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Skynet – Build a Free Internet

siasky.net

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Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#31

Post by sanxiyn »

ghoomketu wrote: post #22

I'm asking in earnest but since I'm not very savvy when it comes to blockchain and decentralised internet, can this be used for piracy (movies mp3 etc)? What about really nefarious stuff like CP? Do we know who is responsible and is it possible to report and take down links? Also does running a node involve you in anything unknowingly? Or does it have nothing to do with anonymity/bullet-proof links and is merely just…

All files are stored encrypted. You can use it for privacy as well as storing child pornography.

Edit: Above is about Sia. Apparently Skynet is different.

Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#32

Post by lgats »

mortenjorck wrote: post #8

It's only a matter of time before this project gets a cease & desist from Disney. (Disney owns 20th Century Studios, formerly 20th Century Fox, owner of the Terminator franchise.)

Several trademarks exist for skynet, none are registered to/owned by Disney https://uspto.report/Search/Skynet

Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#33

Post by cyphermoon »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #24

Why is this free? Who is paying the Sia nodes to store the data?

Portal and renter nodes pay hosts for the data in Siacoin. These payments are managed by file contracts that renters and hosts agree on and sign cryptographically. These contracts involve periodic verification that the data is being hosted. Failure to verify involves an automatic financial loss for hosts.

Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#34

Post by EGreg »

Taek wrote: post #26
zelly wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's already out, but most people are still on the eth1 chain

I think you misunderstand the state that Eth2 is in. It's technically "released", but Eth2 cannot be used to transact. If you move money to Eth2, it must stay in the same wallet/address until more features are rolled out. Everyone who uses Eth today is still on Eth1 because Eth2 is only good for having your coins sit there and accumulate interest.

And furthermore, it would be years until the actual ETH2 is usable, right?

Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#35

Post by Taek »

EGreg wrote: post #13
thesausageking wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. One of founders talks about the two problems with IPFS they saw that led them to build it in this comment from a past thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24626748

What did they mean: * Skynet uses a point-to-point protocol rather than a DHT, which not only makes it faster, it's also more robust to abuse. DHTs are pretty famously fragile to things like DDoS and active subversion, and Skynet has been designed to be robust and high performance even when malicious actors are trying to interrupt the network.* How is P2P used rather than DHT

To be a host on Skynet, you have to declare yourself on the Sia blockchain, which means users running a blockchain node (full node or lite node) are able to have a complete and limited list of all the possible hosts on the network. The Skylinks aren't just hashes, they contain a couple bytes extra of information as well.

Between the explicit list of potential hosts and a small amount of hinting in the Skylink, you can narrow down the number of potential places a file is stored to be small enough that you can just ping all of them in parallel with a request for the data. You don't have to do any multi-hop routing to find the data.

This saves latency.

Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#36

Post by Taek »

jondwillis wrote: post #4

How will they reduce the latency? 300-500ms seems about an order of magnitude slower than centralized CDNs.

Most of the latency right now is software slowdowns, our production testing suggests that with some more optimization at the software level we should be able to get below 80ms with today's protocol and host network.

That's still not quite where the centralized CDNs are, but the numbers should only get better as the network grows and matures.

Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#37

Post by drukenemo »

ghoomketu wrote: post #22

I'm asking in earnest but since I'm not very savvy when it comes to blockchain and decentralised internet, can this be used for piracy (movies mp3 etc)? What about really nefarious stuff like CP? Do we know who is responsible and is it possible to report and take down links? Also does running a node involve you in anything unknowingly? Or does it have nothing to do with anonymity/bullet-proof links and is merely just…

Although this is a very fair question, I cannot help but notice that the first thing people associate with the word freedom today is with a negative angle. This is really troubling me, as it used to be a more cherished value.

Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#38

Post by cyphermoon »

sanxiyn wrote: post #31
ghoomketu wrote: post #22

I'm asking in earnest but since I'm not very savvy when it comes to blockchain and decentralised internet, can this be used for piracy (movies mp3 etc)? What about really nefarious stuff like CP? Do we know who is responsible and is it possible to report and take down links? Also does running a node involve you in anything unknowingly? Or does it have nothing to do with anonymity/bullet-proof links and is merely just…

All files are stored encrypted. You can use it for privacy as well as storing child pornography. Edit: Above is about Sia. Apparently Skynet is different.

That is incorrect. Only files on the basic Sia client are all stored encrypted. Skynet stores all files by default in cleartext. It is up to Skynet users or app developers to ensure files that are uploaded are encrypted client side.

On a side note, child pornography is not the intended or primary use case for Skynet and is condemned by the dev team and the community at large. There is no evidence to suggest anyone is using Sia or Skynet for this type of content, and portal operators aggressively censor such content and report it to authorities.

Skynet is intended for privacy and data ownership while also offering users unprecedented features in terms of portability and composability.

Re: Skynet – Build a Free Internet

#39

Post by Taek »

tmikaeld wrote: post #18
RMPR wrote: post #14

After skimming a bit, I don't see how they plan to deal with abuse. Especially if there's no size limitation on files.

There seems to be a lot of issues other than that. https://siasetup.info/concerns-about-sia-and-skynet "Sia hosts have always had questionable liability over what they store as hosts. These concerns are likely to amplify with Skynet, where a host may hold a whole unencrypted file and serve it to a portal or public users, exposing the host as being the one that holds a file that may infringe copyright or be illegal in…

I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but most jurisdictions have strong protections for providers hosting third party content so long as the providers are not aware that the content is problematic. If a provider is notified that there is problematic content on their machine, they have an obligation to take it down in a reasonable timeframe.

Sia hosts already have tooling for complying with DCMAs and abuse notices. To the best of my knowledge, no Sia host has yet received one, but we are prepared for when that moment happens.

Most of the rest of the issues in that letter are overstated and ungenerous. Sia/Skynet is an early project, with a small team and a limited budget. Of course it is not as polished as its centralized alternatives, but if you compare to better funded projects like Storj and Filecoin, I believe it's very difficult to say in good faith that our team is not up for the task.

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