from the intergalactic-planetary....protocol dept.
Peer-to-peer file sharing would make the Internet far more efficient:
When the COVID-19 pandemic erupted in early 2020, the world made an unprecedented shift to remote work. As a precaution, some Internet providers scaled back service levels temporarily, although that probably wasn't necessary for countries in Asia, Europe, and North America, which were generally able to cope with the surge in demand caused by people teleworking (and binge-watching Netflix). [...]
But is overprovisioning the only way to ensure resilience? We don't think so. [...]
The reality today is that the Internet is more often used to send exactly the same thing to many people, and it's doing a huge amount of that now, much of which is in the form of video. [...]
The real problem is not so much the volume of content being passed around—it's how it is being delivered, from a central source to many different far-away users, even when those users are located right next to one another.
A more efficient distribution scheme in that case would be for the data to be served to your device from your neighbor's device in a direct peer-to-peer manner. But how would your device even know whom to ask? Welcome to the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).
[...] The key to IPFS is what's called content addressing. Instead of asking a particular provider, "Please send me this file," your machine asks the network, "Who can send me this file?" [...]
These queries are made using IPFS, an alternative to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which powers the World Wide Web. Building on the principles of peer-to-peer networking and content-based addressing, IPFS allows for a decentralized and distributed network for data storage and delivery.
[...] Ultimately, IPFS is an open network, governed by community rules, and open to everyone. And you can become a part of it today! The Brave browser ships with built-in IPFS support, as does Opera for Android. There are browser extensions available for Chrome and Firefox, and IPFS Desktop makes it easy to run a local node. Several organizations provide IPFS-based hosting services, while others operate public gateways that allow you to fetch data from IPFS through the browser without any special software.
Way too much info to chop down for here, so go read TFA for details.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @02:06AM
"Please send me this file," your machine asks the network, "Who can send me this file?"
or .. is this BT?
In any case, let's all share our C: or /home across the whole solar system just like in the good old days
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @02:08AM (3 children)
with a new name and protocol?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday October 14 2022, @08:08AM (2 children)
However, the fact that you're unaware of something from the middle of the last decade justifies a story on it.
You're now aware of it, congratulations.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday October 14 2022, @10:25AM (1 child)
Not new, no, but without the traction of BitTorrent. And with all the same problems and more. At least with BitTorrent you explicitly decide what to share. With IPFS, AFAIK you just provide storage, and have little control over what is shared.
In the current legal climate, I wouldn't touch IPFS.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @03:40PM
Even DC allowed you to specify what you shared
(Score: 0, Troll) by HammeredGlass on Friday October 14 2022, @02:12AM (2 children)
I dialed a BBS in Namibia(I got the number for off a local free-net list) once circa 1991 and was connected for about 90 seconds. My folks got a bill for long distance charges of about $12 as I recall.
Is this decentralized hopefest going to come with the benefits of the old BBSs or will it continue with the world nation path we're on now??
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @02:25AM (1 child)
Option B) continue with the world nation path we're on now
Just like Ma Bell and Telstra they will suck all your wealth out to the maximum possible giving the least service and infrastructure to do so and claim that they need more funding from the government just to stay in business while paying their executives millions.
This is how it was in the past, it is how it is now, what makes you think the future will be any different?
(Score: 2) by HammeredGlass on Friday October 14 2022, @02:52AM
You could balk a little
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @03:21AM (6 children)
https://wiki.debian.org/IPFS [debian.org]
Click the link for the actual instructions . . . I hope it doesn't depend on systemd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @04:01AM
ipfs installer works well with sysv init
this migration tool will probably be necessary, ipfs cried for it when I attempted to initialize it first time
https://dist.ipfs.tech/fs-repo-migrations/v2.0.2/fs-repo-migrations_v2.0.2_linux-amd64.tar.gz [ipfs.tech]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @07:08AM (2 children)
What did I just do?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @07:11AM (1 child)
I am looking forward to mounting the world.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @10:30AM
You probably shouldn't have mounted /home/anonymous coward/finances. Now the world will mount you.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Friday October 14 2022, @08:10AM (1 child)
Has noone realised that each generation is worse than the previous one?
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by kazzie on Friday October 14 2022, @03:19PM
Plenty of Boomers have, I'm sure.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday October 14 2022, @05:26AM (4 children)
The content industry won't like that you are essentially sharing their content. The big internet corporations won't like that they can't track what you do on the internet.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 14 2022, @06:51AM
So, what you're saying is IPFS won't get support unless there's a way to monetize it. Sadly, this makes way too much sense in the current market that sells worthless mathematical trinkets called NFTs.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by canopic jug on Friday October 14 2022, @07:45AM
The content industry won't like that you are essentially sharing their content. The big Internet corporations won't like that they can't track what you do on the internet.
True. Except that all forms of digital communication and even all computer activities are about making and using perfect, digital copies of data, on many scales. It is the fundamental character characteristic of computing down to the byte level. Trying to prevent that is akin to trying to make water unwet.
Glyn Mood's recent book, Walled Culture [walledculture.org], addresses that in detail including both causes and possible solutions. The book itself is available both for purchase as a paper copy or for free-of-charge download as PDF or some e-book formats. If actual reading is not your thing then he has done an interview about Walled Culture [yewtu.be] to listen to.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tokolosh on Friday October 14 2022, @04:46PM (1 child)
Yes, Kim Dotcom got into a lot of trouble, trying to do this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23 2022, @08:31AM
Kim Dotcom failed to play by The Rules so was burned by the big guns who did not know what they wanted or how they would get it only that Kim needed to be removed from the game.
Which is a shame really as his ideas could have grown to be a contender for the dominate cloud services we have today.