ZeroNet: Decentralized websites using Bitcoin crypto and the BitTorrent network

I agree. This is the biggest technological issue for zeronet imo.

Every time there's a change to the db you need to download a whole new copy afaik.

Ideally you'd use a log based store. To do this you need to fundamentally change your idea for how a website works.

With a distributed log store chances are you won't have the same data as another person.

PouchDB is the correct solution here.

Do you mean a Blockchain like Ethereum? :)

Yeah, but memory space increases every year and gets cheaper. So this shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?

I need to read the IPFS paper but surely there's some kind of DHT to find data?

Yes, you host only the pieces that you've downloaded on a specific website and you can delete them if you want.

No, and the default limit is 10mb. Your site can request more though and or you can use zerocdn?

Shouldn't they combine it with IPFS for static content storage then? Or does IPFS have the same limitation?

ZeroNet is better at dealing with such sites now but it's still problematic when a site grows past a threshold where requestors need to be prompted to increase the size. Nodes that are just seeding don't automatically seed the changed site since they don't respond to the size change request.

One way of dealing with it is to make the images "Optional content". This means they are not sent to requestors of the site immediately - they are requested only when specifically wanted. Users can choose to seed optional files - in which case they'll mirror them all - or they only seed the ones they've looked at. Optional files don't count towards site size limits.

>I never been censored.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...

Control is democratized instead of in a single corporations hand

> I never been censored

Have you never self-censored?

Other people's freedom valuable to us.

You might never have been censored, but then you likely never said much that would upset powerful people. But you live in a society that is rich and (mostly) free because others have done so.

I don't know whether it is banned there or not, but when you join ZeroMe (zeronet's decentralized twitter) you quickly realized how it's populated with chinese sites and profiles

There are other solutions being pushed in Hong Kong, called BlockStack. It looks very similar to ZeroNet

http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/economy/article/2113521/n...

As soon as you add an anonymity layer you've basically reinvented Freenet

ZeroNet doesn't use bittorrent for file transfers. The bittorrent network is only used for the DHT to map site addresses to IP addresses (or TOR hidden service names).

File transfer is done over a service that ZeroNet runs on a particular port with its own protocol.

IPFS still looking very strong

All sites that viewed an existing site contain a copy of it and share the data. There is a "thundering herd" problem of multiple requesters for the site initially being distributed but once that's done then multiple nodes will have it and can seed it. The original site shutting down is no problem at that point.

IPFS shares the same problem and knowing when it's safe to shut down a node in both IPFS and ZeroNet is difficult.

Freenet solves this by having an insert of data sent directly to peers immediately. The site isn't stored on the inserting node. Once the insert is done it's safe to close the node and the content is still available.

ZeroNet does not pay you for hosting. Maidsafe is more file storage, ZeroNet is more about distributed site sharing. ZeroNet could be implemented on top of Maidsafe but not vice versa. There's also the fact that ZeroNet works today, has been working for a year or two, whereas Maidsafe is still in test stages.

Downloading the client for the first time would be a tad inconvenient...

FreeNet is a distributed key/value store. It can be used to store files by storing the contents of the file under a key that is the hash of the file content. Generally you operate on Freenet at the level of keys and values.

ZeroNet operates at the level of sites. Sites contain multiple files. Seeding of data happens at the site level.

You could implement ZeroNet on top of Freenet but implementing Freenet on top of ZeroNet wouldn't make much sense.

When inserting new data, Freenet pushes data out to nodes. ZeroNet pulls data from requestors. With Zeronet you can't disconnect your node until other nodes have a complete copy if you want the data to remain available. It is difficult to tell when it is safe to do this. With Freenet the data isn't stored on your own node, it is pushed out to other nodes when first inserting. When the insert completes you know you can safely turn off your node. The data remains available.

There is a challenge of balance which exists between the two extremes of reliable and censorship resistant infrastructure and responsible and balanced control of the information published on it, as it relates to the health of a group of citizens. For good or bad, the censorship resistant infrastructure piece is coming at us like a freight train in a variety of ways. What is currently needed is a balance in the way we implement the infrastructure such that some information may be segregated from the greater population using variable value assessment.

The logic goes, if some information is more valuable shared privately, then the infrastructure should make it harder to access. Conversely, if some information is more valuable shared publicly, the infrastructure should make it easier to access.

To do this effectively/efficiently, information must become a market commodity and have a means by which the value to access it is governed by the consensus of the viewers. This is made difficult given information may be easily copied by individuals and the current state of affairs with sharing things over social media and the problems with group think.

I would note that "hate groups" are groups who focus on removing choice for others by way of introducing thoughts and ideas which act in a viral manner in the population. Double binds are one form of passive coercion which have made a reappearance within the (cheap) available social media offerings.

I'm much more concerned about hate groups being silenced.

Do you believe hate has ever been truly silenced at any point in history? Would you prefer to not know it exists and what it is saying to other people?

It's a possible problem sure but the same issue exists in anything that protects privacy and aims to prevent state censorship. E2E encryption protects activists but can also be used by criminals. Tor provides routes around censorship in repressive countries but there's some really nasty stuff hosted on it's anonymous web. There's no way to design a tool like this that can distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' uses of itself.

I think it has very real real-world usecase. The question is if it is good solution.