Hacker News Reader

Comment by ruggeri | Hacker News Reader

The article raises a question I've wondered about before: how do you know that anyone will transfer you your data when you need it? You can require people to prove that they stored it, but how can you require people to transfer it out to you?

You presumably agree with the node to pay for the transfer out, but if both counterparties are anonymous and do not trust each other, how is this accomplished?

View on HN

One general solution is to have persistent nodes in the network that develop reputation over a duration of time, who perform operations that can't be done entirely trustlessly. In Storj's case these are called Satellites.

> Whenever a Satellite on the Storj network has a less than stellar payment, demand generation, or performance history, there is a strong incentive for the storage nodes to avoid accepting its data. When a new Satellite joins the network, the participating storage nodes will commence their own vetting process. This process limits their exposure to the new and unknown Satellite, while building trust over time to highlight which of the Satellites have the best payment record.

They also incentivize complete file delivery by paying for chunks of bandwidth as they're used to deliver the file, rather than all up front.

https://www.storj.io/storj.pdf

The answer is incentives: if you're paying to retrieve data, why shouldn't they take your business?

But do they send you the data first, or do you send them the payment first?

If they send you the data first, then why should you pay them? If you send them the payment first, then why should they send it?

I'm sure there's a piece I'm missing, but have I missed something obvious?

Data retrieval is broken into blocks so it's a repeated game with incentives to cooperate.

AFAIK Filecoin uses payment channels so you probably lock some money, retrieve data, then unlock the payment.

Incremental transfer seems like it should give an incentive to cooperate, but I don't think so?

If I pay you upfront for the first block, what stops you from then saying: actually I still want more money to start transfering the first block?

I doubt any of the protocols have an extortion response code.

Nothing, but then you pay a peer. That peer will likely send you the data so that you pay them for the second block, and so forth.

But if the token price rises then the node can just delete your data and make a new deal with someone else and get more profit.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com