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IPFS is the Distributed Web

ipfs.io

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Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#41

Post by hkt »

idlewords wrote: post #35
riffraff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a law of nature that problems are always conserved. I'd agree that some social issues cannot be solved by technology, but many have been. E.g., without looking at the information age: in London before the Clean Air Act thousands people literally died of the smog, but the CAA was made possible only by increased availability of electricity and gas heating.

Your example is one where political and technical changes together helped solve a problem. You're literally citing a law as an example of a 'social issue solved by technology'. My point is that replacing a complex technical system with a different technical system only reshuffles the set of problems that will need solving. The social and political problems that made the web what it is today won't disappear due to a r…

He is actually saying that the law could only change due to technological advance. That law (if memory serves) banned burning coal, which was how people heated their homes. There had to be something that could heat their homes instead of coal, before they could be compelled to use it.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#42

Post by hkt »

idlewords wrote: post #38
kirubakaran wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest?

There's the million-dollar question. I've been bashing my head against it for a few years now. I think an important thing is to give everyone a say in how these large computer networks affect their lives. How to do that in the context of a broken political system isn't clear to me at all.

The solution does not have to be technical. If you want to restore control to as wide a group as possible, start by running a centralised service with a membership structure. Not everybody is clever enough to run their own stuff, but almost everyone can use a website or an app. Allowing them a role in governance rather than operations is the key factor. I wish more people thought so.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#43

Post by avodonosov »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #40

So I've been thinking about creating a basic site running on IPFS and here's my dillema. The hash of each page is a sha256 of the contents right? So lets say you have 3 pages A, B and C, A links to B, B links to C, C links to A. How do you create all 3 pages with correct links to each other? When you create page A you have to have the SHA of page B, but then to create page B you have to have the SHA of page C and fin…

Two pages would be enough for that example

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#44

Post by solipsism »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #40

So I've been thinking about creating a basic site running on IPFS and here's my dillema. The hash of each page is a sha256 of the contents right? So lets say you have 3 pages A, B and C, A links to B, B links to C, C links to A. How do you create all 3 pages with correct links to each other? When you create page A you have to have the SHA of page B, but then to create page B you have to have the SHA of page C and fin…

I just googled "ipfs cyclic link" and the answer is in the first result. How long have you been thinking about this "dilemma"?

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#45

Post by kirushik »

TimJRobinson wrote: post #40

So I've been thinking about creating a basic site running on IPFS and here's my dillema. The hash of each page is a sha256 of the contents right? So lets say you have 3 pages A, B and C, A links to B, B links to C, C links to A. How do you create all 3 pages with correct links to each other? When you create page A you have to have the SHA of page B, but then to create page B you have to have the SHA of page C and fin…

Well, IPFS allows you to upload trees of files to a single IPFS node. So you just create three webpages, put them into a single folder and use `ipfs add` on this folder. Your webpages will be available with relative links, being exposed at addresses like `/ipfs//page_a.html` and `/ipfs//page_b.html`.

Under the hood those pages will be standalone ipfs Duke nodes with separate hash addresses, and your root folder will be actually a set of pointers to those hash addresses — but you don't need to keep that in mind when uploading a site.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#46

Post by kirushik »

kirushik wrote: post #45
TimJRobinson wrote: post #40

So I've been thinking about creating a basic site running on IPFS and here's my dillema. The hash of each page is a sha256 of the contents right? So lets say you have 3 pages A, B and C, A links to B, B links to C, C links to A. How do you create all 3 pages with correct links to each other? When you create page A you have to have the SHA of page B, but then to create page B you have to have the SHA of page C and fin…

Well, IPFS allows you to upload trees of files to a single IPFS node. So you just create three webpages, put them into a single folder and use `ipfs add` on this folder. Your webpages will be available with relative links, being exposed at addresses like `/ipfs/ /page_a.html` and `/ipfs/ /page_b.html`. Under the hood those pages will be standalone ipfs Duke nodes with separate hash addresses, and your root folder wil…

One can also study ipfs project websites (ipfs.io, dist.ipfs.io and so on). Those are just static bunches of files (html and resources) hosted in ipfs and served with a standard ipfs gateway (located on gateway.ipfs.io address). Gateway just looks up _dnslink TXT records for corresponding domains, and serves files from the ipfs hash address specified there.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#47

Post by raarts »

idlewords wrote: post #37
jcoffland wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in particular the hard issue of how to re-decentralize it. Isn't that exactly the problem ipfs is attempting to address. What kind of solution do you want and why does this one not work for you? It's easier to discard someone else's idea than it is to evaluate it's merits. I'm not sure this is the solution but it looks interesting and it appears to interoperate with the existing Web via gateways even though the aut…

I'm not trying to pee all over IPFS. But it's also the case that it's easier to throw out mature, crufty old systems and start afresh. Every programmer knows this temptation. We've had the web for twenty years now, and are just beginning to understand what it is and how it changes the world. If you're suggesting using IPFS (or any other system) as a way to expand and grow the web, I'm with you. But replacing the web…

This line of reasoning can be applied to ANY change.

Also HTTP isn't going away.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#48

Post by gant »

manigandham wrote: post #29

Who exactly runs these nodes that store data?

Everybody that pins it or retrieved the file from someone else (second one to maximum cache size that is configurable). Files and folders are referred to by hash.

Usually you still need to run a server to seed the files, but if a file becomes popular it will be served from anybody who also retrieved it and likely persist in the network even if your server goes down.

Think of it as BitTorrent for the web. It has Gateways that allow current browsers to access the network and pointers to update content with a new version (that's /ipns/ not /ipfs/ - the old version persists as long as someone hosts it).

What's also interesting is that due to the nature of the hashing algorithm (it's a merkle tree), you can "ipfs add" a directory, preserving the file structure inside, so websites on IPFS can use relative paths.

Re: IPFS is the Distributed Web

#50

Post by vegabook »

IPFS appears here every 6 months, every 6 months the same questions get asked, the same problems get raised, the same collective sigh of bewilderment/disappointment appears to emanate from the comments, and it goes away again for another 6 months. Everybody wants something this clever and community-spirited to work, but the basic problem is, I don't want my data to be vulnerable to slow, unreliable endpoints, or people switching off their IPFS servers. I can't really trust an unremunerated volunteer system with my data, and I don't believe that my keeping your data is remuneration enough for you to keep mine forever.

Peer-to-peer is excellent for ephemeral streaming stuff like chat, file transfer, even gaming. But it is not good for permanence unless some monetary remuneration gets involved, either via a centralizing entity asking for payments (dropbox et al), or a distributed monetization system like bitcoin. Somewhere, somehow, someone needs to get paid to keep the system running.

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