easily have 50 people within range. Assuming everyone has 8GB of cache space on their phones, you could access about 0.4TB of content directly. With a mesh network that supports packet forwarding, you could connect with everyone on the plane, meaning 100-700 people, which would give you 0.8-5.6TB of content. Obviously content would be highly duplicated between peers, but you'd have a…

> Assuming everyone has 8GB of cache space on their phones

That feels optimistic. I doubt people have that much free space on their phones, especially those that don't have flash cards. Heck, a basic iPhone won't have. Even a 16GB model has something like only 12 GB free when it's empty.

> For such a mesh network, you don't even necessarily need to connect over WiFi - lower energy Bluetooth could be used too.

IPFS doesn't (currently) work over Bluetooth.

However, my main point is, that I don't think most people would be altruistic enough to participate unless they could plug in their phones on the plane.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#270

Post by clueless404 »

deno wrote: post #263
clueless404 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Net positive to who? Not to the seeder, whose most scarce resource, the battery, is being exploited.

Let’s not forget the context here. We’re talking over-WiFi (not cellular) opportunistic sharing between two phones running an IPFS node. If you have anything to share at this point this is probably a good indication that both clients have some content in common. So first of all, transfers over WiFi while the phone is in use anyway are not that expensive, and more importantly there’s an opportunity to save a lot of ba…

> So for an insignificant battery investment, you can potentially save a lot of data and modem power in the long run.

Having run many a phone into the ground while hotspotting, I do not consider the battery investment insignificant. It's annoying enough when I drain my own battery when using the hotspot, I would never allow complete strangers to do that to me.

Post reply on HN